Civil society demands meaningful logging moratorium in Indonesia

Last week a group of Indonesian-based NGOs put out a press release about the proposed two-year logging moratorium that should have started at the beginning of this year as part of the US$1 billion Indonesia-Norway REDD deal. The NGOs support the moratorium, but only if it is to be meaningful.

In order for the moratorium to be legally binding, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono must sign a decree. Currently there are three draft decrees under consideration (available here, in Indonesian). Two drafts, written by the Ministry of Forestry and Ministry of Economics apply only to primary forests – in which case the “moratorium” would apply only to a small area of Indonesia’s forests, which are in any case largely already protected.

In response to news that the process has been influenced by business lobbying, the NGOs demand that the moratorium “be freed from the intervention and pressure of business, politics and corporations.” They are also calling for a review of all forest concessions: “100% of the issued permits of forestry business and forestry-related sectors”.

The press release is posted below, in English and is available in Indonesian here.

Press Release January, 14, 2010

Civil Society Supports Forest Moratorium

We from several Indonesian civil society organizations and networks give high appreciation to and support the efforts of the Government of Indonesia (REDD+ Task Force) in striving for the preservation and sustainability of forest ecosystem through the formulation of natural forest and peatlands moratorium policy. Nevertheless, we feel that there are several fundamental notes in the policy draft that we need to respond to so that the suspension will really be meaningful for the sustainability of Indonesian Forests and sustain the livelihoods of many million people living and staying inside the forest area.

The Scope of Moratorium

The existing moratorium policy draft only includes a moratorium of primary forests conversion and still allows for the issuance of permit in less-than-3-meters peatlands. The civil society views that the scope of the moratorium should include natural forests and peatlands. The terms primary and secondary forest mentioned in the moratorium policy draft have no clear legal basis so that they should be considered illegal. Meanwhile, the term natural forest has been mentioned in the explanation of Forestry Act par. 11 (eleven), which states that:

. . . To maintain the quality of environment, in the utilization of forest, it should be avoided, as far as possible, the conversion of the still productive natural forests into planted forests . . .

It is only by listing the natural forest will Indonesia be able to go beyond the Business As Usual (BAU). According to the 2002 data of Department of Forestry, the size of Indonesian forest area is 133. 229 million hectares. From the total size, the forest area has been fully divided into protected, conservation, and production forest allocations. Protected forest allocation is 30.060 million hectares. Conservation forest allocation (KSA/KPA) is 19.371 million hectares. Production forest (HP/HPT/HPK) allocation is 83.798 million hectares.¹

Meanwhile, the exclusion of business from the moratorium based on the 3 meter calculation as mentioned in the Presidential Decision Directives (Keppres) No. 32 year 1990 is no longer valid and not based on scientific truth.²

Phases of Moratorium

Activities that should be carried out in the first two years of permit suspension:

1. Drawing a basic map as a reference for the permit suspension that accommodates the interests of all parties, including a participative map already drawn by several civil society networks;³

2. Suspending permits of logging and release of area for natural forest conversion;

3. Formulating a supportive mechanism and institution conducting a permit review. The institution should be placed outside the existing sector or Ministry (in the form of a separate institution).

4. Formulating and publishing a blueprint of Indonesian forest industry restructurization and forest institution reform that must be conducted before the moratorium comes to an end.

5. Formulating and publishing to public a report on the activity of the permit and conversion suspension every 6 (six) months and allowing the public to give a feedback.

6. Establishing an independent monitoring of the permit and conversion implementation process.

7. All of the above activities must be completed in the first two years of the moratorium.

8. The time period of the permit and forest conversion suspension activity will stop when all of the above activities have been entirely conducted and will deliver the following outputs:
   

   a. Deforestation rate will have been reduced by 50% from the official deforestation figure, which is published by the Ministry of Forestry (1.17 million hectares/year).
   
   b. Review of the entire existing permits (100% of the issued permits) of forestry business and forestry-related sectors will have been conducted.
   
   c. Law enforcement on the permits found problematic based on the review results will reach 50%.
   
   d. The blueprint of forest industry restructurization and forest institution reform will have been realized at least 50% from the total revamping plan mentioned in the blueprint.

For a better future of Indonesian forest and the protection of the rights of indigenous and local peoples, we demand that this moratorium be freed from the intervention and pressure of business, politics, and corporation.

1. KSA/KPA: Kawasan Suaka Alam (Nature Conservation Area)/Kawasan Perlindungan Alam (Nature Protection Area). HP: Hutan Produksi (Production Forest). HPT: Hutan Produksi Terbatas (Limited Production Forest). HPK: Hutan Produksi Konversi (Conversion Production Forest).

2. See, Suwindo.H Limin “Pemanfaatan Lahan Gambut Untuk Pertanian, Tepatkah?”, an input for workshop on peatlands, November, 22, 2006.

3. Greenpeace and FWI independent mapping can be accessed at http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/files/maps/indonesia/index.htm, the map resulted from the independent mapping of Consortium of Community-Based Forest Management System can be accesed at www.sirg.kpshk.org.