Welcome Guest   |  Login   |   Signup
JG Logo
Thu, February 23, 2012
Archive Search

SBY Sees Kalimantan as the ‘Lungs of the World’
Fidelis E. Satriastanti | January 20, 2012

Share This Page
23
74
0
4
Share with google+ :


Post a comment
Please login to post comment

Comments

blightyboy
7:49am Jan 21, 2012

Worthless words. Nothing Yudhoyono says makes any difference any longer. A powerless puppet who is allowing Indonesia to disintegrate on all fronts. Everything is sacrificed for big exploitative companies, even Indonesian lives.

muffinman
9:30am Jan 20, 2012

Hmmm...something real fishy about this one. I would have thought Sumatera and Papua had more of a capacity to be the 'lungs of the world' than Kalimantan. Kalimantan is big, but a large part of the island is smouldering peat fields ; a legacy of a former Presidents blunder.

Could it be that No#1 has parties that are interested in palm oil or resources beneath the forests of Sumatera and Papua and this is a maneuver to appease the Greenies and offset plans for further massive destruction of the great forests of Sumatera and Papua ?

I wonder....


jchay
8:48am Jan 20, 2012

Mr SBY, have you been to Kalimantan lately? where did you get the number "45%" from? do you think "45%" is a SMART goal? please define "lungs of the world"? didn't you just "sold" your own country to Norway for $1 billion on forest moratorium, without understanding the impact to national economy? on the same note, have you calculated the economy impact on conserving 45% percent of Kalimantan's forests? How to enforce this regulation and measure the success?

Deddy Ratih said "real forests" in Kalimantan is only 30% left, I said it's less. And with this "regulation" out, I'm not surprised to see the deforestation will doubled-tripled the speed in next 6 months.

For the next 2 years, we will expect SBY to give more of these over-committed illogical unreasonable promises.. It is only because SBY is NO longer the President of RI anymore, his mind is simply to do everything it takes to be the next Secretary-General of the United Nations, including selling his own country to the world!

SirAnthonyKnown-Bender
2:22am Jan 20, 2012

"President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has issued a regulation..."

yeah, that always works.


  • Previous
  • 1
  • Next

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has issued a regulation that sets aside for conservation 45 percent of Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo Island, to be the “lungs of the world.”

In a press release, the president’s office said the plan would ensure that local ecosystems were protected and the biodiversity of the island allowed to flourish, though it offered few details.

The regulation, issued on Jan. 5, seeks to promote the sustainable use of the island’s resources, the president’s office said. But the decree does not specify whether the area in question would be tropical rain forest or other forms of vegetation.

The plan sets out an ambitious network of conservation areas linked together by a series of “ecosystem corridors” to enable the growth of diverse flora and fauna.

It also regulates and intends to strengthen rules surrounding protected areas, rehabilitate degraded areas and control agricultural expansion.

It is unclear how this plan will fit in with a government push to see Kalimantan become self-sufficient in energy and a national energy producer by 2025.

Kalimantan is at the center of a rush to mine its vast coal reserves, which environmental campaigners say has devastated its geography.

“Kalimantan will also become a center for plantations of palm oil, rubber and other sustainable forest products,” the release said.

The presidential regulation also says that four outer islands  in Kalimantan — Sebatik, Gosong Makassar, Maratua and Sambit — will see transportation access and communications improved, as well as a number of lighthouses built.

Deddy Ratih, human advocacy manager for large-scale plantations at the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), said the government should produce the details of the plan, including the definition of “lungs of the world.”

“If we are talking about forested area in Kalimantan, areas that are real forests … they only cover about 30 percent [of the land],” he said.

He said the government should first settle the many ongoing land disputes in Kalimantan before setting up an ambitious new spatial zoning plan.

Coordination and communication between the central and regional governments is a massive problem, with district heads continuing to issue mining and plantation permits, while the central government still believes Kalimantan is 80 percent forest, he said.

Wisnu Rusmantoro, the Heart of Borneo national coordinator for the World Wildlife Fund Indonesia, hailed the president’s commitment to conservation, adding that he thought 45 percent forest coverage was sufficient for Kalimantan.