We are now in a grave emergency situation. Today is the last day of a moratorium on new land-clearing permits for primary and peat forests first imposed in 2011 by then-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. As of tomorrow, anybody can clear these once-protected areas for plantations mines or logging, threatening the fate of Indonesia’s remaining 93 million hectares of woodland.
We demand President Joko Widodo swiftly issue a stronger presidential regulation that allows for sanction and even punishment — as opposed to the weaker presidential instruction currently in use — to extend the moratorium before it expires.
We have reason to be deeply worried because the current administration seems to have no sense of emergency, and to take the situation lightly, even as the clock ticks down to the destruction of the country’s forests. We can’t let this happen.
Indonesia is losing its forests at a rate of 600,000 to 800,000 hectares every year, even with the moratorium in place. In 2012, a year after the ban was imposed, Indonesia surpassed Brazil’s rate of deforestation, becoming the fastest forest-clearing nation in the world.
That puts Indonesia on pace to destroy all its forests within the next two decades.
The country is also one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases on the planet because of its massive deforestation; and the wildlife that depend on the forests face the threat of extinction.
Imagine how much worse things would have been without the moratorium, as sketchy as it is.
We desperately need a moratorium backed up by tough regulation, monitoring and law enforcement across the archipelago.
This is the only way to avoid destroying our natural resources, and our country, at the current pace.
The post Editorial: Jokowi Administration Must See Deforestation for the Evil That It Is appeared first on The Jakarta Globe.
