Government to maintain forest concession limit

Government to maintain forest concession limit

JAKARTA (JP): The government will maintain the regulation on a
limitation on forest concession rights, even though the newly
approved forestry law does not explicitly stipulate the
restriction.

Minister of Forestry and Plantations Muslimin Nasution said on
Friday the new law covered the general aspect of forest
concessions and that further details would be stipulated in the
government regulation.

He said the existing regulation on the limits of forest
concession ownership was still relevant, even though it was
issued before the new law was enacted.

"The government regulation No. 6/1999 is still valid as the
operational guidelines for the law," he said, in a reference to
the regulation on the limitation of forest concession areas.

Executives from several timber companies have said that with
the new law, the regulation should be made invalid.

The forestry law, which was agreed by the House of
Representatives last week did not specifically provide guidelines
for the granting of concession rights, which was addressed in the
regulation issued in February.

Under the regulation, a concessionaire can manage a maximum
100,000 hectares of forest in a province. A concessionaire is
allowed to hold concession rights in different provinces, but
their combined size cannot exceed 400,000 hectares.

Director General of Forest Utilization Waskito Suryodibroto
acknowledged on Thursday that the regulation was too rigid for
many timber companies. He said that such ownership ceilings made
for costly operations.

He said that to ease such difficulties, his office would
revise some contents of the regulation.

"But no substantial changes will be made in the revision," he
said. (01)