Central Sulawesi, which has been chosen as a pilot project for the United Nations REDD plus program, has been very active in ensuring the success of the forest-protection program, a UN official says.

National Programme Director for UN-REDD, Yuyu Rahayu, said Friday that local communities, including forest-dependent indigenous people, particularly in Central Sulawesi, had arranged initiatives related to REDD plus issues, showing an increased awareness of the importance of good management of forests and wise use of forest resources as part of global efforts to fight climate change.

Citing an example, he said the Central Sulawesi governor would establish a REDD plus task force team in 2011, comprising representatives from the local government, civil society organizations and NGOs, and indigenous people.

“It will make Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) of forest carbon as the subject at the center of a future REDD plus mechanism more transparent since all stakeholders will be represented in the task force,” he told The Jakarta Post, adding that the task force would arrange the implementation of UN-REDD activities at province, district, and community levels.

Central Sulawesi was selected as the main pilot province of the UN-REDD Program Indonesia in October last year due to its sizable forests.

Yuyu said that a relentless consultation process involving multi-stakeholders both at national and sub-national levels and facilitated by UN-REDD Indonesia had increased public awareness of the importance of their involvement in REDD plus.

Local NGOs, he said, had developed some activities to prepare for their participation in the implementation of UN-REDD at all levels.

“Local government and NGOs [in Central Sulawesi] are very active in supporting UN-REDD activities,” he said, adding that UN-REDD Indonesia needed to ensure that the benefits of REDD plus could reach the communities in the field.

UN-REDD Indonesia is a collaborative initiative between the Forestry Ministry, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). It assists the implementation of REDD plus projects carried out by the Indonesian government.

Indonesia was chosen as one of the UN-REDD Pilot Countries, along with Bolivia, Congo, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Tanzania, Vietnam and Zambia.

The UN granted US$5.6 million for REDD programs in Indonesia, of which US$2.95 million is managed by the UN-REDD Program Indonesia under the assistance of three UN agencies: FAO, UNEP and UNDP.

Forestry Ministry Secretary-General Hadi Daryanto said the government had made efforts to prevent any negative impact of REDD plus by jointly discussing the free, prior and informed consent of REDD plus projects before implementing any of the projects.

According to The United Nations’ Commission on Human Rights, free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) recognizes the inherent and prior rights of the indigenous people to their land and resources.

Despite achievements, UN-REDD Indonesia activities and projects under UNEP and FAO have been delayed due to different rules and regulations of the two UN agencies.

UN-REDD Indonesia is the first of its kind in terms of a project managed by those three different UN agencies — FAO, UNEP and UNDP — which have different rules and regulations.

Yuyu said the UN-REDD Indonesia project in Central Sulawesi should have been completed in May this year. However, the project has to be extended to May 2012 due to the late start of the project resulting from technical differences among three UN agencies.

FAO, for example, used to provide technical assistance instead of grants, resulting in difficulties in implementing the UN-REDD Indonesia program. Meanwhile, UNEP has experience in arranging proposal-based programs.

Of the US$2.95 million managed by UN-REDD, only $250,000 has been disbursed. (ebf)

UN-REDD Program Participants: Source: UN-REDD Program Indonesia, 2010 JP/Irma

Source: The Jakarta Post

Indonesia missed the Jan. 1, 2011 targeted start of a two-year moratorium on forest-clearing, a major part of the US$1 billion letter of intent (LoI) it signed with Norway in Oslo last May.

Activists say the delay will cause legal uncertainty for businesses, in addition to more damage to the environment and to Indonesia’s already bad environmental image in the international community.

“Missing the targeted Jan. 1 start of the moratorium creates a bad perception of Indonesia’s stance on environmental issues at an international level because the President himself made that commitment,” leader for the non-governmental organization (NGO) Greenpeace Southeast Asia forest team Bustar Maitar said on Wednesday.

“It also gives industries one legal uncertainty after another in doing businesses here.”

Bustar said the Norwegian government, after pledging to give Indonesia US$1 billion in aid, might question the Indonesian government’s commitment to the matter because of the delay.

He said the key points of the LoI were that Indonesia carried out a moratorium on land-clearing and chose a province for a pilot project under the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) program in the country.

President Susilo Bambang Yu-dhoyono announced on Dec. 30, 2010 that Central Kalimantan would host the REDD+ pilot project. The announcement also came late, its deadline set for October 2010.

Although Central Kalimantan will receive full support for the project, other forested provinces — Aceh, Jambi, Riau, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, Papua and West Papua — will be provided with technical support for additional projects.

Echoing Bustar, Elfian Effendi, executive director of Greenomics — an NGO focused on forestry and mining — said legal uncertainties extended to the international spheres of businesses, environment and bureaucracy due the delay.

“Legal uncertainty is occurring in all sectors, including in the bureaucracy, because there’s still a disagreement among government institutions,” Elfian said.

The Forestry Ministry has proposed that the President only ban new permits to clear primary forests and peatlands for two years, while the Presidential Work Unit for Development and Control wants the ban to include secondary forests, review existing permits and consider extending the time frame, Reuters reported.

Primary forests are untouched while secondary forests have been selectively logged, though boundaries are often unclear and illegal logging is rampant in one of Asia’s most corrupt countries. Forests soak up the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, the Reuters report added.

The President’s special assistant on climate change and chairman of the National Climate Change
Board, Agus Purnomo, admitted the delay.

“But there is nothing crucial about it. It’s only a matter of definitions and formulation,” he said, adding it would soon be completed but no exact deadline had been set.

Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa has claimed how the LoI silver-lined the entire UN climate change debate in Cancun, Mexico, recently.

“The LoI with Norway was a groundbreaking effort on our part to present ourselves as part of the solution. If it’s properly packaged and presented … if we can be part of the solution, we can really make a huge impact on climate,” he said. (By Mustaqim Adamrah)

Source: The Jakarta Post

Some rights for the image is reserved under Creative Commons license

A coalition of activists rallied to convince the government that the forestry license moratorium would not hamper investments but instead give legal certainty to investors doing business in the forest sector.

The call came after the delay in implementing the promised moratorium on the conversion of natural forests and peatland areas, following a carbon-offset agreement with Norway.

“The moratorium should be the time to restructure our forest policy,” Alliance of Archipelagic Indigenous People (AMAN) secretary-general Abdon Nababan said.

He added that the moratorium offered an opportunity to resolve long-standing forest problems regarding tenure rights, forest boundaries and overlapping permits, in order to reduce forestry conflicts.

“Good businesspeople would benefit because it would provide legal certainty once the moratorium was implemented,” he said.

NGOs said the break would give the government, businesses and the forest communities time regroup and start managing forests with a clean slate.

The joint call came from groups such as the Indonesian Environmental Forum (Walhi), Greenpeace, the Civil Society Forum on Climate Change (CSF), the Association for Community and Ecology-Based Law Reform (Huma) and Sawit Watch.

They called on the government to shift focus from the monetary incentive offered by Norway, which had pledged US$1 billion for the moratorium.

“The forest moratorium should not be about Norwegian money. It should aim to fix forest management for the sake of Indonesia,” said Georgio Indarto of the CSF.

The moratorium remained in limbo because of an absence of legal basis. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was expected to issue a presidential instruction to legalize the moratorium.

Currently, there are three drafts of presidential instructions proposed by the Forestry Ministry and the presidential taskforce on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).

The ministry says the moratorium should only apply to primary forests and peatlands, while the taskforce wants to stop the issuing of new licenses for all natural forests — both primary and secondary — and peatlands as stipulated under letter of intent between Indonesia and Norway.

“There would be no changes if the moratorium would only be for primary forests. Even without the moratorium, primary forests have been declared as protected areas,” said Bernadinus Steni, the program coordinator for climate change and REDD at Huma.

He warned that the delay would tarnish the government’s image in the international arena on climate change affairs. (By Adianto P. Simamora)

Source: The Jakarta Post

Despite repeated setbacks for a long-awaited moratorium on new forestry concessions, the Forestry Ministry is still arguing over the details of the plan. 

Hadi Daryanto, the ministry’s director general of forestry management, insisted on Tuesday that it should be in charge of implementing the freeze. 

“The Forestry Ministry will be most effective because the ministry has the authority over forest lands, whether they are for mining activities or for plantations,” he said. “If there are others involved, then it would only create more red tape.” 

Hadi said the minister of forestry and district heads were responsible for granting permits, while governors could only give recommendations. 

The two-year moratorium on new concessions in peat lands and primary forests was agreed to by Indonesia as part of a $1 billion deal with Norway. The funding was meant for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD-Plus) schemes, which had initially been scheduled to begin on Jan. 1. 

But President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has yet to issue an instruction on the moratorium and at least two substantially different drafts of the moratorium exist, one prepared by the Forestry Ministry and the other by the national REDD-Plus task force. 

The task force’s draft text was more specific about the types of permits that would no longer be issued, including those for logging, land lease, plantations and mining. 

The Forestry Ministry’s draft, by contrast, only states that the moratorium applies to “new conversion permits for primary forests and peat lands for two years, starting Jan. 1, 2011, to Dec. 31, 2012.” 

The task force’s draft also details specific instructions for the ministries of forestry and energy and mineral resources, National Land Agency (BPN), National REDD Agency, governors and district heads to cease granting permits related to the management of primary and secondary forests. 

The Forestry Ministry’s version only issues this instruction to the Home Affairs Ministry, governors and district heads. 

Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan, meanwhile, said there were still plenty of drafts regarding the moratorium and they were all up for discussion. “The drafts are still being discussed at the Coordinating Ministry for the Economy,” he said. “I have already said that there was a January 1, 2011, deadline, but, as we are still discussing it, I don’t know when it will be issued. I am still hoping that it will be this month.” 

Commenting on the competing drafts, Hadi, who is also a member of the task force, said there were few differences because the task force’s draft was derived from the ministry’s. 

“There are no differences between them, the task force only added their input to our draft, including to add the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources and National Land Agency into the presidential instruction,” he said, adding that he did not know if the task force’s draft had already been submitted to the president. 

The next stage in the process is for the drafts on the moratorium to be discussed at the cabinet level. (By Fidelis E. Satriastanti )

Source: The Jakarta Globe