Former
president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s moratorium on deforestation will soon come
to an end
Jakarta Globe, Kennial Caroline Laia, May 06, 2015
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| Indonesia has the third largest area of tropical rainforest on the planet, but also one of the fastest rates of deforestation. (EPA Photo/Bagus Indahono) |
Jakarta.
Environmental activists have called on President Joko Widodo to extend and
strengthen a forest-clearing moratorium that runs out this month.
The
moratorium on issuing permits to clear peat and primary forests was introduced
in May 2011 by then-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and slated to run for
only two years. Yudhoyono extended it in 2013 on a temporary basis, and
activists say Joko now has the chance to make a lasting positive impact by
giving the moratorium a firmer legal basis.
Any
extension to the moratorium “must stipulate punitive measures for people or
companies that violate it,” Zenzi Suhadi, a forest campaigner for the
Indonesian Forum for the Environment, or Walhi, told the Jakarta Globe on
Tuesday.
“This is
needed to curb [the illegal] issuance of licenses for forest exploitation,
whether for mining or for large-scale plantations,” he added.
He noted
that the moratorium as enforced by the Yudhoyono administration was for all
practical intents toothless, noting that the Forestry Ministry issued mining
and agriculture concessions for 12 million hectares of forest land, much of it
ostensibly off-limits under the moratorium, between 2011 and 2014.
“During
this period, there was no punishment for the violators,” Zenzi said. “The next
moratorium should include punitive measures to ensure that no one hurts the
environment.”
He also
said it was important that the moratorium be supported by a new agency “to
supervise its implementation as well as enforce the law.”
“The
government must consider extending the moratorium period. It’s been proven that
a two-year moratorium isn’t as effective as expected.
Making it
longer will help the government prioritize its to-do list, from evaluation to
license review to management refinement,” Zenzi added.
The
original moratorium was enacted as part of a deal that would see Norway provide
up to $1 billion in funds for climate change mitigation projects in exchange
for demonstrable protection on Indonesia’s part of high conservation value
forests, including peat forests, which store enormous amounts of carbon
dioxide.
Critics,
though, have long argued that the moratorium does far too little to protect
such areas, given that it applies only to new concessions and not to existing
ones on peat and primary forests.
In the time
since the moratorium went into force, nearly 970,000 hectares of peat forest
have been cleared, half of that total coming from the heavily logged Sumatran
provinces of Riau and Jambi, according to a study by Walhi and environmental
nongovernmental organization Kemitraan.
The study
also found that in some regions, up to four-fifths of the primary and peat
forests identified as off-limits for new concessions are already protected
under prevailing zoning regulations, hence the moratorium is doing little to
expand the scope of forest protection.
Progressive
revisions have also seen the map of areas protected under the moratorium
shrink, with dozens of concessions issued across the country for land that was
at one point included in the moratorium map, says Hasbi Berliani, Kemitraan’s
program manager for good governance.
The forest
area that falls outside the moratorium map “is really wide.”
“It is
really crucial for the government to strengthen [a] few points in the
moratorium to protect other areas [that] haven’t been included within. As long
as the moratorium doesn’t include it, it’s useless,” Hasbi said.
Zenzi
echoed the sentiment, saying that what Indonesia really needed was not a
moratorium on new concessions, but a termination program for existing licenses.
“The
situation is critical,” Zenzi said, noting that when the moratorium was renewed
in 2013, it included new concessions for energy and food production, thanks to
what he called corporate lobbying. “This cost the country 1.2 million
hectares.”
“This year,
there’s the possibility of intervention from the biofuel and food lobbies, and
exemptions for border regions,” Zenzi added.
Strong
government commitment, he said, was key to an effective moratorium.
“However
big the intervention, once the government is committed to the people, it won’t
compromise or make any exceptions unless it’s in the interests of the people,”
Zenzi said.
The
Forestry and Environment Ministry says it wants to extend the moratorium as
part of a wider program to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 26 percent by 2020,
and has welcomed suggestions of environmental groups in drafting an extension.
Edited by Hayat Indriyatno
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