Large blocks of Sumatra's endangered rainforest may be put up for mining, logging

Large blocks of Sumatra's endangered rainforest may be put up for mining, logging
mongabay.com
January 28, 2013



Rainforest in the Leuser Ecosystem Area

The Indonesian province of Aceh on the western tip of the island of Sumatra may be preparing to lift the protected status of key areas of lowland rainforest potentially ending its bid to earn carbon credits from forest conservation and putting several endangered species at increased risk, according to reports.

Under a draft plan developed by the Aceh parliament's spatial planning committee, some 71,857 hectares of protected areas will lose their protected status and be turned over for logging, mining, and conversion for plantations. While the area represents two percent of Aceh's forests, which presently cover 55 percent of the province's land mass, it includes some of Sumatra's increasingly rare lowland forests. Aceh has the most extensive forest cover left in Sumatra, where vast swathes of forest -- 40 percent of its primary forests and 36 percent of its total forest cover since 1990 -- have been cleared for pulp and paper plantations, oil palm estates, and agriculture.




The draft plan is a significant departure from the plan proposed by Aceh's last governor, Yusuf Irwandi, who championed himself as a conservationist. Irwandi's plan — which was never passed — called for increasing forest cover to 68 percent of the province through strict conservation and reforestation. The new plan targets 45 percent, including reactivating abandoned logging concessions.

The former governor's plan was driven by his interest in earning carbon credits under Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+), a opposed mechanism that aims to compensate tropical countries for protecting and restoring forests. But REDD+ has failed to develop as hoped, undercutting the market for, and value of, forest-conservation based credits. Now one of the first REDD+ projects in the world — located in Aceh's Ulu Masen — appears to be on the chopping block, according to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald.

"Another wilderness area, Ulu Masen, which was slated to become a 735,000-hectare preservation area to prevent carbon emissions, is also not recognized under the spatial plan," wrote Michael Bachelard for the newspaper.

Part of the motivation for the change may be political, according to a local government source who spoke to Mongabay.com on the condition of anonymity.

"The 68 percent figure was in the draft spatial plan prepared by the Irwandi administration, however the government reform inside Aceh needed to achieve this goal never took place during his term," the official said. "Now what we are left with is a team that is 100% anti anything that slightly resembles Irwandi, and a team of bureaucrats who have no faith in REDD delivering any funding and are preparing to launch major deforestation and [road] projects in the name of 'community development' which in reality is simply driven by a small number of large businesses."

Environmentalists say some of the areas set to be excised from reserves under the revised spatial plan would go to mining, palm oil, and logging companies. The Aceh branch of WAHLI, a Indonesian environmental group, said that Acehnese civil society groups are reviewing the proposed changes and matching them with road development projects, oil palm plantations, and mining concessions.

"We fear that these changes are influenced by [business] interests," TM Zulfikar, Executive Director of Walhi Aceh, told Mongabay-Indonesia. "We encourage the committee to open the spatial plan to the public.'

But Aceh's Head of Planning Department of Forestry and Plantation, Saminuddin B. Tou, denied that mining and palm oil interests are influencing the process. He said some of the areas have already been converted and developed despite being designated as protected by the central government's Ministry of Forestry.

"We checked the boundary of the Wildlife Reserve Rawa Singkil on the ground and found is a discrepancy between the Ministry of Forestry map and the conditions in the field," Saminuddin told Mongabay-Indonesia. "When the boundaries of Wildlife Reserve were set in the year of 2000, there were already settlements in the town of Subulussalam and oil palm plantations leases in the conservation area. This is our chance to issue a concession areas and settlements which were already established in Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve."

However the draft spatial plan also proposes opening up parts of the Leuser Ecosystem Area, an zone renowned for its biodiversity — including populations of critically endangered tigers, orangutans, rhinos, and elephants — for concessions. Leuser has been designated as a "National Strategic Area" by the central government, requiring its protection and "sustainable management". Yet Aceh Governor Zaini Abdullah recently transferred control of the Leuser ecosystem's independent management authority to the province's Department of Forestry, which is "traditionally pro-development" according to the Sydney Morning Herald report, raising questions about the long-term commitment to protecting the area. Leuser has already been a source of tension between the central government and the government of Aceh. Former Governor Irwandi, despite his green reputation, in 2011 granted an oil palm development permit in the Leuser's Tripa peat swamp in violation of the central government's moratorium on new concessions in the area. That palm oil company's permit was later revoked, but not before the area was heavily damaged.

Ultimately if Aceh's proposed changes to its spatial plan are deemed too radical, some could be reined in the central government. Furthermore, local opposition could make it difficult for excessive concession development in areas used traditionally by communities. Aceh still has extensive forest cover partly due to opposition in the form of an insurgency by the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka - GAM), which fought against the Indonesian government from 1976-2005. Among GAM's grievances was natural resource extraction by outsiders.




Nonetheless environmentalists are deeply concerned about the proposed spatial plan.

"In Indonesia, most of the good forest is gone except Aceh and Papua," Mike Griffiths, a former coordinator for the Leuser Ecosystem Management Authority told Sydney Morning Herald. "[Now, in Aceh] they are planning, sooner or later, to knock down a quarter of their forests, most of them in the lowland areas."

"If this happens, we'll see the extinction of all the charismatic species in 10 to 20 years."

Read more at http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0128-aceh-logging-spatial-plan.html#ZdpIT5BmDgUqItP1.99

Disaster Risk Reduction Film to Remember Aceh's Tsunami | The Jakarta Globe

Remembering Aceh's tsunami disaster eight years ago, a new disaster risk reduction movie premieres this week.

 

Premiering on Dec. 20, "Pesan Dari Samudra" ("Message From the Ocean") tells the story of a family in Indonesia battling a disaster situation. 

"Pesan Dari Samudra" is a 76-minute feature film made by renowned Indonesian filmmakers Mira Lesmana and Riri Riza. 



This groundbreaking project, funded by the Australia-Indonesia Facility for Disaster Reduction (AIFDR), is an initiative from the Australian Red Cross.
 
“AIFDR was pleased to support this film as it explains what to do, and what not to do, in the case of an earthquake or tsunami,” co-director of AIFDR Matt Hayne said in a statement received by the Jakarta Globe blogs.
 
"Pesan Dari Samudra" will be aired on Metro TV, Dec. 29 at 9:30 p.m. The airing is  eight years after the devastating tsunami struck Indonesia on Dec. 26, 2004.



“Indonesia is one of the most disaster prone countries in the world. This film is one of the many strategies being undertaken by AIFDR to spread key survival messages to those who may be impacted by natural disasters,” Hayne said. 



For more information about the film, click here: www.pesandarisamudra.com

Guardian photo of the day

Series: Picture of the day
On the beach in Banda Aceh, Indonesia - picture of the day
A photographic highlight selected by the picture desk. A Muslim family enjoys nice weather on the beach: having buried her father, a young girl looks around for another victim
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Karin Andreasson
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 20 December 2012 17.04 GMT

Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation, but nowhere is the faith more strictly interpreted than in Aceh, sometimes referred to as the 'verandah of Mecca' because it was one of the first parts of the archipelago to turn to Islam. Aceh is Indonesia's only province to have implemented sharia, or Islamic laws

Two journalists reportedly assaulted in Aceh

The Jakarta Post | Thu, 12/13/2012 9:46 AM | Archipelago

A journalist group in Aceh has urged local police to investigate the attack against two journalists in East Aceh.

Ivo Lestari, an RCTI TV station contributor, and Yusri, a journalist from Harian Aceh, were reportedly assaulted by two men at a lumber mill in Teumpeum village, Peureulak district on Tuesday.

Ivo said that she and Yusri planned to run a story on illegal logging in the village as they heard from local residents that the lumber mill collected illegal logs.

Both journalists were accompanied by two residents.

Ivo tried to take pictures of piles of logs at the back of the mill when two men approached her and forced her to delete the pictures.

The men, Ivo said, later seized their cameras and press IDs before locking them up for around 30 minutes in a room. “They [the men] deleted all our pictures,” said Ivo.

Head of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) branch in Aceh, Maimun Saleh, urged the police to investigate the case.

“We cannot let this happen because such violence is in violation of Law No.40/1999 on press. The law stipulates that journalists have the right to cover stories and spread the information to the public,” Maimun said, adding that journalists, on the other hand, had to follow the code of ethics in covering stories.

Google Interview Question

Four people need to cross a rickety rope bridge to get back to their camp at night…

Unfortunately, they only have one flashlight and it only has enough light left for seventeen minutes. The bridge is too dangerous to cross without a flashlight, and it's only strong enough to support two people at any given time. Each of the campers walks at a different speed. One can cross the bridge in 1 minute, another in 2 minutes, the third in 5 minutes, and the slow poke takes 10 minutes to cross. How do the campers make it across in 17 minutes

Kuntoro Receives Order of Merit From Norway

Jakarta Globe | November 22, 2012
Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, the chief of the Indonesian REDD+ task force and head of the agency overseeing the post-tsunami recovery in Aceh, was awarded a Norwegian order of merit on Wednesday in Jakarta.

Norwegian Ambassador to Indonesia Stig Traavic presented the award, the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit — Commander with Star, to Kuntoro for his “outstanding service in the interests of Norway” and his “commendable work for humanity,” especially in leading the reconstruction and rehabilitation of post-tsunami Aceh.

“He has shown outstanding leadership as minister for the UKP4 [President’s Delivery Unit for Development Monitoring and Oversight] and as head of the Indonesian REDD+ Task Force,” Traavic said before presenting the honor.

Kuntoro said he was truly humbled by the honor.

“I am a simple man, I am a true believer in public service,” he said.

Kuntoro led the Aceh and Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency (BRR) that rebuilt Aceh and Nias after the Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004 devastated vast swaths of the region and killed an estimated 170,000 people there.

The BRR was established in April 2005 and disbanded four years later.

The Royal Order of Merit was established by Norway’s King Olave V in 1985.

japanese students visit Aceh to examine the conflicts and natural disasters of Southeast Asia

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia--New university courses that examine the conflicts and natural disasters of Southeast Asia are confounding the assumption that Japanese students are increasingly inward-looking.

This autumn, about 20 graduate students from institutions in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Okinawa and elsewhere in Japan visited Banda Aceh, the capital of Indonesia's Aceh province, which suffered the double hardships of a 1976-2005 independence struggle and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

In fiscal 2011, the graduate schools of Osaka University, Hiroshima University, Nagasaki University and Meio University in Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, started a program titled Peace and Human Security in Asia. The program is aimed at students who want to examine problems in Asia, such as conflicts, natural disasters and poverty, in an interdisciplinary manner.

The program has organized student exchanges with partner universities in Southeast Asia and has conducted short study tours.

The latest tour was to Syiah Kuala University, a state institution in Banda Aceh. The students attended a symposium on human security and took courses on social rehabilitation policies for the region's former combatants, a militia that fought for the pro-independence Free Aceh Movement against Indonesia's military.

They also studied aid programs for female survivors of the conflict and the tsunami. The group toured the Aceh Tsunami Museum, which opened in May last year, and one student visited a local newspaper company.

Overall, the students got a glimpse of how people there are confronting the legacy of problems and hardships.

Among the participants was 22-year-old Wataru Hayami. He realized that the students he met, at the symposium and elsewhere, were first-hand survivors of the conflict and the tsunami.

"The students were burdened with difficulties, but one of them said, 'The conflict and tsunami allowed us to meet each other,'" Hayami said. "The encounters I had with people of various backgrounds will be a life-long treasure to me."

Hayami is from Osaka University's graduate school, where he studies subjects such as normalizing diplomatic ties between Japan and North Korea.

During a visit to the tsunami museum, Kengo Shinmoto, a 27-year-old graduate student from Hiroshima University, listened to 30-year-old Gaya Triana describe what happened that day. Her younger sister didn't survive the disaster.

"I almost cried," Shinmoto said.

Elsewhere in Banda Aceh, a boat swept 5 kilometers inland is now preserved as a monument. Sturdy mosques that withstood the quake and tsunami have become symbols of rebuilding efforts.

For Shinmoto, it was reminiscent of a more recent tragedy. His thoughts turned to Japan's Tohoku region, which bore the brunt of tsunami damage in 2011.

"The scenes remind me of the lone pine tree that survived the quake," Shinmoto said. He was referring to a tree that became a symbol of resistance after it remained standing in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture.

Koichi Watanabe, 34, another Hiroshima University graduate student, visited the head office of Serambi, a local newspaper. The editor in chief, 45-year-old Yarmen Dinamika, said that during the conflict years the newspaper used to come under pressure from both the national army and separatists because of its neutral editorial line.

The militia blocked Serambi's publication for 20 days and destroyed 12 trucks used to distribute newspapers. The tsunami killed a quarter of Serambi's work force, and Dinamika himself lost two sons in the disaster.

Watanabe said he had already been familiar with the Aceh issue, but had never imagined that the militia would put pressure on a newspaper.

"I realized there are so many things you cannot learn unless you go into the field," Watanabe said.

Issei Shibata, a 24-year-old Osaka University graduate student whose work examines the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, joined the program out of curiosity. Shibata said he wanted to discover how Aceh has been developing after separatists abandoned their independence bid. He decided to remain in Banda Aceh, staying in a private home and attending Syiah Kuala University for half a year.

"People here have a concept of 'us all,' which includes those on the opposite side, unlike the Israelis and Palestinians, who think of 'us' and 'them,'" Shibata said. "I am curious to learn more about Aceh."

A professor who led the tour added: "I wanted students to learn about the complicated and multifaceted reality of peace-building in a conflict zone, something that cannot be learned from textbooks and articles alone."

Akihisa Matsuno, 56, of Osaka University, leads research into conflicts and peace-building at the university's Osaka School of International Public Policy.

"The students seem to have learned something," Matsuno said.

By MAKOTO KUSAKAWA/ Staff Writer IndonesiaAcehstudenteducationconflictIndian Ocean tsunamiGreat Sumatra Earthquaketsunamiearthquakenatural disasteruniversity