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Indonesia’s REDD+ pact: Saving imperilled forests or business as usual?
Biological Conservation 151 (2012) 41–44
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Biological Conservation journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biocon
Special Issue Article: Advancing Environmental Conservation: Essays In Honor Of Navjot Sodhi
Indonesia’s REDD+ pact: Saving imperilled forests or business as usual? David P. Edwards a,⇑, Lian Pin Koh b,c, William F. Laurance a a
Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Science (TESS) and School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Cairns, Queensland 4878, Australia Department of Environmental Sciences, ETH Zurich, CHN G 73.1, Universitatstrasse 16, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland c Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 14 Science Drive 4, Singapore 117543, Singapore b
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Available online 30 November 2011 Keywords: Carbon trading Peat forest REDD, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Selective logging Southeast Asia Sugarcane Sundaland Tropical forest
a b s t r a c t Indonesia and Norway have entered into a landmark deal that will pay Indonesia up to US$1 billion for forest-conservation activities aimed at slowing rampant deforestation and resulting greenhouse gas emissions. A recent Presidential Instruction in Indonesia outlines a key deliverable of this ‘‘Partnership’’—a two-year suspension on new concessions for clearing or logging of peat and old-growth forest. Here, we discuss the implications of this instruction for carbon and biodiversity protection. The protection of highly threatened deep peatlands represents a clear victory. However, by focusing solely on oldgrowth forests, the instruction excludes over 46 million ha of selectively logged rainforests, which often have high carbon storage and biodiversity. This leaves the logged forests, most of which are in accessible lowland areas, highly vulnerable to re-logging and conversion for oil palm and pulpwood plantations. The instruction also could allow large areas of peatlands and old-growth forest to be converted to sugarcane— one of the world’s most rapidly expanding biofuel crops. While the Partnership could potentially help reform land-use planning and reduce illegal deforestation in Indonesia, we argue that Indonesia must also strive to protect vulnerable logged forests, which comprise a large part of the country’s high-carbon, high-biodiversity lands. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Contents 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Which lands are protected?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tackling land reform, corruption and illegal extraction. The prospect for ‘Phase 3’ REDD+ payments . . . . . . . . . Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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1. Introduction Indonesia is the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, largely caused by the rapid felling or burning of its natural rainforests and carbon-rich peat-swamp forests (PEACE, 2007). The widespread loss of habitat within these ecosystems means that Indonesia has two threatened hotspots of global biodiversity (Myers et al., 2000), that the region’s wildlife faces greatly increased extinction risk (Sodhi et al., 2004; Hoffmann et al., 2010), and that longer-term risks will increase with further global warming (Brook et al., 2008; Laurance and Useche, 2009; Corlett, this volume). Novel mechanisms must now be considered to slow ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 (0)7 4042 1835. E-mail address: [email protected] (D.P. Edwards). 0006-3207/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2011.10.028
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41 42 42 43 43 44 44
these dramatic forest losses (Brook and Bradshaw, this volume; Koh and Lee, this volume). In an effort to slow rampant forest disruption and resulting greenhouse gas emissions, early last year Indonesia and Norway signed a landmark deal (Solheim and Natalegawa, 2010). This bilateral ‘‘Partnership’’, outlined in a Letter of Intent (LOI) between the two governments, will reward Indonesia with up to $1 billion for advancing various forest-conservation initiatives. In particular, Indonesia agreed to: (i) temporarily halt the licensing of new logging and plantation concessions on peatlands and natural forests, (ii) draw up a ‘‘degraded-lands’’ database that would direct development to carbon-poor areas and would help minimize conflicts with any existing land-holders, (iii) tackle the illegal degradation and clearance of forests, (iv) create a transparent funding instrument for its national REDD+ strategy, and (v) implement a
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province-wide pilot program that yields verified reductions in carbon emissions. This deal falls under the rubric of ‘REDD+’, by which carbon-compensating nations such as Norway can pay developing countries to ‘Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation’. Many see such REDD+ deals, which will hopefully soon be integrated into the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, as an important new arrow in the quiver of those hoping to save rainforests and slow dangerous global warming (e.g., Laurance, 2008; Edwards et al., 2010a). The Indonesia-Norway agreement finally came into force on 20 May 2011, after several delays, when President Yudhoyono of Indonesia issued Presidential Instruction No. 10/2011, outlining a two-year suspension on new licenses for clearing or logging peat and natural old-growth (primary) forest. The question that remains is whether this instruction will help save Indonesia’s vanishing rainforests. The answer has vital implications both for the global climate and imperilled biodiversity.
2. Which lands are protected? At first glance the Presidential Instruction looks like a win–win scenario for Indonesia, its nature and the planet at large. Old-growth forests (i.e., mixed-dipterocarp rainforests) and peatlands, which contain huge carbon stores and exceptional biodiversity, are temporarily off limits for new clearing or logging concessions. Instead, new developments in Indonesia will be focused on degraded lands. However, it is far too soon to declare this a victory for the environment. Firstly, vast expanses of selectively logged dry forests— which sustain much native biodiversity (Meijaard and Sheil, 2008; Berry et al., 2010; Edwards et al., 2011) and substantial carbon stores (Berry et al., 2010)—are being left out altogether. This runs counter to the urging of scientists (Redmond et al., 2010) and even Indonesia’s own REDD+ Task Force (Satgas REDD+, 2010). The area of forest that is left out of the moratorium dwarfs the land that is protected. According to Murdiyarso et al. (2011), 46.7 million ha of degraded forest, most of which has been logged, can be designated for new concessions. This is fifteen times the size of Belgium and considerably exceeds the area of old-growth forests that are newly protected under the Presidential Instruction. As feared, there was a last-minute rush to approve new concession licenses (Clements et al., 2010), with a swathe of concessions spanning millions of hectares granted on 31 December 2010, the day before the LOI was originally slated to come into force. Precisely how much forest was actually granted is not yet (and may never be) known, but the licensed areas of old-growth forest (9.6 M ha) and peatland (5.8 Mha) apparently span 15.4 M ha (Murdiyarso et al. 2011). After discounting these license areas, plus the 47.8 M ha of forest that falls within existing conservation areas, the moratorium uniquely protects just 22.5 M ha of forest and only 7.2 M ha of forest that is classified as old-growth. At most, therefore, the total area of forest protected under the moratorium is less than half of the area of logged forest in Indonesia that remains fully unprotected, while the area of old-growth mixed-dipterocarp forest is just 15% of the area of logged mixed-dipterocarp forest. The net effect of Indonesia’s implementation of the REDD+ deal is that large expanses of selectively logged forest could be re-logged or cleared for oil palm and pulpwood plantations. Re-logging releases further carbon emissions, via removal of timber and residual damage (Pinard and Putz, 1996), and it shifts the species composition of various taxa away from that found in old-growth forest and causes declines in a number of endemic bird species (Edwards et al., 2011; Woodcock et al., 2011). Of greater concern, however, is the potential for the wholesale conversion of logged forests to oil palm and paper-pulp plantations, which creates large-scale carbon emis-
sions (Danielsen et al., 2008; Fargione et al., 2008; Searchinger et al., 2008) and causes a precipitous decline in biodiversity (Mitra and Sheldon, 1993; Fearnside, 2001; Petit and Petit, 2003; Barlow et al., 2007; Fitzherbert et al., 2008; Sodhi et al., 2009; Edwards et al., 2010b; Sheldon et al., 2010). The Presidential Instruction does protect 11.2 M ha of deep peatlands (2.6 M ha of primary peatlands and 8.6 M ha of logged peatlands; Murdiyarso et al. 2011), which are both physically accessible and significantly threatened by conversion. Although shallower peatlands (those less than 50 cm deep) are evidently unprotected (Wells and Paoli, 2011), that most peatlands are off limits for concession licensing is a major victory for carbon and biodiversity protection. Yet a second critical issue with the Presidential Instruction is that many of the old-growth mixed-dipterocarp forests protected under the decree are in steep, mountainous areas that are unlikely to face much threat anyway (Sloan and Edwards, unpublished data). A major component of any REDD+ deal must be that payments are made to protect carbon stocks that are currently threatened (i.e., REDD+ payments must have ‘additionality’ by slowing imminent forest destruction). However, the most imperilled natural mixed-dipterocarp forests—such as those that survive in the lowlands of Borneo and Sumatra—are largely excluded because they have already been licensed and selectively logged. These flat, easily accessible forests are intensely vulnerable to further logging and especially clearing for exotic-tree plantations. It remains to be seen how the decision to exclude threatened logged forests from the Presidential Instruction will affect the success of the province-wide pilot project. It is plausible that, in the case of mixed-dipterocarp forests, it could well subvert the requirement of additionality for REDD+ payments, because the logged lands that are most at threat from further degradation and deforestation are not included. If this is the case, then this decision could undermine the potential for the pilot to yield verified reductions in carbon emissions. Rather than clearing its logged forests, Indonesia has ample opportunity to expand agriculture onto abandoned lands that lack natural forests, such as its extensive Imperata grasslands (Koh and Ghazoul, 2010). Under the LOI, Indonesia agreed to draw up a degraded-lands database to assist such efforts and to help minimize conflicts with any existing land-holders. Should vast areas of logged forest be included in this database—as the Presidential Instruction indicates might well happen—then it would represent a severe blow for carbon and biodiversity conservation. It could also undermine the very spirit of the LOI to reduce emissions from forest conversion. The two-year ban on new concessions also appears to be riddled with potential loopholes. For instance, existing permits for logging or agriculture in old-growth forest and peatlands can be extended. Furthermore, clearing of old-growth forests and deep peatlands for sugarcane is not banned under the Presidential Instruction. Sugarcane is one of the most rapidly expanding biofuel crops; between 1998 and 2008 it increased in area by 26% globally and by 76% in the World’s Megadiverse Countries (Mittermeier et al., 1997; FAOStat, 2010). Any move to expand sugarcane production in Indonesia could have particularly dour consequences for carbon emissions. This is because clearance of old-growth mixed-dipterocarp forests in Indonesia for biofuel crops takes between 75 and 93 years to offset the lost carbon, while more than 600 years are required to offset conversion of deep peatlands into such crops (Danielsen et al., 2008).
3. Tackling land reform, corruption and illegal extraction Despite such concerns, some distinct positives have arisen from the Presidential Instruction and the wider LOI. The largest is the
D.P. Edwards et al. / Biological Conservation 151 (2012) 41–44
protection of deep peatlands, which will likely represent major carbon savings. The LOI is also helping to promote vitally needed land reforms. At present, licensing decisions in Indonesia are a complex tangle, with decisions spread across several different ministries and with overlapping interests at national, provincial and local levels of government. Clarifying the lines of responsibility and land tenure are quite vital for REDD+ initiatives. Only with support across these different levels of government can the LOI guarantee that carbon stores will be saved over the long-term. At the same time, the LOI has focused the climate change strategies and pre-standing commitments of other international governments. Indonesia has recently seen additional financial commitments to reduce carbon emissions; for example, the European Union have committed to support REDD-related activities, including (further) support towards national strategy development (Trevisan et al., 2011). Such support helps to generate greater financial and political clout for President Yudhoyono, who has expressed a strong desire to contribute to Indonesian forest conservation. Another positive from the REDD+ deal is that President Yudhoyono is having to tackle systemic corruption within Indonesia, which is currently ranked poorly (110th out of 177 countries) for having widespread graft and poor financial transparency (Transparency International, 2010). A key deliverable in Phase 1 of the LOI is the creation of a transparent funding instrument necessary for the implementation of its national REDD+ strategy, while the protection of forest resources from illegal use is quite vital under a REDD+ market future. The President’s ‘Forest Mafia’ task force are already investigating hundreds of companies and officials who have illegally expanded forestry, mining and plantation enterprises, costing the state billions of dollars in lost revenues (e.g., US$36 billion in Indonesian Borneo alone; Mongabay, 2011). One must emphasize, however, that President Yudhoyono has been under enormous pressure from powerful industrial interests and their lobbyists. At present, Indonesia derives much of its economic growth from the expansion of oil palm and paper-pulp production. The corporations that operate these plantations and their elite owners are economically dominant, delivering significant revenues to provincial and national governments (e.g., Fisher et al., 2011b; Koh et al., in press). They are also politically powerful (e.g., funding election campaigns) and well-organized (e.g., funding stridently pro-development lobby groups such as World Growth [www.worldgrowth.org] that actively defend their interests), making them extremely influential. Hence, competing interests within the plantation and logging sectors, as well as within Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry, could tend to undermine both the development of a transparent funding instrument and effective implementation of REDD+. If these powerful corporate and political interests can do so, then this would certainly suggest that a businessas-usual scenario is likely to prevail in Indonesia.
4. The prospect for ‘Phase 3’ REDD+ payments Looking forward to Phase 3 of the LOI, which begins in 2013, it appears there is much work to be done before Indonesia will qualify for substantial REDD+ payments. Under Phase 3, a compensation mechanism will be applied nationally across Indonesia, permitting carbon-compensation payments from Norway and other international governments. However, assuming that Indonesia persists with the land-use regulations detailed in the Presidential Instruction—especially the exclusion from protection of vast areas of native logged forest—the requirement for additionality will likely be poorly met (Sloan and Edwards, unpublished data) and carbon payments to protect mixed-dipterocarp forests could be minimal. Deep peatlands, however, are protected under the
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Instruction and often highly threatened with conversion. Hence, they would likely yield additionality and substantial carbon payments (Sloan and Edwards, unpublished data). Ultimately, it is the lack of clarity and transparency in defining the scope of the Indonesian moratorium that makes it difficult to assess its efficacy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation (Wells and Paoli, 2011). Koh et al. (in press) recently developed a model to evaluate the environmental and socioeconomic implications and tradeoffs involved in implementing the forest moratorium in Indonesian Borneo under alternative scenarios. An associated web-based application (http://REDDcalculator. com) allows rapid estimation of the benefits of REDD+ for carbon conservation and its opportunity costs under user-defined moratorium scenarios. Based on this model, a moratorium that included only natural primary forests and peatlands would protect 9.1 million ha of land and 7.1 billion Mg of biomass and peat carbon across Indonesian Borneo. These benefits are additional to those resulting from existing protected areas (such as lands currently allocated to the ‘Protected area’ and ‘Natural protected forests’ categories). In contrast, if logged forests are also included in the moratorium, the protected land area would more than double, to 18.7 million ha, with 9.7 billion Mg of biomass and peat carbon protected. The doubling of protected forest area under the moratorium in concert with a future REDD+ market is also likely to have huge biodiversity benefits (Edwards et al., 2011). The inclusion of logged forests in the moratorium would raise the opportunity costs of forest protection in Indonesian Borneo, from $132.3 billion to $225.7 billion over a 25-year modeling timeframe. Nonetheless, focusing REDD+ payments on logged forests is clearly a cost-effective strategy (see also Fisher et al., 2011a), because it protects a greater total land area and substantial existing carbon stores for less money, with the potential to achieve additional carbon storage as logged forests regenerate (Berry et al., 2010; Edwards et al., 2010a). The magnitude of the opportunity cost of carbon protection underscores the profitability of Indonesia’s plantation and logging industries, and thus the political clout that these sectors wield. Although $1 billion for carbon protection in Indonesia under the LOI is an excellent start, Norway and other international governments must commit to long-term and far more substantial investment for carbon-compensation in Indonesia. If they fail to do so, then Indonesia’s embryonic REDD+ market is unlikely to compete with destructive, forest- and land-exploiting industries or to garner sufficient support from national interests within Indonesia to succeed.
5. Conclusions The Partnership between Norway and Indonesia is prompting positive steps towards the simplification of land-use planning regulations, tackling corruption and illegal destruction of forest habitats, and protecting deep, carbon-rich peatlands. However, the recent Presidential Instruction (10/2011) outlining a moratorium on new concession licensing—a key deliverable under the LOI—is setting some disturbing precedents as a potential blueprint for future national or sub-national REDD+ forest-carbon-trading deals. As presently deployed, it does too little to conserve imperilled lowland forests that are not on deep peat, and fails entirely to protect vast expanses of logged forest. We thus urge President Yudhoyono to include, at a minimum, logged forests in vulnerable lowland areas and forest conversion for sugarcane under the current moratorium. Without protecting these high-carbon, high-biodiversity lands, Indonesia is unlikely to capture anything close to the potential financial benefits of its landmark agreement with Norway and subsequent REDD+ payments.
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Acknowledgments This essay is dedicated to the memory of Navjot Sodhi, an exceptional leader in the fight to protect Sundaland’s unique forests and biodiversity. We thank Gary Paoli, Rhett Butler, Jeff Sayer and three anonymous referees for helpful comments. DPE and WFL were supported by an Australian Laureate Fellowship awarded to WFL. LPK was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the North-South Centre, ETH Zurich. References Barlow, J., Gardner, T.A., Araujo, I.S., Avila-Pires, T.C., Bonaldo, A.B., Costa, J.E., Esposito, M.C., Ferreira, L.V., Hawes, J., Hernandez, M.M., Hoogmoed, M.S., Leite, R.N., Lo-Man-Hung, N.F., Malcolm, J.R., Martins, M.B., Mestre, L.A.M., MirandaSantos, R., Nunes-Gutjahr, A.L., Overal, W.L., Parry, L., Peters, S.L., Ribeiro-Junior, M.A., da Silva, M.N.F., Motta, C.D., Peres, C.A., 2007. Quantifying the biodiversity value of tropical primary, secondary, and plantation forests. 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Rhodin, A.G.J., Richards, S.J., Rodriguez, L.O., Ron, S.R., Rondinini, C., Rylands, A.B., de Mitcheson, Y.S., Sanciangco, J.C., Sanders, K.L., Santos-Barrera, G., Schipper, J., Self-Sullivan, C., Shi, Y., Shoemaker, A., Short, F.T., Sillero-Zubiri, C., Silvano, D.L., Smith, K.G., Smith, A.T., Snoeks, J., Stattersfield, A.J., Symes, A.J., Taber, A.B., Talukdar, B.K., Temple, H.J., Timmins, R., Tobias, J.A., Tsytsulina, K., Tweddle, D., Ubeda, C., Valenti, S.V., van Dijk, P.P., Veiga, L.M., Veloso, A., Wege, D.C., Wilkinson, M., Williamson, E.A., Xie, F., Young, B.E., Akcakaya, H.R., Bennun, L., Blackburn, T.M., Boitani, L., Dublin, H.T., da Fonseca, G.A.B., Gascon, C., Lacher Jr., T.E., Mace, G.M., Mainka, S.A., McNeely, J.A., Mittermeier, R.A., Reid, G.M., Paul Rodriguez, J., Rosenberg, A.A., Samways, M.J., Smart, J., Stein, B.A., Stuart, S.N., 2010. The impact of conservation on the status of the world’s vertebrates. Science 330, 1503–1509. Koh, L.P., Ghazoul, J., 2010. Spatially explicit scenario analysis for reconciling agricultural expansion, forest protection, and carbon conservation in Indonesia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 107, 11140–11144. Koh, L.P., Gibbs, H.K., Potapov, P.V., Hansen, M.C., in press. REDDcalculator.com: a web-based decision-support tool for implementing Indonesia’s forest moratorium. Methods in Ecology and Evolution. doi:10.1111/j.2041210X.2011.00147.x Koh, L.P., Lee, T.M., this volume. Sensible consumerism for environmental sustainability. Biological Conservation. Laurance, W.F., 2008. Can carbon trading save vanishing forests? BioScience 58, 286–287. Laurance, W.F., Useche, D.C., 2009. Environmental synergisms and extinctions of tropical species. Conservation Biology 23, 1427–1437. Meijaard, E., Sheil, D., 2008. The persistence and conservation of Borneo’s mammals in lowland rain forests managed for timber: observations, overviews and opportunities. Ecological Research 23, 21–34. Mitra, S.S., Sheldon, F.H., 1993. Use of an exotic tree plantation by Bornean lowland birds. Auk 110, 529–540. Mittermeier, R.A., Gil, P.R., Mittermeier, C.G., 1997. Megadiversity: Earth’s biologically wealthiest nations. Conservation International. Washington, DC, USA. Mongabay, 2011. Losses from deforestation top $36 billion in Indonesian Borneo. (accessed 06.11). Murdiyarso, D., Dewi, S., Lawrence, D., Seymour, F., 2011 Indonesia’s Forest Moratorium: A Stepping Stone to Better Forest Governance? Working Paper 76. CIFOR, Bogor, Indonesia. Myers, N., Mittermeier, R.A., Mittermeier, C.G., da Fonseca, G.A.B., Kent, J., 2000. Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature 403, 853–858. Petit, L.J., Petit, D.R., 2003. Evaluating the importance of human-modified lands for neotropical bird conservation. Conservation Biology 17, 687–694. Pinard, M.A., Putz, F.E., 1996. Retaining forest biomass by reducing logging damage. Biotropica 28, 278–295. PEACE, 2007. Indonesia and climate change: current status and policies. The World Bank and DFID. Jakarta, Indonesia. Redmond, I. et al., 2010. Open Letter to Presidents of Indonesia and Norway. (accessed 10.11). Searchinger, T., Heimlich, R., Houghton, R.A., Dong, F.X., Elobeid, A., Fabiosa, J., Tokgoz, S., Hayes, D., Yu, T.H., 2008. Use of US croplands for biofuels increases greenhouse gases through emissions from land-use change. Science 319, 1238– 1240. Sheldon, F.H., Styring, A., Hosner, P.A., 2010. Bird species richness in a Bornean exotic tree plantation: A long-term perspective. Biological Conservation 143, 399–407. Sodhi, N.S., Koh, L.P., Brook, B.W., Ng, P.K.L., 2004. Southeast Asian biodiversity: an impending disaster. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 19, 654–660. Sodhi, N.S., Lee, T.M., Koh, L.P., Brook, B.W., 2009. A meta-analysis of the impact of anthropogenic forest disturbance on Southeast Asia’s biotas. Biotropica 41, 103–109. Solheim, E., Natalegawa, R.M.M.M., 2010. Letter of intent between the Government of the Kingdom of Norway and the Government of the Republic of Indonesia on cooperation on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. Oslo, Norway, 26th of May 2010. (accessed 06.11). Trevisan, A., Van Orshoven, C., Merckx, V., Bousquet, M., 2011. First REDD+ projects coordination meeting. Final report. (accessed 10.11). Transparency International, 2010. Corruptions perceptions index 2010 results. (accessed 10.11). Wells, P., Paoli, G., 2011. An analysis of Presidential Instruction No. 10, 2011: moratorium on granting of new licenses and improvement of natural primary forest and peatland governance. Daemeter Consulting, Bogor, Indonesia. (accessed 06.11). Woodcock, P., Edwards, D.P., Fayle, T.M., Newton, R.J., Chey, V.K., Bottrell, S.H., Hamer, K.C., 2011. The conservation value of Southeast Asia’s highly degraded forests: evidence from leaf-litter ants. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences 366, 3256–3264.
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Biological Conservation journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biocon
Special Issue Article: Advancing Environmental Conservation: Essays In Honor Of Navjot Sodhi
Indonesia’s REDD+ pact: Saving imperilled forests or business as usual? David P. Edwards a,⇑, Lian Pin Koh b,c, William F. Laurance a a
Centre for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Science (TESS) and School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Cairns, Queensland 4878, Australia Department of Environmental Sciences, ETH Zurich, CHN G 73.1, Universitatstrasse 16, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland c Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, 14 Science Drive 4, Singapore 117543, Singapore b
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Available online 30 November 2011 Keywords: Carbon trading Peat forest REDD, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Selective logging Southeast Asia Sugarcane Sundaland Tropical forest
a b s t r a c t Indonesia and Norway have entered into a landmark deal that will pay Indonesia up to US$1 billion for forest-conservation activities aimed at slowing rampant deforestation and resulting greenhouse gas emissions. A recent Presidential Instruction in Indonesia outlines a key deliverable of this ‘‘Partnership’’—a two-year suspension on new concessions for clearing or logging of peat and old-growth forest. Here, we discuss the implications of this instruction for carbon and biodiversity protection. The protection of highly threatened deep peatlands represents a clear victory. However, by focusing solely on oldgrowth forests, the instruction excludes over 46 million ha of selectively logged rainforests, which often have high carbon storage and biodiversity. This leaves the logged forests, most of which are in accessible lowland areas, highly vulnerable to re-logging and conversion for oil palm and pulpwood plantations. The instruction also could allow large areas of peatlands and old-growth forest to be converted to sugarcane— one of the world’s most rapidly expanding biofuel crops. While the Partnership could potentially help reform land-use planning and reduce illegal deforestation in Indonesia, we argue that Indonesia must also strive to protect vulnerable logged forests, which comprise a large part of the country’s high-carbon, high-biodiversity lands. Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Contents 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Which lands are protected?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tackling land reform, corruption and illegal extraction. The prospect for ‘Phase 3’ REDD+ payments . . . . . . . . . Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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1. Introduction Indonesia is the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, largely caused by the rapid felling or burning of its natural rainforests and carbon-rich peat-swamp forests (PEACE, 2007). The widespread loss of habitat within these ecosystems means that Indonesia has two threatened hotspots of global biodiversity (Myers et al., 2000), that the region’s wildlife faces greatly increased extinction risk (Sodhi et al., 2004; Hoffmann et al., 2010), and that longer-term risks will increase with further global warming (Brook et al., 2008; Laurance and Useche, 2009; Corlett, this volume). Novel mechanisms must now be considered to slow ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 (0)7 4042 1835. E-mail address: [email protected] (D.P. Edwards). 0006-3207/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2011.10.028
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these dramatic forest losses (Brook and Bradshaw, this volume; Koh and Lee, this volume). In an effort to slow rampant forest disruption and resulting greenhouse gas emissions, early last year Indonesia and Norway signed a landmark deal (Solheim and Natalegawa, 2010). This bilateral ‘‘Partnership’’, outlined in a Letter of Intent (LOI) between the two governments, will reward Indonesia with up to $1 billion for advancing various forest-conservation initiatives. In particular, Indonesia agreed to: (i) temporarily halt the licensing of new logging and plantation concessions on peatlands and natural forests, (ii) draw up a ‘‘degraded-lands’’ database that would direct development to carbon-poor areas and would help minimize conflicts with any existing land-holders, (iii) tackle the illegal degradation and clearance of forests, (iv) create a transparent funding instrument for its national REDD+ strategy, and (v) implement a
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province-wide pilot program that yields verified reductions in carbon emissions. This deal falls under the rubric of ‘REDD+’, by which carbon-compensating nations such as Norway can pay developing countries to ‘Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation’. Many see such REDD+ deals, which will hopefully soon be integrated into the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, as an important new arrow in the quiver of those hoping to save rainforests and slow dangerous global warming (e.g., Laurance, 2008; Edwards et al., 2010a). The Indonesia-Norway agreement finally came into force on 20 May 2011, after several delays, when President Yudhoyono of Indonesia issued Presidential Instruction No. 10/2011, outlining a two-year suspension on new licenses for clearing or logging peat and natural old-growth (primary) forest. The question that remains is whether this instruction will help save Indonesia’s vanishing rainforests. The answer has vital implications both for the global climate and imperilled biodiversity.
2. Which lands are protected? At first glance the Presidential Instruction looks like a win–win scenario for Indonesia, its nature and the planet at large. Old-growth forests (i.e., mixed-dipterocarp rainforests) and peatlands, which contain huge carbon stores and exceptional biodiversity, are temporarily off limits for new clearing or logging concessions. Instead, new developments in Indonesia will be focused on degraded lands. However, it is far too soon to declare this a victory for the environment. Firstly, vast expanses of selectively logged dry forests— which sustain much native biodiversity (Meijaard and Sheil, 2008; Berry et al., 2010; Edwards et al., 2011) and substantial carbon stores (Berry et al., 2010)—are being left out altogether. This runs counter to the urging of scientists (Redmond et al., 2010) and even Indonesia’s own REDD+ Task Force (Satgas REDD+, 2010). The area of forest that is left out of the moratorium dwarfs the land that is protected. According to Murdiyarso et al. (2011), 46.7 million ha of degraded forest, most of which has been logged, can be designated for new concessions. This is fifteen times the size of Belgium and considerably exceeds the area of old-growth forests that are newly protected under the Presidential Instruction. As feared, there was a last-minute rush to approve new concession licenses (Clements et al., 2010), with a swathe of concessions spanning millions of hectares granted on 31 December 2010, the day before the LOI was originally slated to come into force. Precisely how much forest was actually granted is not yet (and may never be) known, but the licensed areas of old-growth forest (9.6 M ha) and peatland (5.8 Mha) apparently span 15.4 M ha (Murdiyarso et al. 2011). After discounting these license areas, plus the 47.8 M ha of forest that falls within existing conservation areas, the moratorium uniquely protects just 22.5 M ha of forest and only 7.2 M ha of forest that is classified as old-growth. At most, therefore, the total area of forest protected under the moratorium is less than half of the area of logged forest in Indonesia that remains fully unprotected, while the area of old-growth mixed-dipterocarp forest is just 15% of the area of logged mixed-dipterocarp forest. The net effect of Indonesia’s implementation of the REDD+ deal is that large expanses of selectively logged forest could be re-logged or cleared for oil palm and pulpwood plantations. Re-logging releases further carbon emissions, via removal of timber and residual damage (Pinard and Putz, 1996), and it shifts the species composition of various taxa away from that found in old-growth forest and causes declines in a number of endemic bird species (Edwards et al., 2011; Woodcock et al., 2011). Of greater concern, however, is the potential for the wholesale conversion of logged forests to oil palm and paper-pulp plantations, which creates large-scale carbon emis-
sions (Danielsen et al., 2008; Fargione et al., 2008; Searchinger et al., 2008) and causes a precipitous decline in biodiversity (Mitra and Sheldon, 1993; Fearnside, 2001; Petit and Petit, 2003; Barlow et al., 2007; Fitzherbert et al., 2008; Sodhi et al., 2009; Edwards et al., 2010b; Sheldon et al., 2010). The Presidential Instruction does protect 11.2 M ha of deep peatlands (2.6 M ha of primary peatlands and 8.6 M ha of logged peatlands; Murdiyarso et al. 2011), which are both physically accessible and significantly threatened by conversion. Although shallower peatlands (those less than 50 cm deep) are evidently unprotected (Wells and Paoli, 2011), that most peatlands are off limits for concession licensing is a major victory for carbon and biodiversity protection. Yet a second critical issue with the Presidential Instruction is that many of the old-growth mixed-dipterocarp forests protected under the decree are in steep, mountainous areas that are unlikely to face much threat anyway (Sloan and Edwards, unpublished data). A major component of any REDD+ deal must be that payments are made to protect carbon stocks that are currently threatened (i.e., REDD+ payments must have ‘additionality’ by slowing imminent forest destruction). However, the most imperilled natural mixed-dipterocarp forests—such as those that survive in the lowlands of Borneo and Sumatra—are largely excluded because they have already been licensed and selectively logged. These flat, easily accessible forests are intensely vulnerable to further logging and especially clearing for exotic-tree plantations. It remains to be seen how the decision to exclude threatened logged forests from the Presidential Instruction will affect the success of the province-wide pilot project. It is plausible that, in the case of mixed-dipterocarp forests, it could well subvert the requirement of additionality for REDD+ payments, because the logged lands that are most at threat from further degradation and deforestation are not included. If this is the case, then this decision could undermine the potential for the pilot to yield verified reductions in carbon emissions. Rather than clearing its logged forests, Indonesia has ample opportunity to expand agriculture onto abandoned lands that lack natural forests, such as its extensive Imperata grasslands (Koh and Ghazoul, 2010). Under the LOI, Indonesia agreed to draw up a degraded-lands database to assist such efforts and to help minimize conflicts with any existing land-holders. Should vast areas of logged forest be included in this database—as the Presidential Instruction indicates might well happen—then it would represent a severe blow for carbon and biodiversity conservation. It could also undermine the very spirit of the LOI to reduce emissions from forest conversion. The two-year ban on new concessions also appears to be riddled with potential loopholes. For instance, existing permits for logging or agriculture in old-growth forest and peatlands can be extended. Furthermore, clearing of old-growth forests and deep peatlands for sugarcane is not banned under the Presidential Instruction. Sugarcane is one of the most rapidly expanding biofuel crops; between 1998 and 2008 it increased in area by 26% globally and by 76% in the World’s Megadiverse Countries (Mittermeier et al., 1997; FAOStat, 2010). Any move to expand sugarcane production in Indonesia could have particularly dour consequences for carbon emissions. This is because clearance of old-growth mixed-dipterocarp forests in Indonesia for biofuel crops takes between 75 and 93 years to offset the lost carbon, while more than 600 years are required to offset conversion of deep peatlands into such crops (Danielsen et al., 2008).
3. Tackling land reform, corruption and illegal extraction Despite such concerns, some distinct positives have arisen from the Presidential Instruction and the wider LOI. The largest is the
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protection of deep peatlands, which will likely represent major carbon savings. The LOI is also helping to promote vitally needed land reforms. At present, licensing decisions in Indonesia are a complex tangle, with decisions spread across several different ministries and with overlapping interests at national, provincial and local levels of government. Clarifying the lines of responsibility and land tenure are quite vital for REDD+ initiatives. Only with support across these different levels of government can the LOI guarantee that carbon stores will be saved over the long-term. At the same time, the LOI has focused the climate change strategies and pre-standing commitments of other international governments. Indonesia has recently seen additional financial commitments to reduce carbon emissions; for example, the European Union have committed to support REDD-related activities, including (further) support towards national strategy development (Trevisan et al., 2011). Such support helps to generate greater financial and political clout for President Yudhoyono, who has expressed a strong desire to contribute to Indonesian forest conservation. Another positive from the REDD+ deal is that President Yudhoyono is having to tackle systemic corruption within Indonesia, which is currently ranked poorly (110th out of 177 countries) for having widespread graft and poor financial transparency (Transparency International, 2010). A key deliverable in Phase 1 of the LOI is the creation of a transparent funding instrument necessary for the implementation of its national REDD+ strategy, while the protection of forest resources from illegal use is quite vital under a REDD+ market future. The President’s ‘Forest Mafia’ task force are already investigating hundreds of companies and officials who have illegally expanded forestry, mining and plantation enterprises, costing the state billions of dollars in lost revenues (e.g., US$36 billion in Indonesian Borneo alone; Mongabay, 2011). One must emphasize, however, that President Yudhoyono has been under enormous pressure from powerful industrial interests and their lobbyists. At present, Indonesia derives much of its economic growth from the expansion of oil palm and paper-pulp production. The corporations that operate these plantations and their elite owners are economically dominant, delivering significant revenues to provincial and national governments (e.g., Fisher et al., 2011b; Koh et al., in press). They are also politically powerful (e.g., funding election campaigns) and well-organized (e.g., funding stridently pro-development lobby groups such as World Growth [www.worldgrowth.org] that actively defend their interests), making them extremely influential. Hence, competing interests within the plantation and logging sectors, as well as within Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry, could tend to undermine both the development of a transparent funding instrument and effective implementation of REDD+. If these powerful corporate and political interests can do so, then this would certainly suggest that a businessas-usual scenario is likely to prevail in Indonesia.
4. The prospect for ‘Phase 3’ REDD+ payments Looking forward to Phase 3 of the LOI, which begins in 2013, it appears there is much work to be done before Indonesia will qualify for substantial REDD+ payments. Under Phase 3, a compensation mechanism will be applied nationally across Indonesia, permitting carbon-compensation payments from Norway and other international governments. However, assuming that Indonesia persists with the land-use regulations detailed in the Presidential Instruction—especially the exclusion from protection of vast areas of native logged forest—the requirement for additionality will likely be poorly met (Sloan and Edwards, unpublished data) and carbon payments to protect mixed-dipterocarp forests could be minimal. Deep peatlands, however, are protected under the
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Instruction and often highly threatened with conversion. Hence, they would likely yield additionality and substantial carbon payments (Sloan and Edwards, unpublished data). Ultimately, it is the lack of clarity and transparency in defining the scope of the Indonesian moratorium that makes it difficult to assess its efficacy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation (Wells and Paoli, 2011). Koh et al. (in press) recently developed a model to evaluate the environmental and socioeconomic implications and tradeoffs involved in implementing the forest moratorium in Indonesian Borneo under alternative scenarios. An associated web-based application (http://REDDcalculator. com) allows rapid estimation of the benefits of REDD+ for carbon conservation and its opportunity costs under user-defined moratorium scenarios. Based on this model, a moratorium that included only natural primary forests and peatlands would protect 9.1 million ha of land and 7.1 billion Mg of biomass and peat carbon across Indonesian Borneo. These benefits are additional to those resulting from existing protected areas (such as lands currently allocated to the ‘Protected area’ and ‘Natural protected forests’ categories). In contrast, if logged forests are also included in the moratorium, the protected land area would more than double, to 18.7 million ha, with 9.7 billion Mg of biomass and peat carbon protected. The doubling of protected forest area under the moratorium in concert with a future REDD+ market is also likely to have huge biodiversity benefits (Edwards et al., 2011). The inclusion of logged forests in the moratorium would raise the opportunity costs of forest protection in Indonesian Borneo, from $132.3 billion to $225.7 billion over a 25-year modeling timeframe. Nonetheless, focusing REDD+ payments on logged forests is clearly a cost-effective strategy (see also Fisher et al., 2011a), because it protects a greater total land area and substantial existing carbon stores for less money, with the potential to achieve additional carbon storage as logged forests regenerate (Berry et al., 2010; Edwards et al., 2010a). The magnitude of the opportunity cost of carbon protection underscores the profitability of Indonesia’s plantation and logging industries, and thus the political clout that these sectors wield. Although $1 billion for carbon protection in Indonesia under the LOI is an excellent start, Norway and other international governments must commit to long-term and far more substantial investment for carbon-compensation in Indonesia. If they fail to do so, then Indonesia’s embryonic REDD+ market is unlikely to compete with destructive, forest- and land-exploiting industries or to garner sufficient support from national interests within Indonesia to succeed.
5. Conclusions The Partnership between Norway and Indonesia is prompting positive steps towards the simplification of land-use planning regulations, tackling corruption and illegal destruction of forest habitats, and protecting deep, carbon-rich peatlands. However, the recent Presidential Instruction (10/2011) outlining a moratorium on new concession licensing—a key deliverable under the LOI—is setting some disturbing precedents as a potential blueprint for future national or sub-national REDD+ forest-carbon-trading deals. As presently deployed, it does too little to conserve imperilled lowland forests that are not on deep peat, and fails entirely to protect vast expanses of logged forest. We thus urge President Yudhoyono to include, at a minimum, logged forests in vulnerable lowland areas and forest conversion for sugarcane under the current moratorium. Without protecting these high-carbon, high-biodiversity lands, Indonesia is unlikely to capture anything close to the potential financial benefits of its landmark agreement with Norway and subsequent REDD+ payments.
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