Indonesia forests still dwindle despite reforms
WASHINGTON, USA — At home and abroad, Indonesia is highlighting its progress in curbing the environmental destruction that has depleted forests and made the Southeast Asian nation a leading source of greenhouse gases. But environmentalists are unconvinced.
They say pulp and palm oil plantations are still expanding at an alarming rate in Sumatran forests, despite efforts by the government and industry. That expansion has contributed to climate change and threatens endangered tigers and orangutans.
More than 80 per cent of Indonesia’s emissions are due to clearing of what is the world’s third-largest area of rainforest, after Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo. About half of Indonesia’s rainforest has already been destroyed.
Greenpeace, which has conducted extensive research on deforestation in Indonesia, says government maps show the country lost 4,790 square miles (12,400 square kilometres) of forest between 2009 and 2011. The main cause, accounting for about a quarter of lost forest, was for production of palm oil, which is used as food and as biofuel. Carbon-rich peatlands being cleared for plantations must be drained first. That releases vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has committed to cutting greenhouse emissions by 26 per cent by 2020. His government in 2011 declared a moratorium on new concessions in primary forest in a US$1 billion deal with Norway. The moratorium was extended this May for two years. Environmentalists say that doesn’t go far enough because it doesn’t cover existing concessions.
The US government reported in June that Indonesia’s palm oil industry has enough land that the nation’s authorities have said can be developed for agricultural use to continue its current rapid rate of plantation expansion for at least 10 years.
Indonesia is a nation of 250 million people scattered across hundreds of islands that would be vulnerable to climate change from rising sea levels. But it’s also a big contributor to the global problem, being among the largest emitters of greenhouse gases after China and the United States.