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)