The ongoing emissions cuts under the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) scheme are unlikely to disrupt Indonesia’s efforts to reach its economic growth target of between 7 and 7.7 percent by 2014, a senior official says.
The statement came amid protests from businesspeople claiming the scheme could hurt them.
Forestry Ministry secretary-general Hadi Daryanto said Wednesday that the government was reducing emissions by using proper principles of sustainable forest management.
He said such management would provide not only wider employment opportunities but also higher emissions reductions. “We have arranged many strategies to implement REDD which will not affect our economic growth negatively,” he said on the sidelines of a discussion on REDD implementation.
The ministry, he said, was carrying out several conservation programs, including zero burning of peatland from land clearing, the development of new oil-palm plantations on degraded lands only and the implementation of a reduced-impact logging program for companies with forest concessions.
The Forestry Ministry says 304 companies hold concessions on 25 million hectares of forest land.
Hadi said his ministry had calculated potential emission cuts from sustainable forestry management and reached an optimistic conclusion. In 2005, the National Council for Climate Change said Indonesia’s total emissions were 2.1 giga tons of CO2 equivalent (GtCO2e).
Only from reduced-impact logging Indonesia could reduce 43.5 GtCO2e by 2020 at a cost as low as US$1.1 per ton.
He said that, for example, the development of 500,000 hectares per year of industrial plantation forests (HTI) on degraded lands would reduce emissions up to 20.42 GtCO2e by 2020 at a cost of only US 50 cents per ton.
“The use of idle lands for industrial plantation forests and oil-palm plantations using 40 million hectares of lands by 2020 will significantly contribute not only to the sustainability of food and renewable energy but also to the lowering of emissions by up to 29.28 GtCO2e at a cost of $5.5 per tons,” Hadi said.
REDD, agreed in the Bali Conference on Climate Change in 2007, is targeted to reduce forestry sector greenhouse gas emissions by at least 14 percent out of a national commitment of 26 percent by 2020.
“We have been hampered by massive deforestation. This is not only reducing natural resource stocks but also increasing greenhouse gas emissions, badly affecting climate change,” said National Development Planning deputy minister Lukita Dinarsyah Tuwo.
He said REDD provided opportunities for Indonesia to access emission reduction incentives without penalizing developmental interests.
