Fidelis E. Satriastanti Jakarta Globe 3 May 12;
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.
BeritaSatu/JG
Green groups say Indonesia deforestation ban 'weak'
AFP Yahoo News 4 May 12;
A coalition of green groups in Indonesia on Thursday criticised a moratorium on deforestation as "weak", saying the year-long ban still excludes large tracts of the country's carbon-rich forests.
Greenpeace, which is leading the coalition, said government maps that mark protected areas exclude 3.5 million hectares (8.6 million acres) of peatland -- biodiverse swamp-like forests that hold rich carbon reserves.
Greenpeace said the government must review all existing logging permits on the country's natural forests and peatland, and improve governance based on an accurate set of maps.
"The government cannot hope to improve forest governance and ensure the effectiveness of the moratorium without taking these crucial steps," Greenpeace Southeast Asia political campaigner Yuyun Indradi said in a statement.
An earlier review of the maps by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that the moratorium leaves almost 50 percent of Indonesia's 100 million hectares of natural forest and peatland unprotected.
"The current moratorium is weak and does very little in effect to protect the forests," said Deddy Ratih, a forest campaign manager for Friends of the Earth Indonesia.
The two-year moratorium came into effect last year as the centrepiece of a deal with Norway, which pledged $1 billion to Indonesia under a UN-backed scheme to reduce emissions from deforestation.
That deal was part of a larger commitment made by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2009 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from levels that year by 26 percent by 2020, or 41 percent with international support.
The coalition charged that the moratorium -- which was originally supposed to include all natural forests -- had been watered down to protect just older primary forests and peatland because of pressure from big business.
Indonesia is often cited as the world's third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, due mainly to rampant deforestation by the palm oil, mining and paper industries.
