Jakarta - Forestry activists have warned of a sharp increase in the national deforestation rate if the government fails to deal with overlapping permits issued for forest concessions and industrial timber forests.
Greenomics Indonesia‘s latest study found about 18.4 million hectares of forest concession areas and production forest had mostly been occupied by plantation and mining companies thanks to permits issued by regents.
"It is an illegal practice. The regents have no right to issue permits for plantation companies to operate or occupy forest concession and industrial areas. Only the Forestry Ministry can do that," Greenomics national coordinator Vanda Mutia Dewi told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
The government has allocated a total of 60.91 million hectares for forest concessions or for production forests.
"With the overlapping permits, illegal occupation of the forest concession areas and industrial forests will contribute more to the national deforestation rate than illegal logging practices," she said.
The Forestry Ministry has to change the status of forest concession areas and industrial forests before licenses can be awarded to plantation firms to dig up the forests, she said.
Greenomics found the overlapping permits occurred mostly in Kalimantan and Sumatra.
"About 80 percent of 18.4 million hectares of concessions and industrial forests has been deforested in Kalimantan and Sumatra. In Kalimantan alone, deforestation has reached 8.16 million hectares," she said.
In Sumatra, more than 6.04 million hectares of production forest have been illegally occupied by other parties, including plantation companies.
"We found that a plantation company operating in East Kalimantan obtained a permit from a regent to occupy an area for which the ministry had issued an industrial production license," she said.
Greenomics also discovered 1.4 million hectares of production forests in West Kalimantan had been turned into plantation areas.
In Riau, about 845,000 hectares of production forests have been illegally occupied and repurposed for plantation and agricultural use.
"Even a forest designated for research, which covers an area equaling 500 soccer fields, has been illegally converted into a plantation," Vanda said.
She urged the government to trace the owners of plantation companies and regents who issued the licenses and bring them to justice. (Adianto P. Simamora)
Source: old.thejakartapost.com (4 Juni 2008)
