Govt stops issuing plantation licenses

Govt stops issuing plantation licenses

JAKARTA (JP): The government has stopped issuing new licenses
to open up forests for plantation estates as most investors have
neglected the projects.

Minister of Forestry and Plantations Muslimin Nasution said on
Friday that only 1.4 million hectares (16.5 percent) had been
realized from the nine million hectares of forests licensed for
plantation estates since early 1990.

"Why should we open up more forest areas for plantation
activities while we have seen that the areas are only being
neglected by the plantation companies?" he said in a national
conference on forestry.

Although he did not know why investors had failed to utilize
the areas, he warned he would revoke their licenses if they did
not start their projects within the next year.

"We will announce the names of the delinquent plantation
companies and we will revoke their licenses."

Muslimin pledged to be tougher in the future. If it is
necessary, he said, he would take the delinquent plantation
companies to court for breaching the regulations.

He said lighter penalties of revoking licenses or imposing
fines had so far proved ineffective.

"If they neglected the forest areas given to them it means
that they caused a loss to the government because the areas were
idle and unproductive."

Many oil palm investors have complained that they have not
been able to realize their investment plans to open plantations
due to the complex licensing procedure.

They said they received location permits from the provincial
administration, but they could not start their projects because
they lacked the so-called forest relinquishment permits from the
Ministry of Forestry and Plantations. Both are required under
law.

They urged the government to allow them to work on the
projects on the basis of permits issued by the provincial
administration.

Meanwhile, the ministry's head of its research and development
agency, Toga Silitonga, said separately in Jakarta that the total
oil palm plantation areas in the country should be limited to
three million hectares to avoid a market glut of crude palm oil
(CPO).

"The limitation is needed to prevent an oversupply. Otherwise
the price of CPO will drastically fall due to the oversupply in
the market," he said.

"Besides,if we continue to excessively expand oil palm
plantations, it will lead to a further decline of our forests."

He said that Indonesia currently has 1.6 million hectares of
oil palm plantations, producing 5.9 million tons of CPO a
year. (gis)