TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Forestry Law is no longer relevant in the face of the climate crisis. A change of paradigm is needed.
THE Forestry Law is now 26 years old. For a regulation that should be dynamic and responsive to the changing times, this is too old. The House of Representatives (DPR) is currently deliberating revisions to Law No. 41/1999. But it seems that the people’s representatives do not wish to designate forests as ecological landscapes, which have a reciprocal relationship with people and other living creatures.
The deliberations over the revisions to the Forestry Law are still limited to the utilization and use of forest areas to foster economic growth and development. Therefore, the discussions are only related to exploitation to provide revenues for the state. The DPR members have yet to see the intangible benefits from forests, which are far larger than simply timber, mining or foodstuffs that can be turned into commodities.
Amidst climate change, inclusive forest management is an important foundation to prevent the apocalypse coming sooner. The forests of Indonesia, together with those in the Amazon and the Congo Basin, are the last bastion for controlling global temperatures by absorbing the greenhouse gases resulting from technological development and industry, which cause global warming.
Therefore, the old paradigm that categorized forests into conservation, protected or production categories is no longer relevant. The fact is that protected and conservation areas have been exploited for economic gain, such as for tourism, mining, and food estates. Therefore, forests need to be divided into two categories: permanent forests purely for conservation and reserve forests for development.
Throughout the New Order era, 64 million hectares, half of the country’s forests, were divided into concessions for more than 600 companies. The result is forest areas that are no longer forested. These forests that have been cleared are categorized as reserve forests to be used for restoration. Their commodities are environmental services such as ecotourism, bio-prospecting and carbon, which is the new prima donna in the emissions market.
This way, the development of forests would no longer be extractive, prioritizing access for large corporations that turn them into plantations or mines. Forest restoration that can still provide economic, social, or environmental benefit is social forestry. This scheme, besides being a proven method of conserving forests, involves more people in and around them. This way, forests become an arena to develop Indonesia from the periphery.
Another important matter in the revision of the Forestry Law is the recognition of indigenous community. So far, customary communities have come up against Article 67, which requires bylaws before the state can recognize them. This political process frequently does not side with indigenous people and is at odds with the 2012 Constitutional Court ruling that designated three types of forest: owned, state, and customary.
If this article is revoked, indigenous communities have an opportunity for state and legal recognition for their regions. Empirically, indigenous communities have proved able to protect and preserve forests. The granting of forestry concessions to extractive industries has marginalized customary and local communities and has triggered unending social conflict.
With a change to the forest paradigm from commodity to ecological landscape, the members of the DPR will be making a contribution to preventing three planetary crises: climate change, the loss of biodiversity, and pollution. And forests will be preserved and will protect us from the destruction caused by uncontrolled exploitation.
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