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| This aerial view of a forest in Aceh taken on April 28 shows that large part of the forest has been turned into plantations. (Antara Photo/ Irwansyah Putra) |
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Indonesia
may have lost a staggering five million hectares of forest since President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono announced a two year moratorium on deforestation last
year, Greenpeace Indonesia said on Thursday.
The moratorium,
part of the president's Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest
Degradation Plus (REDD+) program, failed to include five million hectares of
forest in maps of protected areas, said Kiki Taufik, a geographical information
specialist with Greenpeace Indonesia, during a press conference in Jakarta.
“These
areas haven’t been protected by the moratorium because their statuses are
unclear," Kiki said. "The regions overlap with existing
concessions."
Kalimantan
was hit hardest in the last year, where 1.9 million hectares of forest
disappeared. Papua lost some 1.7 million hectares of lost forest.
“In
Kalimantan, most of the destroyed forest was in regions where coal concessions
were already granted," Kiki said. "In Papua, the forest was cut down
under pre-existing logging concessions."
The
deforestation moratorium promised to protect nearly half of Indonesia's
existing tree cover — an area totaling 64 million hectares — when it was passed
last year. But one year later, only 13 million additional hectares have been
placed under protection, Kiki said.
While the
moratorium has placed some 64 million hectares of forest under the government's
protection, 46.7 million hectares of these protected forests were already part
of conservation areas when the moratorium was announced, he said.
"So
the moratorium only successfully added 13 million hectares of protected
forests," Kiki said.
The
two-year moratorium came into effect last May as Norway pledged $1 billion in
aid to Indonesia as part of a larger UN-backed plan to reduce emissions
produced by deforestation. According to estimates, one million hectares of
burning forest can produce as much as 290 million metric tons of carbon
dioxide.
Indonesia
lost five times that amount in the last year alone.
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