Indonesia’s REDD+ pact: Saving imperilled forests or business as usual?

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 old-growth 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.

► A REDD+ partnership will pay Indonesia up to $1 billion for advancing carbon-saving initiatives.
► A Presidential Instruction (PI) outlines a two-year moratorium on logging and plantation concessions.
► This PI does not protect logged rainforests and has a number of loopholes.
► Benefits include the protection of peatlands and improved land-use planning frameworks.