Government to rehabilitate 17 catchment areas across Indonesia
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.