Jakarta Globe 9 Dec 11;
Aceh. The man known as Indonesia's "green governor" chases the roar of illegal chainsaws through plush jungles in his own Jeep. He goes door-to-door to tell families it's in their interest to keep trees standing.
That's why 5,000 villagers living the edge of a rich, biodiverse peat swamp in his tsunami-ravaged Aceh province feel so betrayed.
Their former hero recently gave a palm oil company a permit to develop land in one of the few places on earth where orangutans, tigers and bears still can be found living side-by-side — violating Indonesia's new moratorium on concessions in primary forests and peatlands.
"Why would he agree to this?" said Ibduh, a 50-year village chief, days after filing a criminal complaint against Aceh Gov. Irwandi Yusuf.
"It's not just about the animals," he said, men around him nodding. "Us too. Our lives are ruined if this goes through."
Irwandi — a former rebel whose life story is worthy of a Hollywood film — maintains the palm oil concession is by the book and that he would never do anything to harm his province.
But critics say there is little doubt he broke the law.
The charges against him illustrate the challenges facing countries like Indonesia in their efforts to fight climate change by protecting the world's tropical jungles — which would spit more carbon when burned than planes, automobiles and factories combined.
Despite government promises, what happens on the ground is often a different story. Murky laws, graft and mismanagement in the forestry sector and shady dealings with local officials means that business often continues as usual for many companies.
"This is really a test case," said Chik Rini, a World Wildlife Fund campaigner, noting that while it's not uncommon for timber, pulp, paper and palm oil companies to raze trees in protected areas, few developments occur in areas that seem so obviously off limits.
"If they get away with it here, well, then no forests are safe."
Ibduh, the village chief, sits on the floor of a house rolling a cigarette as he and other men try to understand why — after years of stalling — Irwandi agreed on Aug. 25 to give PT Kallista Alam a permit to convert 4,000 acres of peat swamp forest in the heart of the renowned Leuser Ecosytem.
In addition to being home to almost every large animal found in Disney's adaptation of "The Jungle Book," it's teeming with thousands of plant and insect species, many yet to be identified.
Irwandi says there's nothing amiss with the concession. "I know what I have to do for the people of Aceh," the 51-year-old says, alleging that political opponents in coming provincial elections are trying to turn the tide against him.
But Ahmad Fauzi Mas'ud, spokesman for the Forestry Ministry, agrees with critics that things don't sound right.
"We haven't received the documents for this license yet," he said by telephone as he boarded a plane in the capital Jakarta.
"But if it's inside peatland, it can't be converted."
A copy of the map of the new concession, obtained by The Associated Press, has it sitting squarely on a parcel of peatland forest identified as off limits under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's moratorium enacted in May.
For environmentalists, it's an all too familiar story.
Fifty years ago in Indonesia, more than three-quarters of the archipelagic nation of 240 million people was blanketed in tropical rain forest. But half those trees have since disappeared.
Aceh offered a uniquely clean slate when its separatist insurgency came to an end after the devastating 2004 tsunami. The decades-long conflict had kept illegal logging at bay.
Irwandi, well-educated with a laid-back style and quick wit, made protecting Aceh's forests one of his first goals when he surprised the pundits and won the governorship in 2006.
He was a former rebel, but not the fighting kind. For years, he'd led the propaganda campaign for the insurgents who saw the government in Jakarta as self-serving and corrupt.
He was serving a nine-year sentence for treason when the tsunami hit, crashing down the walls of the prison.
"I didn't escape from prison," the rebel-turned-politician likes to say. "It escaped from me."
Irwandi fled to Jakarta, then Malaysia and finally Finland where he ended up joining exiled leaders of the Free Aceh Movement in negotiating an end to fighting after the tsunami — with both sides eager to end the suffering.
After his return and election win, Irwandi immediately banned logging in Aceh. To this day, he can often be seen pulling over on the side of the road when spotting a pile of recently felled trees. He also makes spot checks at old logging camps and saw mills.
Which is why his turnabout on the Tripa swamp forest — home to the world's densest population of critically endangered Sumatran orangutans — has left Ibduh and other villagers so confused and angry.
Already excavators have started knocking down trees and churning up soil.
Drainage canals also have been built and villagers' drinking wells are already noticeably drier as result, they say. Security forces are deployed by the palm oil company along the perimeter of the forest, guns raised when anyone tries to enter.
Ibduh and other older men recall happier times when they could still earn money collecting rattan, honey and herbs for traditional medicine. Not long ago, they say proudly, pristine swamps and the Tripa river were teeming with catfish so large that many of them were able to earn enough at the local market to go to Mecca for the hajj pilgrimage.
Even now, gliding in a small wooden boat down the broad river that slices through the spectacular Tripa forests, saltwater crocodiles can be seen slipping silently from view. A rhinoceros hornbill lifts off with a gentle helicoptorish whoosh.
And as skies darken, troops of monkeys clamor in the branches above to settle in for the night.
"But for how long?" asks Safari, 32, one of the men. "When that forest is cleared, these animals will all be gone, every last one of them."
Associated Press
Ministry to Probe Aceh Forest Clearing Permit
Fidelis E. Satriastanti Jakarta Globe 14 Dec 11;
The Forestry Ministry has promised an “intensive probe” into a controversial permit issued by Aceh Governor Irwandi Yusuf for a pristine, wildlife-rich forest to be razed and replaced by a palm oil plantation.
Hadi Daryanto, the ministry’s secretary general, said on Monday that under the terms of a forestry moratorium for primary and peat forests, the permit should never have been issued.
“It’s clearly a violation because the area in question is a peat forest,” he said.
“On the moratorium map it’s clearly marked out as protected, but in the revision that followed, it was somehow excluded. That exclusion in itself is also a violation because it occurred after the moratorium went into effect.”
Hadi was responding to revelations by the nongovernmental organization Greenomics Indonesia that a revision to the original moratorium map shrunk the forested area under protection and authorized the issuance of a permit to clear 1,065 hectares of forest inside the Leuser ecosystem in Aceh’s Nagan Raya district.
The area is identified as home to the world’s densest population of critically endangered Sumatran orangutans, and also hosts large numbers of critically endangered Sumatran tigers.
Plantation firm Kallista Alam has already begun clearing trees and draining the peat swamp.
In a press release, Elfian Effendi, the Greenomics Indonesia executive director, said the revision showed that “the area concerned was no longer colored red, as it had been in the original map.”
“In fact, the peatland that is no longer colored red exceeds the area of the palm plantation concession granted by Irwandi,” he said.
Greenomics urged Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, the chairman of the national task force on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), to publicly explain why the revision allowed for the exclusion of peat forests from the moratorium.
“This is especially important given that Kuntoro told Reuters news agency on December 8 that the opening up of peatland in Kuala Tripa, the area where the palm plantation license was issued by Irwandi, was a grave mistake,” Elfian said.
“Kuntoro also advised the Aceh administration to review its decision to grant the palm plantation license and to seek alternative land for the development of such plantations.”
He added that Kuntoro’s statement as well as those from the Forestry Ministry appeared to be at odds with the revision.
“The secretary general of the Ministry of Forestry, Hadi Daryanto, has stated that the license issued by the Aceh governor violates the indicative moratorium map,” he said.
“If that’s the case, why has the minister of forestry now gone ahead and removed the peatland area in question from the revised map?
“This is a truly embarrassing state of affairs. The implementation of the moratorium has been characterized by a lack of synergy and coordination.”
Elfian added that the central government would have to “investigate its own actions” to find out how the implementation of the moratorium could have been bungled so badly.
Aceh Forest Permit Breaks ‘Several’ Laws, Activist Says
Jakarta Globe 16 Dec 11;
The Aceh governor’s approval of a forest-clearing permit for an ostensibly protected area violates a rash of national laws and regulations beyond just a deforestation moratorium, activists say.
Kamaruddin, a lawyer for the Coalition of Communities Concerned for Tripa, said in a statement that the violation of the permit moratorium for primary and peat forests “does not substantively affect the legal infractions that community members” reported to police last month.
The controversy stems from the issuance of a permit to clear 1,605 hectares of forest inside the Leuser ecosystem in Aceh’s Nagan Raya district.
Earlier this week, nongovernmental organization Greenomics Indonesia revealed that a revision to the original moratorium map, based on a Forestry Ministry decree, had shrunk the forested area under protection. The moratorium itself is based on a presidential instruction.
“Greenomics unfortunately failed to point out that the new concession breaks several national laws and regulations, in addition to the presidential instruction, all of which have higher legal status than the minister of forestry’s decree,” Kamaruddin said.
He cited one of the laws being broken as the 2006 Law on the Governance of Aceh, which “mandates the protection of the Leuser ecosystem and its restoration,” as well as requiring development in the province to be sustainable.
The second law violated by the permit, Kamaruddin said, was the 2007 Spatial Planning Law, and a derivative government regulation “in which the Leuser ecosystem was established as an area of national strategic importance for environmental protection.”
“Therefore the issuance of any exploitation permits contradictory to this function within the Leuser ecosystem constitutes a criminal act,” he said.
The area is identified as home to the world’s densest population of critically endangered Sumatran orangutans and also hosts large numbers of critically endangered Sumatran tigers.
Plantation firm Kallista Alam has already begun clearing trees and draining the peat swamp.
