Govt to delegate forest management

JAKARTA (JP): The government is to issue a decree later this year on the delegation of forest supervision from the central government to local administrations.

"The decree will be made to promote the preservation of our forests," Minister of Forestry Djamaludin Suryohadikusumo said yesterday.

Under the current regulation, the supervision of forest management, including the issuance of forest utilization licenses, is held by the central government.

The planned decree, he said, will transfer most aspects of forest supervision to local administrations, leaving the central government only handling a small number of national-scale forestry affairs.

He did not elaborate on the national-scale forestry affairs.

The planned decree will give local administrations responsibility over forest protection and the rights to issue licenses for the use of non-wood forest production.

"With the current regulation, local authorities always say it is not them but the central authorities which are responsible for forest destruction in their areas. With the planned decree, they will not be able to say so again," the minister said.

In line with the issuance of the planned decree, Djamaludin said the government will try to harmonize the Master Plan for Forestry Areas with the Forest Landuse by Consensus scheme to prevent overlapping occurring.

The Master Plan for Forestry Areas, which is issued by regency administrations, often overlaps with the Forest Landuse by Consensus scheme, which is issued by the Ministry of Forestry to forest concessionaires.

If both projects are harmonized, he said, the Forest Landuse document will clearly set lines between state forests and the non-state forests, which may be utilized by local authorities.

In a situation where a non-state forest is still under the control of a concessionaire at the issuance date of the planned decree, the concessionaire should negotiate with the regency administration on the continuing use of the land.

"There are two possible outcomes to such negotiations. The regency administration may wait for the (concessionaire's) license to expire or the concessionaire could make a new investment in the forest, by, for instance, changing it into a plantation," said the minister. (jsk)