Antara News, Jakarta Globe
Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan said his ministry remains committed to keeping Papua`s primary forest regions intact and not letting them be exploited by forest concession holders, through no-expansion policy.
He said there had been requests for opening the forest regions in Papua for non-forestry activities but the government was resolved to keep intact the 7.3 million hectares of primary forests in the province. There has also been a proposal for the appropriation of 1.3 million hectare of forest area for the development of the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) in Papua but the government has approved for only 600,000 hectares. This project is supported to enhance the food resilience programme, in accordance with the economic development corridor as directed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
While other 19 proposals on the forest exploitation have withdrawn theirselves after having been given explanation that such activities could not be carried out in primary forest or peat land areas. Hasan proposed that such activities to be implemented on logged over areas, as there are still at least 40,000 hectares (logged over areas) which can be utilized for supporting the sugar self-sufficiency program, palm oil plantation etc.
Apart from business point of view, the existance of forest and its richness can be seen as natural capital, which is natural resources to be used for human-wellbeing. Pakvan Sukdev, head of the UN Green Economy Initiative said in the Business for the Environment (B4E) summit in Jakarta, 27-29 April 2011, that one of the real keys to poverty alleviation was to ensure that the poor benefited just as much as the rich from a country’s natural resources. Govt should make sure that what the poor get from the nature, which is free, doesn’t stop, which means they’re able to have access to the forests or to harvest timber or to get fuel for their cooking or to get the benefits of water and soil from the forests. Managing these resources better would also help create much-needed jobs, Sukhdev said, and the whole idea is to improve the lives of the poor, not just to improve the profits of the rich.
Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta, speaking at the same event, agreed that better management of natural resources, or the green economy, was necessary for the full attainment of sustainable development. “In this regard, Indonesia has adopted the green economy concept into its long-term national development plan for 2005-2025, which includes the goal of ‘green and everlasting Indonesia’,” he said.
