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.

Read also: Indonesia claims success for lowest deforestation rate in 5 years

In 2011, the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the US Geological Survey (USGS) began providing Landsat satellite data for free, allowing Indonesia to develop its remote monitoring of forest cover and deforestation.  

In 2017, the ministry began to report land that had been subject to forest fires, and last year, with better satellite images, the ministry was also able to monitor reforestation. In addition to the US satellite data, the ministry uses data and images from the European Union’s Sentinel satellite.

Belinda said the availability of more data had made it possible for Indonesia to carry out measurement, reporting and verification (MRV), an international requirement for reporting carbon emissions, including from deforestation.  

By demonstrating its accountability in reporting deforestation, Indonesia has been able to access funding from the Norwegian government and the United Nations’ Green Climate Fund (GCF).

After a decade of work, Indonesia is set to receive US$56 million from Norway for successfully reducing deforestation and carbon emissions under the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) scheme. The payment is part of the $1 billion Norway has pledged to Indonesia if it is able to demonstrably reduce emissions from deforestation.

Read also: Indonesia to receive $56 million from Norway for reducing emissions

The government is also set to receive a grant of $103.8 million from the GCF, which has determined that Indonesia prevented the emission of 20.3 million tons of carbon dioxide from 2014 to 2016.

Former UN Environment Program executive director Erik Solheim, who was also the Norwegian minister of environment and international development who oversaw the $1 billion pledge, praised the Indonesian government for the achievements.

He said in the early years there had been doubts about whether Indonesia would be able to meet the MRV conditions to receive the funds.  

“[Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya] has proven to be the most effective and systematic minister who finally made the results-based mechanism deliver,” he said.

He said he was optimistic that the lower rate of deforestation would be sustainable because Indonesia had strong leadership and the world was moving towards green business with support from citizens.  

“Even though businesses want to go green, they need blessings and support and the framing of the market from the government. So it is this interplay between business, government and citizens that is now driving in such a positive direction,” Erik said.

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) interim representative for Indonesia and Timor Leste Richard Trenchard noted that Indonesia had a total of 120 million hectares of forested land, 3 percent of the world’s total forested area, including 93 million ha of tree cover, an area almost four times the size of the United Kingdom.

“The FAO supports Indonesia through the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade project [FLEGT], ensuring that timber exports and the jobs they create are built on forest regeneration and sustainable forest management rather than illegal logging and excessive deforestation,” he said.

Trenchard said challenges remained related to a lack of funding for Indonesian emissions reduction.

He said the country required an estimated $20.6 billion annually to take climate action and achieve a 29 percent emissions reduction by 2030, a target the government set in its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement.

“If funding gaps are not addressed, there are very real risks that Indonesians will experience direct negative impacts from climate change. It will directly harm Indonesia's most vulnerable populations, including [indigenous] communities and women,” he said.

He also said strong law enforcement was key to ensuring that the lower rate of deforestation was sustained.