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ceh Governor Zaini Abdullah on Wednesday defended his plan to clear the province'€™s protected forests, saying it is necessary to develop the province and that it would not affect the 1.2 million hectares of forests that some environmentalists have claimed it would.

'€œWe have to clarify that the amount of 1.2 million hectares is not true,'€ Zaini told reporters following a meeting with a number of environmentalists at the Norwegian Embassy in Jakarta on Wednesday.

The governor said that the spatial planning bylaw draft proposed by his administration said that it would only convert 119,202 hectares of the nature sanctuary area (Kawasan Suaka Alam), nature preservation area (Kawasan Pelestarian Alam), protected forest, production forest and limited production forest areas, into other utilization areas.

The Forestry Ministry, however, only recommended a conversion of 79,850 hectares for other utilization areas, he explained.

Environmentalists previously initiated online petitions on Change.org and Avaaz.org against the spatial planning bylaw draft, which'€”according to the Coalition of Aceh Rainforest Movements'€”would allow the conversion of around 1.2 million hectares of protected forest into non-forest areas, production forests as well as roads.

As of Wednesday evening, the petition on Avaaz.org had been signed by more than 1.25 million people from all over the world, while the petition on Change.org had been signed by more than 36,000 people.

Zaini said his administration was committed to protecting the forest but it needed to develop the province, which was devastated by the 2004 tsunami.

'€œWe have to develop Aceh. There aren'€™t any roads in central Aceh,'€ Zaini said, citing that the road he mentioned would not be constructed through Leuser National Park, as feared by environmentalists.

 Kiki Taufik from Greenpeace Indonesia said that he appreciated the governor'€™s clarification but that some areas,including the primary forest and peatlands in the forest-clearing moratorium map, overlapped with other utilization areas, as stated in the map released by the Aceh administration.

According to data from Greenpeace Indonesia, there are 173,408 hectares of primary forest and peatlands in Aceh in the moratorium map, which had been categorized as other utilization areas by the Aceh administration.

He added that the map formed for the spatial planning bylaw draft also overlapped with the forest cover areas released by the Forestry Ministry.

Norwegian ambassador to Indonesia Stig Traavik, said that Norway'€™s involvement with REDD+ made it essential to arrange the meeting.

'€œIt was clarified today that we are not talking about 1.2 million hectares anymore. But of course, the civil society has concerns about bigger areas than the government,'€ Traavik said.

 He said that it was not up to them to support the spatial plan or Aceh development.

'€œWhat we do support is the open approach in discussing issues. We are very open and willing to work with the provincial administration of Aceh,'€ Traavik said. According to the Presidential Working Unit for Supervision and Management of Development (UKP4) head Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, the 1.2 million hectares of forest area as stated by civil society groups, was derived from the differences between the draft proposed by former Aceh Governor Irwandi Yusuf in 2010 and the revised proposal by Zaini in 2012.