Govt to lose Rp 237.8t on planned plantation
Govt to lose Rp 237.8t on planned plantation
Anissa S. Febrina, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
Apart from potential losses due to environmental destruction, the
planned 1.8 million hectares of oil palm plantations in
Kalimantan will cause the state financial losses of Rp 237.8
trillion (US$23.69 billion), an environmental group warns.
A study by non-governmental organization Greenomics shows that
the economic value of timber from both natural and production
forests in the area amounts to Rp 212.9 trillion and Rp 24.8
trillion, respectively.
The NGO implied that there might be an "additional economical
motive" in the plan -- in the form of timber acquired during land
clearance -- aside from yields from investments made on the
planned plantation.
The analysis came from estimating the economic value of more
than 16.9 million cubic meters of timber with a diameter of 50
centimeters and some 37.6 million m3 of 20-cm-diameter logs found
in production forests.
The estimation also took into account 115 million m3 of 50-cm-
diameter logs as well as 403 million m3 of 20-cm-diameter logs in
natural forests.
"Investors will be the ones to benefit from the clearance of
the forests, which is to make way for the plantations,"
Greenomics executive director Elfian Effendi said on Wednesday.
According to documents from the consortium of state-owned
plantation companies PT Perkebunan Nusantara No. I to XIV
obtained by Greenomics, the government plans to set up a 1.8
million hectare oil palm plantation along the border of
Kalimantan and Malaysia. The project was among those offered to
Chinese investors during President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's
visit to China in July.
One million hectares of the plantation will be funded by China
and is located in West Kalimantan, while the remaining 800,000
hectares are in East Kalimantan.
The total area of the plantations will be worth some $8
billion in investment.
Greenomics earlier estimated the long-term potential losses at
about Rp 27 trillion annually due to environmental degradation.
"We recommend only the clearance of some 23,716 hectares of
production forest but none of the natural forest," Elfian said,
adding that revitalizing abandoned land could be an alternative.
Of the 2.3 million hectares of plantation areas in West
Kalimantan at present, some 1.5 million hectares have been
abandoned.
"We hope that the Ministry of Forestry remains consistent with
its stance of not allowing the conversion of natural forest," he
added.
A letter from Minister of Forestry M.S. Kaban addressed to the
Ministry of Agriculture dated Aug. 16 states that clearance of
natural forests to make way for oil palm plantations would
violate Law No. 5/1990 on natural resources and ecosystem
conservation.
"We do not want another precedent, similar to the government's
policy to allow open mining in conservation areas, to happen
again," Elfian said.