Antara 12 Jan 18;
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Environment and Forestry Ministry has targeted to convert some 518,418 hectares of land into a conservation natural forest by 2026, an official said here on Thursday.
"We have converted hundreds of hectares of land of 31 forestry companies. These lands originally functioned as peatland conservation areas," Karliansyah, the ministry`s director general of pollution and environmental degradation management, said in Jakarta.
During the talk on implementations of peatland restoration policy in Jakarta, on Thursday, Karliansyah noted that the ministry has validated the business working plan revisions of the 31 companies.
Following the revisions, some 1,105,125 hectares of land will be set up for maintaining the peatland ecosystem, which comprises 717,583 hectares of protected zone and 387,542 hectares of cultivation area.
The ministry had earlier issued an instruction to 87 forestry companies in the country to restore some 2,443,648 hectares of peatland ecosystem.
However, until Dec last year, only 31 forestry companies expressed commitment to restore the peatland area, by reviewing their business plans.
The revised business plan will include the ecosystem restoration scheme by manually determining the minimum water level underground. The new document will pay more attentions to rainfall level, as well as the other supporting tools on preservation.
He stressed that some 14 companies have determined the minimum level of groundwater, as well as allocated 679,962 hectares of land for conservation, which is comprised of 388,159 hectares of land for conservation area and 291,803 hectares of land for plantation zone.
Meanwhile, the other 43 companies have not yet filed a request on validating their revised business working plans to the ministry.
The number of lands that has not yet been registered reaches 455,417 hectares, comprising of 177,138 hectares for the protected zone and 278,279 hectares for the cultivation area.
However, following the talk on some technical issues, the ministry has allocated some 3,932 hectares, as well as provided 397 logger information and 169 units of rainfall observation post to maintain the groundwater level of 45 forestry companies that have not yet submitted the revised documents.
Reported by Desi Purnamawati
(Uu. KR-GNT/INE)
EDITED BY INE/H-YH
Editor: Heru Purwanto
