Jakarta, Ekuatorial – After mounting demands from green activists, Indonesia’s Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya said on Monday (27/4) announced that forest moratorium will be extended until 2017.
Forest moratorium which bans issuing new permits on natural forests and peatlands, was announced back in 2011, under presidential instruction. It was extended for another two years which will be expired in May 13, 2015.
“Moratorium will be continued until 2017, starting from 2015. So, moratorium will continue,” said Nurbaya adding that it was already decided at the meeting with Coordinating Ministry for Economics.
Furthermore, she said initially the moratorium, which will be regulated under presidential instruction, was to be titled ‘tropical landscape management and peatland.
“But, the dictum will be mentioning about primary natural forest and peatland,” she said.
She admitted that she was considering applying the moratorium on all landscapes without time limit but finding difficulties.
“So, we decide to implement in two years while we’re collecting the whole materials for proper landscape management,” she said adding that they would also consider on inputs to include secondary forest into the moratorium.
However, Bustar Maitar, global head, Indonesia forest campaign, Greenpeace International, argued that if the substance of the presidential instruction remains the same, then moratorium will have no effect.
“If it’s only business as usual moratorium, then it’s not changing anything,” said Maitar at the sideline of The 2015 Tropical Landscapes Summit, held in Jakarta.
Furthermore, he said that moratorium regulation needed to be strengthen by also including 30 million hectares of secondary forests.
Second, he said, conduct review on all overlapping permits from all sectors, from central government and regional government.
“Because, there’s usually a gap in regulation and there’s no sanction,” he said. “So, it needs to be implemented nationally and not half-heatedly.”
The third, he said, was to review on existing concession. “If it’s still intact forest, then it should be protected. But, if it [the permit] is obtained illegally then there should be legal action,” he said adding that moratorium should not be limited by time but based on performance. Fidelis E. Satriastanti