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Govt takes credit for lowest deforestation rate in 5 years
Indonesia lost at least 115,460 hectares of forest from 2019 to 2020
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he government has claimed more success in reducing the loss of Indonesia’s forest area, with recent data showing that last year’s deforestation rate was the lowest in five years.
The Environment and Forestry Ministry recorded a loss of up to 115,460 hectares of forests due to deforestation from 2019 to 2020, lower than the two previous figures of 462,500 ha in the 2018-2019 period and 439,400 ha in 2017-2018.
The ministry’s forest and environmental planning acting director general, Ruandha Agung Sugardiman, said the drop was thanks to the government’s moratorium on the conversion of primary forests and peatland, controlling forest and peatland fires, and stricter law enforcement.
“Our efforts have brought significant results [in reducing deforestation],” Ruandha said in a recent media briefing.
Apart from the efforts in reducing forest loss, the ministry also highlighted the area of forest coverage gained from reforestation efforts, said the ministry’s forest resources inventory and monitoring director, Belinda Arunawati Margono.
Since 2011, the ministry has calculated the country’s annual deforestation rate by subtracting the total deforested area, or brute deforestation rate, with the total area of tree cover gained.
Its data comes from the Geospatial Information Agency’s (BIG) Indonesian topography map, National Institute of Aeronautics and Space’s (Lapan) satellite images and the ministry’s forest data area from the forest and environmental planning directorate general.
For the 2019-2020 period, the ministry recorded around 119,100 ha of brute deforestation and 3,600 ha of reforestation.
“The numbers were obtained through a systematic and professional process based on the local interpreters’ [confirmation on satellite data],” Belinda said.
Indonesia has been putting extra effort into reducing deforestation in the past several years. The hard work has borne fruit, as the country is set to receive US$56 million from Norway for successfully reducing deforestation and carbon emissions.
The funds were given as part of the Reducing Emissions From Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) cooperation scheme. Under the result-based grant, Indonesia and Norway agreed to measure the former’s results against a 10-year average level of emissions between 2006 and 2016.
Read also: Still waiting: Indonesian environmental fund yet to receive or disburse money
The ministry reported to Norway that the country had seen a decline in deforestation rate in the 2016-2017 period, with only 480,000 ha of forests lost that prevented the release of about 4.8 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions into the atmosphere.
Indonesia is also set to receive other grants for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, including from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) and the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) partnership.
Arief Wijaya, the senior manager for climate and forests at World Resources Institute (WRI) Indonesia, lauded the recent decline in the deforestation rate for being in line with the downward trend in the past five years.
Official data shows that the deforestation rate began declining following massive forest fires across the country in 2015. Since then, the government has imposed several policies aimed at increasing forest protection.
However, Arief pointed out that the sharp decline in the 2019-2020 deforestation rate had also been influenced by other external factors, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and extreme weather.
“The pandemic has caused a global economic crisis. The resulting weak purchasing power has contributed to the fall of demand for agricultural and forestry commodities, such as palm oil and timber,” Arief said.
He added that most parts of the archipelago had also seen more rain last year due to the effects of La Niña, which also played a part in lowering the risk of forest and peatland fires.
The weather phenomenon is marked by the cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean and changes in winds, pressure and rainfall. It tends to trigger a wetter rainy season in most parts of Indonesia.
According to the ministry’s land and forest fires monitoring system SiPongi, 296,000 ha of forests were burned throughout 2020. It was the second-lowest rate since 2017 when the ministry recorded around 165,000 ha of burned land.
Read also: Deforestation decreases globally but remains alarming: Report
Arief urged the government to work harder to maintain the positive deforestation trend in the coming years, especially as it was currently preparing to submit its updated climate pledge to the United Nations.
Indonesia, along with almost 200 countries that have signed the Paris Climate Agreement, is expected to submit an updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the UN’s climate body ahead of this year’s climate summit, known as the COP26 summit.
Forest Watch Indonesia (FWI) researcher Mufti Fathul Barri doubted the government’s claims and urged the ministry to make its land cover spatial data accessible to the public. The government previously distributed a database of land cover maps, but Mufti claimed the files could not be accessible.
“The ministry should open access to data so it can be scrutinized by the public,” he said.
A coalition of civil groups, including FWI, previously warned of the possibility of massive deforestation in Indonesia’s easternmost provinces of West Papua and Papua.
Read also: Ministry dismisses concerns over deforestation for food estates
The group analyzed the ministry’s data and found that around 102,416 ha of natural forests in both provinces were lost between 2005 and 2009. The figure increased to 298,786 from 2015 to 2019, or during President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s first presidential term.
The ministry responded to the claim by saying that most of the deforestation in Papua and West Papua occurred in areas for which clearing permits had been issued “by the previous administration”.
Belinda also argued that Papua was not the region with the highest percentage of deforested area. The province accounted for 8,500 ha of the 2020 deforestation data, the second-lowest after Java and Madura. According to the ministry, the highest rate of deforestation occurred in Kalimantan with 41,500 ha or around 36 percent of the total figure across the country.
But FWI’s Mufti said forests located in concession areas belonging to businesses could also be cut down in the future, worsening deforestation in Papua and West Papua.
