Eric Bellman The Wall Street Journal 8 Dec 10;
JAKARTA—Indonesia's ambitious plan to restrict clearing in some of the world's last remaining virgin forests is on track despite skepticism from international environmental groups, say government officials in Indonesia and Norway, which is backing the project with a $1 billion pledge.
While many details of the plan have yet to be hammered out, Indonesia is set to start a two-year moratorium on new land-clearing permits next month and has taken other first steps to help save its dwindling forests, the officials say.
It is expected to announce additional elements of its plan, which aims to protect more than 100 million hectares of pristine jungle, during the United Nations climate conference under way in Cancún, Mexico, these officials said.
First unveiled in Oslo in May, Indonesia's forest-protection project is aimed at reducing the country's greenhouse-gas emissions by slowing deforestation. Norway said it was willing to invest as much as $1 billion in Indonesian conservation projects and Indonesia agreed to boost forest-monitoring efforts and take other steps, including the moratorium on new clearing permits.
The project is widely viewed as an important test of whether international incentives can convince developing countries to risk crimping economic growth to help the environment.
But some environmental activists have been skeptical of the deal, saying it doesn't go far enough and that government officials can't be trusted to implement it fully. A recent Greenpeace report suggested the program could end up hurting the environment in Indonesia as powerful lobbies in the palm oil and paper industries could find ways to pocket some of the money earmarked for conservation, even as they continue destroying forests to feed their huge expansion plans.
In Cancún this week, Greenpeace unveiled maps of Indonesia showing all the forest that could be destroyed if Indonesia doesn't impose tighter controls on the industries.
"These maps further support our argument that the pulp, paper and palm oil industry is unnecessarily pursuing a deforestation-as-usual approach to business" in Indonesia, said the lobbying group's forest campaigner, Bustar Maitar.
Indonesia is one of the world's top sources of greenhouse gases because of widespread clearing of peat and forest land for its paper, palm-oil and other industries, which are currently a crucial part the economy's growth.
People on both sides of the debate say Indonesia has so far delivered on its promises to start forming some of the institutions needed to implement the Norway-backed project, but some environmental groups still question the government's commitment.
How much the project actually helps the environment will depend on enforcement and which areas of the country are included in the government's two-year moratorium. The boundaries have yet to be defined, though the project is slated to begin soon.
"Everyone is still waiting to see whether Indonesia can do it," Agus Purnomo, head of secretariat for Indonesia's National Council on Climate Change said in Jakarta before leaving for Cancun. "We will show the world that we mean business."
After the failure of U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen last year, Indonesia's agreement with Norway was one of the few bright spots in world-wide efforts to protect the environment.
The 12-day climate conference in Cancún is focusing on how to give countries such as Indonesia more reason to choose environmentally friendly paths to growth through tens of billions of dollars in subsidies from industrialized countries. In Copenhagen, diplomats promised $30 billion in climate funding for poor countries by 2012, and an additional $100 billion annually starting in 2020.
In its deal with Norway, Indonesia will get a payment at the end of every year if it can prove it is protecting its forests and lowering emissions by doing things such as implementing tougher restrictions, policing protected areas and educating and providing employment for poor communities that live near the forests.
Indonesia says Greenpeace has misunderstood industrial expansion projections, and the deal with Norway has checks and balances that would stop the money flowing to Indonesia or its companies if they are abusing the forests.
Government officials further note they have delivered on promises to create a task force on deforestation and have mandated the building of an independent institution in charge of measuring and verifying the state of the country's forests.
It will measure what forest and peat land exists and has been saved and how much greenhouse gas was kept from being released. Indonesia and Norway plan to bring in independent auditors to confirm the program's progress before Norway releases any money.
The institution will soon unveil a pilot province where it plans to be most aggressive about implementing the new policies, they say.
By the end of this month, Indonesia will have drafted a map showing which forests are protected from new government-issued clearing permits. Once it is made public, individuals and corporations with claims on different tracts of land will be allowed to come forward to dispute the way the map was drawn.
So many clearing permits were issued by different levels of government over the years that Jakarta doesn't know who still holds unused claims, Mr. Purnomo said. As disputes come in, the map will be redrawn every six months, he said.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has shown how serious Indonesia is about change by putting Kuntoro Mangkusubroto—the man known for successfully spearheading the reconstruction of Indonesia's province of Aceh after a devastating 2004 tsunami—in charge of the environmental task force, said Per Fredrik Ilsaas Pharo, special director of Norway's International Climate and Forest Initiative, a government program to support the reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions in developing countries.
"Minister Kuntoro and his colleagues are focusing on the 2010 institutional and policy reforms and the robustness of the moratorium," he said. "They are in the process of identifying all the key drivers of deforestation and a potential strategy to deal with them."
In each of the past 10 years, Indonesia lost more than 1 million hectares of forest. Close to half of Indonesia's roughly 130 million hectares of forest land is still pristine, its Forestry Ministry says.
Mr. Purnomo, one of Indonesia's top environmental officials and a former head of the World Wildlife Fund in Indonesia, is also in Cancún this week.
Mr. Purnomo said if the program can weather the skepticism, it will prove that the right incentives can trigger a transformation in developing countries.
"I have seen many forestry ministers come and go, and every time they left they have hurt the forest," he said. "Now the stars are aligned for us to suddenly make a big change."
—Yayu Yuniar contributed to this article.
