Welcome Move

Welcome Move

Dr Arvind Kumar

A recent pledge by Indonesia's largest palm oil producer to follow new standards to protect carbon-rich forests and peat land has been welcomed by environmentalists and the government of Indonesia. On 9 February, Golden Agri-Resources, a unit of the Indonesian conglomerate Sinar Mas and the world's second-largest palm oil producer, announced that it was working with the government and The Forest Trust (TFT), a Geneva-based global NGO, to develop sustainable palm oil plantations. Under the agreement with TFT, the company said a new conservation policy had been established to focus on avoiding developing plantations on high carbon stock forests, high conservation value forest areas and peat land. It is noteworthy that under a $1 billion agreement with Norway, Indonesia has pledged a two-year moratorium on all new forest and peat land concessions from January 2011 as part of efforts to avert a climate change crisis.

While welcoming Golden Agri-Resources’ recent pledge, Bustar Maitar, chief forest campaigner for Greenpeace in Indonesia, has said: "This could be good news for the forests, endangered species like the orangutan and for the Indonesian economy. On paper, the new commitments from Golden Agri-Resources are a major step towards ending their involvement in deforestation, and if they do make these changes, large areas of forests will be saved. But now they've actually got to implement these plans, and we're watching closely to make sure this happens." Experts feel that now the Indonesian government must support this initiative by stopping any more licences being granted for forest and peat land clearance, and by reviewing activities in areas where licences have already been handed out. This exmaple is worth emulating by others as well.