Indonesia’s much-hyped promise to enact a moratorium on new logging concessions from Jan. 1 has been held up over the question of which of the two draft presidential decrees on the issue should be signed.
The two-year moratorium on new concessions in peatland and primary forests is part of a bilateral deal with Norway, in exchange for which Indonesia will receive $1 billion in funding for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD-Plus) schemes.
In order to make the moratorium legally binding, it must be backed by a presidential decree. However, the government has drafted two substantially different texts.
The version submitted by the Ministry of Forestry is titled “Suspension of New Permits for Primary Forest and Peatland Conversion.”
Another draft was later penned by the national REDD-Plus task force. It is titled “Suspension of Services and Issuance of New Permits for Primary and Secondary Forests and Peatland in Forest Areas and Other Uses Areas.”
Copies of both drafts were obtained by the Jakarta Globe. The REDD-Plus task force’s draft text was more specific about which kinds of permits would no longer be issued. Such permits included those for logging, plantations and mining.
The Ministry of Forestry draft, by contrast, only states that the moratorium applies to “new conversion permits for primary forests and peatland for two years, starting Jan. 1, 2011, to Dec. 31, 2012.”
The task force draft also gives specific instructions to the Forestry Ministry, the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, the National Land Agency, the national REDD agency, governors and district heads to cease granting permits related to the management of primary and secondary forests.
The Forestry Ministry’s version only issues this instruction to the Home Affairs Ministry, governors and district heads.
Agus Purnomo, the presidential adviser for climate change, said both drafts were still being examined by the president’s office and that no decision had been made on which to sign.
He could not confirm how many drafts had been submitted, but said at least three had been drawn up.
“I don’t know exactly how many draft decrees have been proposed for the moratorium,” he said. “There was one from Emil Salim [the presidential adviser for environmental affairs], one from the Ministry of Forestry and one from Kuntoro Mangkusborto [head of the REDD-Plus task force].”
Agus added that it was unclear which of the drafts President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono would finally sign.
“All I know is that all those institutions are still working out how to formulate the final draft,” he said.
He added that the government had missed the deadline to make the moratorium legally binding, but said the deal would still be valid once the decree was finally signed.
