Indonesia’s moratorium on logging, palm oil concessions may be inadequate

 

 

…details of the moratorium, which was a condition under Indonesia’s billion dollar forest conservation partnership with Norway and was supposed to be signed January 1, won’t be released until Friday, leaving it unclear what types of forest will be protected from logging and conversion to plantations. The moratorium will certainly include primary forests, but natural forests that have high conservation value and carbon stocks may still be left on the chopping block.

via mongabay.com.

Indonesia forests being ‘destroyed’

In a report on Tuesday, Greenpeace said it had confidential documents from a Sinar Mas subsidiary, Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), suggesting that the company did not intend to fulfil a promise to source its wood from plantations alone after 2009.

“From analysis of Indonesian government and confidential Sinar Mas maps and data, as well as on-the-ground investigations … APP continues to acquire and destroy rainforest and peatland to feed its two pulp mills in Sumatra,” the environmental group said in the report, referring to the once forest-clad western Indonesian island.

Read more at Al Jazeera English.

Indonesia self-destructs (and we’re next door)

Why doesn’t anyone in government do anything about this other than to say it is difficult to police this vast country?

From CNN:

Sumatra, Indonesia (CNN) — The land still smolders, tinted with a depressing gray. Twisted hulks of tree trunks take on abnormal shapes. A dark black canal cuts through the wasted landscape.
It looks like a scene from an apocalyptic movie where an unknown force has obliterated all life. But this is the reality of Sumatra, Indonesia’s largest island…