When palm oil new planting starts, feasibility study should have been started in the first place by having preliminary survey to investigate or check on the candidates of plantations. The check should only be running on the areas (regions) as registered on location permit. It is about areas (forest or non-forest), accessibility, status region uses, area adjustment (such as, agro-climate, slope, class of areas, et cetera), social economic condition in the region and the support of local people around the plantation candidates. If the study results showed that the areas examined are not worth it, it is better not to continue the project and the reverse.
The investors need to understand the areas decided according to agreement forest use (AFU) and provincial spatial plan (PSP). AFU is the government’s forests which are divided into their functions, such as, protected forests, conservation forests, production forests, and production forests that can be conversed. AFU was published since 1983 by Department of Forestry that regional governments, and other sectors approved. PSP is the division of provincial spatial as the description of Laws of Spatial in 1992. In PSP it regulates about division of spatial as protected forests, forestry cultivation areas, and non-forestry cultivation areas. In the implementation, since 1993 AFU and PSP were combined. One province that has not been combined until now is Central Kalimantan. The province 100% applies AFU which means, location permits which local regent published are always overlapping with forest areas according to the decision of AFU.
That is why the first significant thing to do in selecting or taking over (one) areas is about to check the region itself. In Indonesia, there are two kinds of regions within different use, they are, forest and non-forest regions or some may know as other area of use (OAU). In the forest region which is decided by AFU or PSP, only conversion forests probably have the chance to be conversed to be OAU if getting forest area release agreement from Ministry of Environment and Forestry by having certain consideration. While OAU that can be developed to be plantations, it needs to propose permit location from the local regent. In palm oil plantation development plan, it is better not to get location where it is categorized in forest regions and to confirm it, it needs to get cross check through National Planning and Mapping Agency in Bogor. (T2)
