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AKARTA: Greenomics Indonesia condemned the exclusion by the government of 4.8 million hectares of peatland from the revised indicative moratorium map of natural forests and peatland.

Prior to its revision, the moratorium map had 10.7 million hectares of peatland that were covered by the moratorium on the granting of new licenses.

“However, almost 45 percent of the peatland, amounting to 10.7 million hectares, have been taken out of the indicative moratorium map. This is a slap in the mouth by Indonesia ahead of the climate-change conference currently being held in Durban, South Africa,” Greenomics Indonesia executive director Elfian Effendi said here on Friday.

Greenomics was responding Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan, who claimed to be in the international meeting where the Indonesia would promised to exclude the 4.8 million hectares of peatland from the revised indicative moratorium map.

Elfian said he was suspicious the exclusion of the 4.8 million hectares of peatland from the revised map was driven by commercial interests.

“There are plausible grounds to believe this as based on a Greenomics Indonesia study, the forestry law and regulations in Indonesia are primarily designed to accommodate business interests, rather than that of our forests and forest communities themselves,” he explained.

With the loss of the 4.8 million hectares of peatland from the revised map, he said, the peatland which was 74 times larger than Singapore was now available for exploitation.

“This is the biggest disaster to befall the moratorium since the issuance of the presidential instruction on the moratorium back in May. What is most deplorable about the whole thing is that it is the government itself th