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Indonesia curbs deforestation through strong leadership, technology
With stricter policies and better data, Indonesia is set to achieve targets in reducing deforestation and carbon emissions, experts say.
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Indonesian forest rangers make their way through the Leuser Ecosystem rainforest, located in Aceh and North Sumatra. Scientists consider the Leuser Ecosystem one of the most important remaining forests in Southeast Asia because it is the last place of sufficient size and quality to support viable populations of rare species like Sumatran tigers, orangutans, rhinos, elephants, clouded leopards and sun bears. (AFP/Chaideer Mahyuddin)
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ndonesia has been commended by members of the international community for a historically low deforestation rate in 2020, which has been taken as a demonstration of the country’s commitment to sustainable forest management.
Speaking during a JakPost Up Close webinar on Friday titled “Declining rate of deforestation: Is it the new normal?”, Environment and Forestry Ministry forest resources inventory and monitoring director Belinda Arunawati Margono acknowledged that the country had seen high levels of deforestation in the 1990s and 2000s.
However, she said deforestation rates had since fallen as Indonesia had improved forest management through stricter policies, improved monitoring technology and more comprehensive reporting on the country’s forests.
She said a new chapter had begun in Indonesian forest management with the passage of Law No. 18/2013 on the prevention and eradication of forest destruction.
"The government has also developed other initiatives, including land and forestry rehabilitation regulations, a permanent ban on new permits for primary forest and peatland concessions through a presidential instruction [Inpres] and a moratorium on the expansion of oil palm plantations that came into force in 2018." she said.
Those regulations, Belinda said, were manifestations of the government's efforts to combat deforestation.
From 2019 to 2020, Indonesia recorded a decline in the national deforestation rate, with 115,460 hectares cleared, nearly two thirds less than in the preceding period.
