Govt to launch reforestation program
Govt to launch reforestation program
Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government plans to launch an ambitious reforestation program
on three million hectares of degraded land on Java, Sumatra and
Sulawesi islands between 2003 and 2008 with total cost of Rp 15
trillion (US$1.6 billion).
State Minister of Environment Nabiel Makarim said the
government would start the reforestation program on 600,000
hectares of land this year at a cost of Rp 3 trillion.
"We will do the program in cooperation with regional
administrations and local people living in surrounding forests,"
Nabiel said Tuesday.
The government would plant various kinds of trees, including
fruit trees, to benefit local people, he said.
He did not elaborate on where the money for the program would
be sourced.
A number of floods and landslides, caused by rampant
deforestation, among other factors, have hit many parts of the
archipelago, claiming hundreds of lives and trillions of rupiah
of material losses.
Nabiel said about 136 people had died in 133 natural
disasters, including floods and landslides, between January and
February this year alone.
The deforestation rate has reportedly reached 2 million
hectares annually.
The Ministry of Forestry said earlier that forest destruction
had reached 54 million hectares or almost half of the country's
total forests of 120 million hectares.
In a bid to arrest further destruction, the government is also
planning to issue regulations on spatial planning for Indonesia's
main islands to help maintain green areas.
Nabiel said that besides the reforestation program, the
government would also enforce the existing laws to protect the
forests, especially the environment law to curb illegal logging.
"We will earmark billions of rupiah to enforce the law, like a
plan to appoint 34 special judges to handle environmental law
violations," he said.
Separately, Karliansyah, an assistant deputy to the state
minister of environment, said environmental destruction also
occurred in projects completed with environmental impact
assessment (Amdal) studies.
He said his office had evaluated 33 Amdal studies -- out of
more than 7,000 Amdal studies -- and found out that 80 percent of
those evaluated should not have been approved.
"Those Amdal studies were so poor. So, imagine the impact of
those approvals," he said.
He blamed various ministries which approved the studies.
Until 1999, the studies were carried out by Amdal institutions
in various ministries and approved by relevant ministries.
Afterward, they were conducted by independent consultants and
approved by the Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bapedal)
or its provincial branches (Bapedalda).
Then, Bapedal was merged into the office of the state minister
of the environment.