PALMOILMAGAZINE, JAKARTA – Abetnego Tarigan, Deputy II of the President’s Staff Office, emphasized that deforestation remains a critical issue within the palm oil sector, both directly and indirectly. Efforts to reduce emissions on a national scale, targeting a reduction of up to 200 million tons, with a detailed allocation of 4 million tons per region, are ongoing.
Regions with occupations sensitive to climate change, such as farmers or smallholders, are particularly vulnerable. Tarigan noted that a 2021 study placed Indonesia 97th out of 181 countries in terms of climate change impact, considering the dynamic interplay of politics, geography, and social factors within the country.
“In the past two years, the trade sector has been actively promoting the sustainable production of commodities, taking into account social and environmental considerations,” Tarigan remarked during the inauguration of the third national workshop on sustainable palm oil, which Palmoilmagazine.com monitored in January 2024.
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New policies were even published namely that regulated commodities that could deliver impacts for ecosystem. Many international scale forums now promote positive management concept which is the public policies in trade to confirm the environmental and natural conservation.
Though deforestation showed the decreasing level from 2000 to 2023, it needs to notice the expansion. The main factor of deforestation derived from commodity sectors. It went up to 653 thousand hectares per year (2015 – 2016), namely from pulp and paper, palm oil plantation, and mining.
That is why Tarigan continued, the Government of Indonesia keeps doing the best to solve deforestation issue, realizing palm oil as sustainable commodity by publishing Rencana Aksi Nasional Kelapa Sawit Berkelanjutan (RAN KSB), improving Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO), solving palm oil plantations in forest regions, and escalating smallholders’ plantation productivity, including implementing smallholders replanting program (SRP). These are parts of the governance strategies.
By realizing that issues and challenges ahead namely in legal aspects to get SRP, the government keeps being committed to solve the issues. But it needs to emphasize that palm oil sector improvement has something to do with 11 government’s policies which are being implemented. (T2)
