The Forestry Ministry has failed to show its commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation despite its support for the extension of the moratorium on forest clearance, activists claim.
They
accuse the ministry of getting around the moratorium by rezoning forest
areas into non-forest areas through spatial planning bylaws and
ministerial decrees.
Forestry
Ministry secretary-general Hadi Daryanto has said that the ministry
would approve the new spatial planning bylaw proposed by the Aceh
administration that allows for conversion of protected forests into
non-forest zones.
Data
from the Coalition of Aceh Rainforest Movements shows that the new
spatial planning would allow the conversion of around 1.2 million
hectares of Aceh’s existing 3.78 million hectares of protected forest
into non-forest areas.
Under
the draft bylaw, Governor Zaini Abdullah is planning to reduce forest
land from 68 percent to 45 percent, paving the way for palm oil
plantations and logging concessions, the coalition claims.
Hadi
said that the central government would soon finalize the draft, as the
total area of forest that would be converted to non-forest was not as
high as was claimed by the activists.
“According
to the Aceh governor, the actual forest area that will be converted
under the new spatial planning bylaw is not 1.2 million hectares, but
only 119,000 hectares,” Hadi said on Tuesday.
“The
draft will soon be finalized, but it will not be as damaging as
reported in the media. The rezoning plan is actually being issued for
the sake of Aceh’s development,” he added.
Nabiha
Shahab, REDD+ Aceh Initiative Coordinator said that the Aceh
administration should be transparent and publish the content of the new
spatial planning bylaw and the total affected forest areas to avoid
misunderstanding.
“The
public and NGOs are now collecting their information from whatever
sources they have, when it is actually the administration that should
explain it to the public,” Nabiha said.
“It
is stipulated in the law that local administrations should take the
public’s views into consideration,” Nabiha said. “And good development
can be achieved without harming the forest,” she added.
Meanwhile,
the Association for Community and Ecology-Based Law Reform (Huma)
program coordinator Anggalia Putri said the moratorium was the nation’s
last hope to halt further deforestation.
Presidential
Instruction No. 10/2011 authorizing the moratorium was issued after
Indonesia and Norway signed a US$1 billion deal to help Indonesia reduce
greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation.
The
moratorium prohibits the issuance of new licenses for the conversion of
primary forests and peatland in both protected forest and productive
forest.
Anggalia
said that should the ministry approve the new Aceh spatial planning
bylaw, the protected forests downgraded to non-forest areas could not be
saved by the moratorium, however the moratorium would prevent further
damage to the country’s forests.
“The
local administration should have considered the moratorium. However the
presidential instruction is not legally binding as it is only an
internal policy,” he said.
In
August last year, the ministry issued Ministerial Decree No. 458/2012
under which around 800,000 hectares of forest in Papua, including
protected forest, would be converted into productive forest and other
utilization areas.