East Kalimantan Environmentally Sustainable Development Strategy

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downstream manufacturing as it would result in further deforestation and forest degradation, as
has happened in other provinces.
Required Policies and Institutions
Several critical enablers are needed to implement the identified initiatives for reducing
emissions and increasing GDP in the forestry sector. Four critical enablers have been
identified. These include a new spatial planning approach, regulatory changes and enforcement,
capacity-building to successfully implement sustainable forestry practices, and implementation of
a reliable and up-to-date monitoring, reporting and verification system, which would be supported
by the new forest management units.
Spatial planning: The existing spatial planning approach of East Kalimantan does not take
into account climate change or ecological criteria. For example, forested areas are allocated to
non-forestry use (Areal Penggunaan Lain, APL), while large areas of degraded land within the
forest estate (kawasan hutan) are officially designated (and therefore managed) as permanent
forest areas. Going forward, a broader spatial planning approach is required that incorporates
environmental, economic, and social factors. The main goal for the new spatial planning approach
should be to identify degraded areas (including the size of the area, soil type, suitability for different
land uses, land ownership, and current land use) outside and inside the forest estate. This will
enable the prioritized use of degraded land for economic development. The permanent forest
estate should comprise actual remaining forests. Spatial planning consequently has to happen in
much closer cooperation between the local planning agency (Bappeda), the Indonesian Ministry of
Forestry, and local communities.
Regulatory changes: Current legislation regulating harvesting practices in Indonesia does not
support sustainable forest management as it only focuses on volumes of merchantable timber
and doesn’t address the overall felling and skidding process. To be able to enforce RIL those
regulations have to be broadened to consider the complete harvesting process. A new regulation
published in 2009 by the Ministry of Forestry is trying to address sustainability, however the
regulation is vague and not strong enough to enforce RIL. In addition, current regulations prohibit
the felling of smaller trees for commercial purposes, i.e., those below 50 cm diameter at breast
height (dbh). Changing those regulations would allow thinning, which can help focus the forest’s
future growth on the most valuable trees by providing enough light and space to foster natural
regeneration. If properly done, thinning and improved natural regeneration result in higher growth
rates and therefore better carbon sequestration. However, thinning and other intensive silvicultural
treatments result in a loss of biodiversity as they focus on a small number of high valuable tree
species and not necessarily on biodiversity. In the long term we need to seriously consider a
complete replacement of logging in natural forests by sustainable timber plantations.
DRAFT
Law enforcement: Illegal logging – in the form of large-scale forest conversions into plantations
without legal permits, logging levels exceeding the target given by the Ministry of Forestry, and
illegal smallholder activities – remains rampant in East Kalimantan and is leading to high levels
of deforestation and forest degradation. In order to better enforce the law, we need to employ
additional forest rangers for the newly established forest management units (KPH), and ensure
strict and visible consequences for illegal action, e.g., high fines and long jail terms.
Monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV): All of the above efforts should be supported
by an MRV system to assess the emission reduction efforts and to measure, report, and verify
the impact of those efforts to a nationwide MRV system. In order to reduce transaction costs
and increase the likelihood of carbon reduction projects attracting international carbon market
payments for verified emission reductions, it is critical that the provincial government incorporates
methodologies that have already been independently verified, are in line with national government
regulation, and allow the establishment of a province-wide approach that includes local
communities. Local communities could play a key role in ground-truthing satellite images in the
field, which would also create additional jobs and increase income in local communities.