Jakarta, Ekuatorial – Indonesia’s one map policy was still not sufficient to cover the country’s vast peatland, said experts on Thursday (23/10), in Jakarta.
“[The] One Map [policy] is made only to map out peat distribution in the country, but not its hydrological unit,” said Azwar Maas, peatland expert at the Gajah Mada University of Yogyakarta, in a discussion on government regulation on peatland.
The One Map policy, initiated during President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono administration, was set up as part of Indonesia’s agreement with Norway on forest protection, dubbed as REDD+ (Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).
On its early development, it was aimed to produce a map showing primary forest and peat areas banned for new permits issuance. Later, it has become a national effort involving ministries and institutions with the goal to have an integrated map to solve land conflicts in the country.
Even with the scale of 1 : 50000, Maas argued that it would not bring sufficient data to depict peat hydrological unit which depicted peat ecosystem between two rivers, between river and ocean, or between swamps. “So, to protect peatland you need to protect its hydrological unit,” he said,
Furthermore, he said that the map needed to have a larger scale compare to One Map policy. “If you want to be accurate then you’ll need to have a map with 1 : 2000 which would show one meter contour line,” he said adding that the 1 : 50000 scale would resulted to 25 meters contour line.
Irwansyah Reza Lubis of Wetlands International, agreed for a more detailed map for peatland. “The One Map [policy] is more suitable for land use planning, not for micro delineation, more over for on-site management which requires more detailed data,” said Lubis.
He cited that measuring peat dome in the field can no longer using meter but centimeter as its measurement. “If it’s a bigger scale then it will not be accurate. You’ll have to have a smaller scale for peatland management in the future,” he said.
Second, he underlined on more sample points taken from more areas to get accurate data. Januar Hakam.
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