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Comments on other issues: Efforts to prosecute agro-forestry firms
Feb
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strong>Feb. 21, p4
With forest fires in Sumatra challenging the country's aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 41 percent by 2020, the government has rolled out a plan to boost law-enforcement measures against agroforestry firms.
Your comments:
The use of the term 'agroforestry' in the article is not in accordance with common usage internationally. Here, it seems to refer to monocultural oil palm plantations and presumably stems from a simplistic conflation of 'agriculture' and 'forestry' without any research into accepted use.
'Agroforestry' as it has become known is the antithesis of monocultural production: mixed-species, tree-based systems ' often including livestock and annual crops ' of which Indonesia has myriad examples.
Notably, as is the case in the article, they are often grown by smallholders surrounding monocultural plantations of palm and timber. These smallholding systems mix fruit and rubber trees, oil palm, rice, maize, chickens and a host of other species of plants and animals to produce a range of products over the course of the year.
This provides farmers not only with a regular supply of nutritious food for domestic consumption but also a regular income from sales. These systems are under threat from the monocultural plantations owing to farmers converting them to monoculture because of the currently higher cash return, which concomitantly threatens food security and increases farmers' long-term financial risks in the face of world commodity shifts.
Robert Finlayson
I quote: 'The government has rolled out a plan to boost law-enforcement measures against agroforestry firms.'
This is another round of nonsense. What is really needed is a plan to boost law enforcement against corrupt environment and forestry officials and judges. As in the case in this article, the judge ruled in favor of the forestry firm. There is no doubt that the verdict was bought.
Every year Riau and much of Sumatra is covered in smoke for months and every year we hear about plans to boost law-enforcement efforts.
Abu
