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Indonesia needs $4b to avert deforestation
The government is upbeat that Indonesian deforestation could be averted if international communities grant US$4 billion until 2012 to finance the livelihood of local people and stop forest conversions
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The government is upbeat that Indonesian deforestation could be averted if international communities grant US$4 billion until 2012 to finance the livelihood of local people and stop forest conversions.
The Forestry Ministry said the money would be used to address the main causes of deforestation prior to the implementation of the reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) mechanism.
“We need an investment of $4 billion to address the causes of deforestation. The fund should be from world communities as deforestation has become a global problem, especially concerning climate change,” Nur Masripatin, secretary for the ministry’s forestry research and development agency told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
“Tackling deforestation is not merely about law enforcement, money talks here, including on how to finance the livelihood of local communities around the forests or how to deal with the expansion of plantations.”
She said the government only had a limited budget to handle deforestation. She did not elaborate the exact amount.
“Deforestation in developing counties will continue to increase if there is no policy intervention that enables the countries to reduce emissions from forests without sacrificing their national development.”
The world countries have long eyed Indonesia’s forests as one of the lungs to “clean” the atmosphere from rising greenhouse gas emissions.
Many have criticized the Indonesian government for its failure to combat high rates of deforestation, which have risen to over one million hectares per year.
Indonesia has about 120 million hectares of rainforest – the third-largest on the planet after Brazil and Congo.
Deforestation contributes about 20 percent to global greenhouse gas emissions, with about 75 percent from developing countries.
Seeing the impact of the deforestation, the world countries have adopted the use of the REDD mechanism to help protect the forests by providing financial incentives to forest nations.
The government hoped the upcoming REDD mechanism would also cut the country’s illegal logging.
Forestry Minister Malam Samat Kaban said illegal logging cases, which also caused deforestation, had declined sharply over the last four years with only hundreds of cases currently compared to about 9,600 in Soeharto’s era.
Executive Director of Greenomics Indonesia Elfian Effendi said the illegal logging practices remained rampant in the country due to the government’s poor monitoring.
“Yes, there is a decline in term of illegal logging cases but such practices remain rampant in places,” he said.
“The fact is that illegal logging and illegal trade along the borders of Kalimantan-Malaysia, Riau-Malaysia-Singapore and in Papua remains unresolved.”
He said illegal logging could also be seen from the expansion of oil palm estates in protected areas and conservation forests in the country.
Even worse, he said the local administrations still awarded licenses for forest conversion, including for plantations.
