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strong>Oct. 18, p4

The government has pledged to reduce deforestation, following a report showing that Indonesia has a higher deforestation rate than that of Brazil. Forestry Ministry secretary-general Hadi Daryanto said on Thursday that the ministry had taken several actions to reduce deforestation rates in Indonesia, especially in deforestation-prone areas such as Riau and Kalimantan.

Your comments:

The greed of the noble and corrupted elite will be a difficult challenge; already they blame forest-district villagers for setting alight their former tribal land areas that the greedy and corrupt have allocated for oil palm expansions.

It would be far better for President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo to nationalize all Indonesia'€™s oil palm plantations, then dismiss the entirety of the present board of forestry officials.

Invariably, the land itself would have been gained by some corrupt means and should therefore be forfeited by default to the leadership of Jakarta, then added to the reversal of its illegal ownership and returned to the native tribes indigenous to these former tribal lands.

The above is subject to being able to wrest the Indonesian Military'€™s (TNI) influence from its prominent involvement in all of these suggested undertakings.

Furthermore it would substantially add to the standing and popularity of the new President forever more.

William Boeder