Environment Minister Backs Carbon Trading Collaboration with Village Cooperatives

Environment Minister Muhammad Jumhur Hidayat supports carbon trading collaboration with President Prabowo Subianto’s priority programme, the Red and White Village Cooperatives (KDMP). According to him, KDMP will manage various economic activities, so the movement can be seen as a people’s revolution in the economic field, because revolution does not always mean a movement carried out from outside the system, but can be carried out by anyone who encourages a change in the direction of community development to be more in line with the constitutional mandate. “In carbon trading, to build a high-integrity carbon market, it can only be realised if the proceeds from the sale of carbon units or benefit sharing are truly felt by the community, especially local communities that are part of the carbon management area,” he said at the Signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Cooperatives and the Ministry of Environment on the Synergy of Task Implementation and Functions in the Field of Cooperative-Based Environmental Protection and Management in Jakarta on Thursday. He stressed that local communities involved in these economic and trading activities need to have a legal entity to conduct business legally. In this context, cooperatives are considered an instrument that can accommodate the community. “The economic value of carbon trading in Indonesia is very large, it can even reach tens of thousands of trillion rupiah from Sabang to Merauke. Therefore, collaboration between the environmental and cooperative sectors is very important so that this economic potential can be managed and the benefits felt by the community,” he said. The Ministry of Environment, he continued, supports this movement because it is in line with efforts to ensure a development reorientation that favours the people. Collaboration with cooperatives is needed in various environmental issues, including waste management and carbon trading.