Nature Alert: President to ensure deforestation efforts work

Sunday 30 May 2010

President to ensure deforestation efforts work

President to ensure deforestation efforts work

Aditya Suharmoko, The Jakarta Post, Oslo Sat, 05/29/

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono himself will directly monitor the implementation of a Norway-Indonesia partnership in reducing deforestation, which includes a two-year moratorium of new concessions of forest and peat land conversion.

"I will be active in at least two things: monitoring the implementation in the field, and secondly I will ask for regular periodical from the agency in charge so I will know the progress, which if anything happens we can work it out," he told a final briefing Friday noon at Holmenkollen Park Hotel Rica in Oslo.

Attending the briefing were related ministers, governors whose provinces might become pilot projects, House of Representatives lawmakers, members of the Regional Representatives Council and rectors of the Andalas Universities and the Bogor Institute of Agriculture.

Under the partnership signed on Wednesday Indonesia will receive US$1 billion in grant from Norway to preserve its forests. The money will be paid in stages, depending on Indonesia's progress in protecting the forests.

The terms agreed upon in the partnership include capacity building, in which Indonesia will develop an oversight agency to be led by Chairman of the Presidential Working Unit for Development Monitoring and Control Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, pilot projects in some areas to be selected by Indonesia and Norway; and, finally, nationwide projects.

No money will be disbursed if Norway does not see any progress, said Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

Yudhoyono earlier said this partnership would not hurt the "continuation" of palm oil industry, which he said could utilize degraded land.

The President said the partnership was very important to Indonesia that he would oversee regions where the pilot projects would take place. "I will go down to the field either by helicopter or land transportation," he said.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/05/29/president-ensure-deforestation-efforts-work.html

Hall of Shame for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the Palm Oil Industry.

Nothing can prepare one for the sight of the systematic extermination of orangutans by the government of Indonesia.

Look at the photos and news articles on these pages in the context of a statement the President made to the media on 10th December 2007.

“In the last 35 years about 50,000 orangutans are estimated to have been lost as their habitats shrank. If this continues, this majestic creature will likely face extinction by 2050,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said at the launch of an orangutan conservation plan at the climate talks in Bali.

“The fate of the orangutan is a subject that goes to the heart of sustainable forests … To save the orangutan we have to save the forest.”

Statements like these are most welcome, but unless backed up by action, such words fall on deaf ears within the Ministry of Forestry....who are busy granting licences to cut down the very forests the President says they should protect!

When you think you are to busy to help, please could you reflect for a moment on .........

The following extract refers to environmental problems in general. I just hope you find it as thought provoking and relevant to orangutans as I have.

"This is such a shocking and unpalatable fact that most people deny it, or they just don't want to think about it. They believe as individuals, they can do little about it, so push it to the back of their minds. But I can't do that.

When something has to be done, we need to do it. It doesn't matter how big the challenge is or how hard the solution; if I know something is wrong, and I am in a position to help, I will do my best to make it right." Duncan Bannatyne, successful British businessman.