VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya explained about the reform of environmental and forestry governance in Indonesia in a virtual meeting forum between the Environment Ministers of the G20 countries.

Siti said that Indonesia is armed with three strengths in developing the environment and forestry, namely moral, intellectual, and financial strengths.

"Moral strength is the embodiment of the constitutional mandate, intellectual strength is obtained from various technical cooperation in environmental and forestry management with the international community, and funding strength is obtained from national priorities in the allocation of funding sources and from cooperation with other countries," she said in a written statement received in Jakarta on Wednesday,

On this occasion, Siti said one of President Joko Widodo's vision is providing a good environment for the people. She also added that since 2011, the government has implemented a moratorium on issuing new permits, and has now stopped new permits for the use of primary natural forests and peatlands. 

The government has also taken corrective action to reduce the rate of deforestation and continues to strive to improve forest landscape restoration, accelerate social forestry programs, and increase the effectiveness of conservation management.

Siti said the role of the businesses in land rehabilitation had also been increased. A land area of ​​102,000 hectares (ha) has been planted with the participation of the business permit holders. From the state budget funds, 100,000 to 200,000 hectares are planted per year. 

The mangrove forest area also does not escape the rehabilitation program. The government is targetting to rehabilitate 637,000 ha of critical mangrove areas out of 3.3 million ha of mangrove forests in Indonesia, which has started in 2020.

The Indonesian government is very serious about promoting habitat sustainability and biodiversity by developing corridors connecting fragmented habitats.

Since 2018, the government has evaluated all oil palm plantation concessions and company licenses. They identified that 1.34 million ha of land in the concession could be retained as High Conservation Value Forest (HCVF).

The Indonesian government is also consistent in applying Strategic Environmental Assessment and Environmental Impact Analysis in significant land-use plans such as food storage development.

She said that conservation areas that have been recognized as World Heritage Sites, Ramsar, and others are also being maintained.

They also improve best practices from the results of field research, educational forests, and community forests in Indonesia. (Antaranews)