Indonesia’s Billion-Dollar Forest Deal Is at Risk

Aubrey Belford The New York Times 28 Nov 10;

JAKARTA — For environmental campaigners and scientists discouraged by slow progress in the fight against climate change, Indonesia, with its vast forests and history of breakneck land clearing, has been a rare point of hope.

The archipelago nation has been a key testing ground of U.N.-backed efforts to use international funding to pay developing countries to curb forest destruction, which accounts for nearly 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. The approach, known as Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD, is widely seen as one the rare global environmental successes since the collapse of talks in Copenhagen last year.

But as a fresh round of climate negotiations begins in the Mexican resort of Cancún on Monday, some environmentalists say that Indonesia’s experiment with forest conservation is also under threat.

A report by Greenpeace last week accused Indonesian government ministries of planning for massive land clearance, despite signing a $1 billion REDD agreement with Norway earlier this year. The agreement, which includes a two-year moratorium on clearing natural forests and carbon-rich peatlands, is aimed at helping Indonesia, which by some counts is the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, reach a target of cutting emissions by at least 26 percent by 2020.

Greenpeace said that government documents show plans to bring 63 million hectares, or nearly 156 million acres, of land into production by 2030, including 80 percent of its peatland and half its forested orangutan habitat, to support expansion of industries including pulp, paper and palm oil.

At the same time, the group said, a push is on to rebrand the clearing of forests for plantations (which results in a net release of carbon into the atmosphere) as the replacement of degraded land with new trees (which takes carbon out of the atmosphere). This, they say, could effectively mean international funds would be subsidizing forest destruction.

For environmentalists, the accusations point to a broader risk: that in a country as sprawling and corrupt as Indonesia, and on an issue as complex as carbon accounting, REDD is open to being watered down. With about 20 early REDD projects already under way, including with funding from Germany and Australia, that possibility is causing concern.

“If REDD money for forest protection is interpreted in the wrong way by industry and the government, that can be a danger for the projects and it can support deforestation activities on the ground,” said Bustar Maitar, Greenpeace’s Indonesia forest campaigner.

One problem is Indonesia’s confusing system of land classification, in which, for example, some land officially designated as “degraded” is in reality covered in forests. Bureaucratic confusion between the central government, provinces and districts also means coming up with, and enforcing, an overall plan that would save more carbon than is lost through deforestation — which is a fraught process.

The Indonesian government denies the Greenpeace allegations and says it is ironing out the problems.

Agus Purnomo, the head of Indonesia’s National Climate Change Council, said the group’s accusation that the government is planning to expand land clearing is merely “attention grabbing” based on fudged numbers. “Greenpeace has done some rather problematic ways of putting the facts because they are mixing information that has been scientifically written, written in black and white, with hearsay that was in the newspaper,” Mr. Purnomo said.

Resolving the confusion between degraded land and forest is something that will happen “in the next few months,” Mr. Purnomo said.

Performance-based mechanisms — which would see four-fifths of Norway’s $1 billion paid out only after results are delivered — also mean the kind of grand swindle envisioned by the Greenpeace report would be impossible to pull off, he said.

But in wrangling over technicalities, observers say, there are still risks. In the Norway deal, details have still not been finalized over whether the moratorium would apply only to virgin forest or be more broadly defined.

Similarly, there is debate over whether to make the moratorium apply to existing, undeveloped, concessions owned by companies or merely block the granting of concessions.

Mr. Purnomo said Indonesia is aiming to define as broadly as possible the type of forest land to be protected. However, at the same time, broadening the moratorium to include existing concessions is “off the table.”

If this is true, then Indonesia’s REDD experiment could be severely compromised, said Louis Verchot, the chief climate scientist of the Center for International Forestry Research, an international research institute headquartered in Indonesia.

“I don’t understand how emissions reductions could be achieved if it’s only a moratorium on new concessions because there are enough existing concessions out there that will continue to create emissions,” Mr. Verchot said, adding that without a clearing up of Indonesia’s land classifications, the Norway deal “is dead.”

However, Mr. Verchot did agree that Greenpeace’s numbers appeared to overstate government expansion plans, and that mechanisms built into REDD meant abuse of the type alleged in the group’s report simply could not happen. Overall, Indonesia has rapidly progressed, he said.

“We’re not where we need to be for everything to be in place and everything to be fine and perfect, but we’re moving in that direction,” he said. “We’re well aware of the technical issues, and we’re well aware of the need for third-party verification.”

And progress on REDD, he said, is key to building broader consensus for a global climate-change deal. “I think there’s much more danger if this thing falls apart than if this thing goes forward.”