Indonesia: Mapping protected lands a challenge

Bruce Gale Straits Times 8 Aug 13;

"IT'S like a puzzle." Mr Kiki Taufik, Greenpeace's forest campaign manager was trying to explain to me the latest attempt by Indonesia's Forestry Ministry to produce a unified map of all the primary forest and peatland areas in the country.

The map is needed in order to implement a US$1 billion (S$1.3 billion) deal Jakarta signed with Norway in May 2010 to protect Indonesia's forests. But the logic behind the frequent and seemingly contradictory updates produced by the ministry has observers baffled.

The map it is creating is different from the one requested recently by the Singapore and Malaysian governments in response to the haze from wildfires in Sumatra.

Foreign governments want detailed information about oil palm and other concession boundaries so that those responsible for the fires can be pinpointed.

The Forestry Ministry's task, on the other hand, is even more basic: to identify the primary forest and peatland areas subject to the agreed moratorium on deforestation. When it's hard to map out these areas permitted for cultivation, it's even harder to figure out which plot of land belongs to which concessions.

But since the agreement with Norway does not apply to pre- existing logging, mining and oil palm concessions, a general knowledge of such concessions would presumably be important when identifying the forests and peatlands to be protected.

When I met Mr Kiki at Greenpeace's Jakarta office last month, he showed me a copy of the ministry's latest effort - officially named Indicative Moratorium Map (IMM) No. 4. Updated maps are published every six months.

IMM4 was released in May this year, about the same time that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono made his widely expected announcement extending the moratorium on new land concessions for another two years.

According to Mr Kiki, successive IMMs reveal inconsistencies that officials rarely explain. Basing his analysis on data produced by the Forestry Ministry itself in 2010, Mr Kiki concludes that IMM4 has erroneously included around three million ha of pre- existing logging concessions as subject to the moratorium. The same error, however, does not occur on IMM3. It is unclear whether these areas are now protected as a result of the withdrawal of the logging concessions, or whether the concessions themselves have somehow been overlooked.

Greenpeace's examination of other official and unofficial databases on concession areas reveals similar anomalies. Data released by the National Land Agency (BPN), for example, shows at least 860,000ha of oil palm concessions overlapping with areas designated in the IMM4 map as subject to the moratorium.

A similar situation exists with mining. According to the records of industry body Association of Coal Mining Industries, around one million ha of pre-existing coal mining concessions have apparently been ignored. As in the case of the oil palm concessions, IMM4 shows these areas as subject to the moratorium.

One possible reason for the difficulties the Forestry Ministry has been experiencing in drawing up accurate maps is a lack of coordination between various government agencies.

Apart from the BPN, the ministry needs to consult the records of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (for mining concessions) as well as various provincial- and regency-level planning agencies involved in the issuance of oil palm concessions.

Complicating matters is the fact that many of the maps maintained by these agencies are believed to be outdated.

But this does not explain everything. As more information is gathered, successive maps should become more accurate as overlaps between existing concession areas and those earmarked for the moratorium are identified. According to Greenpeace, however, this has not happened.

Based on currently available data, says Mr Kiki, a study of IMM4 reveals that a total of 5.5 million ha of land earmarked for the moratorium overlap with pre-existing concession areas. This figure is not very much different from earlier versions. Errors appearing in earlier maps are often corrected, he says, but later maps reveal fresh anomalies.

The government, however, insists that it is making progress.

Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan has already declared the first moratorium a success, saying that the move slowed the country's deforestation rate to a mere 450ha a year during 2010 to 2011. This compares to an average of 3.5 million ha a year in the period from 1999 to 2002.

If this is indeed the case, then it is a major achievement worthy of considerable praise.

What needs to be done now is to take advantage of the extended moratorium to review the legality of existing concessions, increase transparency in the way licences are granted, and establish clear and credible land-use policies.

Can Indonesia do it? Obviously, the oft-cited collusion between corrupt officials and unscrupulous logging and palm oil companies is not the only impediment. Research by Greenpeace on the various maps produced by the Forestry Ministry suggests a worrying degree of administrative incompetence as well.

When it comes to conservation, the challenges facing policymakers in Jakarta are far more complex than many imagine.