Indonesian Government Rejects Green Claims on Aceh Deforestation

Jakarta Globe 22 May 13;

The Forestry Ministry has denied claims by several environmental groups that 1.2 million hectares of protected forest in Aceh will be cleared if the province’s proposed spatial planning draft is approved.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Hadi Daryanto, the ministry’s secretary general said the draft proposed by the administration of Governor Zaini Abdullah only called for a change to the current spatial plan to allow up to 119,000 hectares of currently protected forest to be designated for commercial use.

He added that the team evaluating the proposal for the central government had recommended that only 26,000 hectares be approved for commercial forestry and 79,000 hectares for other use.

“So the accusations by these nongovernmental organizations that Aceh will lose 1.2 million hectares of protected forest is not correct, and the figure being touted must be clarified,” Hadi said.

His remarks echoed similar comments by Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, the head of the government task force on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+), who said in a statement over the weekend that his team had pored over existing data and documents and not found any evidence of plans to convert up to 1.2 million hectares of forest.

“The figure for forest conversion proposal is consistent with what was stated by the Aceh regional government and the Forestry Ministry,” Kuntoro said, as quoted by the environmental news portal mongabay.com.

Kuntoro attributed the figure of 1.2 million hectares to the difference between the total forest cover proposed by the previous governor, Irwandi Yusuf, and that proposed by Zaini.

Irwandi’s plan would have seen 2.75 million hectares of forest protected, or 855,000 hectares more than the 1.895 million hectares designated in the 2000 spatial plan. Zaini’s plan, however, would leave 1.79 million hectares protected, or 105,000 hectares less than the 2000 plan.

The difference of 105,000 hectares comes from the amount of land that the evaluation team is currently recommending be approved for commercial use.

More than 1 million people across the globe have signed an online petition demanding the Indonesian government scrap Zaini’s proposed spatial plan, based on the argument that it would lead to the clearing of 1.2 million hectares of previously protected forest.

Although the plan appears to contradict the central government’s recent decision to extend a moratorium on clearing primary and peat forests, the project is possible because it hinges on Aceh’s decision to overturn its own deforestation ban, which was introduced at the local level six years ago.