Indonesia to Continue The Moratorium of Primary and Peat Forest Conversion

Jakarta, Indonesia, Apr 13, 2013 – (ACN Newswire) – The Minister of Forestry, Zulkifli Hasan, once again asserted the commitment of Indonesia to ensure the implementation of the moratorium of primary natural and peat forest conversion in the ministerial level conference’s 10th United Nations Forum on Forest (UNFF) held in Istanbul, Turkey, on April 8-9, 2013. The conference inaugurated by the Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was attended by 250 ministers from 197 delegates.

On that occasion, the Forestry Minister, conveyed that the new moratorium clearance of the primary and peat forest and the Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) can be conducted in parallel with an average economic growth of 6.3%, just like Indonesia has experienced in the period of 2009-2013. In addition to the moratorium of primary and peat forest conversion, The minister also underlined that Indonesia will undertake the forest conservation and protection act, such as the law enforcement, forest utilization access for the communities living around the forest area through the establishment of Smallholder Plantations, community forestry, village forests and funding access through the periodic loan fund, the partnership of community forestry development and the forest and land rehab by the application of 1 billion-tree planting, Forest Control Area establishment and Foresters’ Rights. The ecosystem restoration has successfully reduced the deforestation level, from an average of 3.5 million hectares (1999-2002 period) into 450 hectares in 2010-2011 period.

In the 10th UNFF, the forestry funding issue became the headlining issue, especially, the implementation of the developed countries’ commitments that are hindered by the UE’s and United States’ financial crisis. UNFF was established by the ECOSOC in 2000 as the feedback of the 2007’s Non Legally Binding Instrument agreement for all of the world’s forests. In the UN’s General Assembly, UN’s ECOSOC assigned UNFF to call for all the state members to politically commit to show their actions to the Sustainable Forest Management, the increase of the forestry contribution in order to meet the international objectives, such as MDGs, the climate change, and the global warming.

Additionally, the forestry minister also met the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of United States to discuss the strategic issues between Indonesia-United States. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, April 9, 2013, the minister met WRI’s Nigel Sizer at the launching of Global Forest Watch, where all of the world’s community can take part in to monitor the entire world’s forest deforestation, conservation, and reforestation. Indonesia, Brazil and Gabon have confirmed to invest in the MRV’s deforestation, including “One Map Indonesia”. This way, there will be forestry’s MRV technology purchasing retrenchment, as well as to provide information sharing among the producers, namely Sinar Mas with Nestle in relation with the deforestation. Also, the market model, like Bloomberg for Forest, uses the acquirable and cheap data (google and space agency) and then, they can share it in the networks or social medias. Global Forest Watch works in partnership with Maryland University, United Nations Environment Programme, Norway Norwegia, etc.

Therefore, after the launching, it’s expected that there will be significant feedback from the local, national, and global community on the land-use change, deforestation, Indonesian selective cutting and planting, Intensive Silviculture, forest conservation and protection in the border areas. This will simplify both related countries to prevent illegal logging activity.

This forum was also attended by the UN ECOSOC’s Under-Secretary-General, Wu Hongbo, the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of USA, Ms. Kerri-Ann Jones, GEF’s Executive Director, Naoko Ishhi and GIS’ Expert, Tim Christophersen.

For further information, please contact:

Ir. Sumarto, MM.
Ministry of Forestry
Republic of Indonesia
Tel: +62 21 573 0118-9
Email: pusinfo@dephut.go.id
Email: sumarto@gedepangrango.org