Chalid Muhammad (Kompas.com/Sabrina Asril)

Indonesian Green Institute chairman Chalid Muhammad has said that large parts of Indonesia'€™s forests have been converted into plantation businesses, mostly for oil palm, including many owned by foreign businesspeople, and called for radical community solutions to the forest fires that have been plaguing the nation.

The conversion has, according to Chalid, destroyed a great deal of flora and fauna in the forests.

'€œOil palm alone controls 12 billion hectares of forests. The owners include large corporations from neighboring countries. The government issues permits to convert the forests. Peatland areas are another target for business,'€ Chalid said in Jakarta on Saturday.

Chalid, a former director of the Indonesian Forum for Environment (Walhi), said that the government should stop granting concessions to convert forests and peatland, as it has promised.

The ongoing forest fires should be enough reason for the government to fulfil its promise, he went on, with further conversion of peatland '€“ which is highly flammable '€“ likely to lead to worse fires.

Speaking of the forest fires, Chalid called on the government to be serious about punishing those responsible for burning land, including by revoking the permits of those found guilty.

'€œAfter the permits are revoked, they should be recovered to be given to local people. If the people are allowed to manage the forests, they can be expected not to burn the forests,'€™ he said, adding that community forest management was the answer to long-term forest fire management and reduction.

'€œSuch long-term solutions should be seriously discussed, because we cannot talk about forest fires only when the forests are being burned,'€ he said. (bbn)(++++)

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