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Japan, RI collaboration brings change to conservation approach
An official has said that Gunung Palung National Park (TNGP) conservation officials and local communities have become far more aware of the need to push forward with cooperation to protect conservation areas in North Kayong and Ketapan regencies, West Kalimantan
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n official has said that Gunung Palung National Park (TNGP) conservation officials and local communities have become far more aware of the need to push forward with cooperation to protect conservation areas in North Kayong and Ketapan regencies, West Kalimantan.
TNGP Conservation Agency head Dadang Wardhana said on Monday that a fundamentally different approach to conserving ecosystems in the national park was introduced in 2013 following a partnership between the Forestry Ministry (now the Environment and Forestry Ministry) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
Under the Indonesia-Japan project for Development of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Plus (IJ-REDD+), he said, 29 TNGP officials and other conservation stakeholders had received training on how to properly facilitate communities living near conservation areas.
'The officials now have adopted a different conservation approach in which through dialogue, they invite people to work together in conserving the protected forest. Without acting like lecturers, they try to help the local communities find solutions to the problems they face,' said Dadang.
Since 2014, local communities have deforested 60 hectares of the park area, according to TNGP data.
In 2011, 23 hectares of forested areas disappeared from the national park, with local communities claiming inherited rights to the land.
Dadang said local people had deforested the land by establishing farms and planting various food crops. Excessive illegal logging has also been reported.
The park measures 90,000 hectares. About 45,000 people of various ethnic backgrounds live in 20 villages that border the national park. Six of the 20 villages have become assistance targets of IJ-REDD+ with nine facilitators from civil society groups. (ebf)(++++)
