Government to rehabilitate 17 catchment areas across Indonesia

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government has decided to rehabilitate 17 catchment areas over the next five years following the launching of a reforestation program for three million hectares of degraded land at a total cost of Rp 15 trillion (US$1.6 billion).

Director for Catchment Areas Management and Rehabilitation at the Ministry of Forestry Nyoman Yuliarsana said on Thursday that the ministry wanted to rehabilitate the 17 catchment areas due to their critical condition.

"After the reforestation program was launched recently, we decided to carry out the program in 17 catchment areas using the current reforestation fund," he announced.

The government has said it would carry out the reforestation program on 600,000 hectares this year at a cost of Rp 3 trillion.

Nyoman said that six catchment areas to be rehabilitated are situated in Java, including catchment areas near the Citarum River, near the Ciliwung River, Cisadane River (West Java) and near the Brantas River (East Java).

Sulawesi has three catchment areas to be rejuvenated: Saddang, Jeneberang Klara and Billa catchment areas (South Sulawesi), while the remaining catchment areas are in Sumatra.

Nyoman said the government would distribute Rp 3 trillion in reforestation funds this year to relevant local governments and local civil groups to plant trees.

"The rehabilitation might take place upstream of catchment areas," he said.

Afterward, the government will also involve state-owned firms in running the program by providing loans from the reforestation fund, he said.

Nyoman said the government had initially intended to rehabilitate nine million hectares of degraded land, but the plan was dropped due to financial restraints.

He said that the Ministry of Forestry would coordinate with the Ministry of Resettlement and Regional Infrastructure to carry out the reforestation program.

The reforestation program is imperative to restore the country's forests, of which two million hectares per year are denuded.

The government has estimated that over 50 million hectares of the country's 120 million hectares of forests are in critical condition.

Many natural disasters have hit the country because of forest destruction, claiming hundreds of lives and trillions of rupiah in material losses.

However, Forest Watch Indonesia has warned the government that the reforestation program was prone to corruption ahead of the 2004 general election.

Togu Manurung said the program should be made transparent to the public through the media or a website in order to avoid abuse.

The government should also involve the general public in monitoring the implementation of the program, he added.