Slightly more than a year ago, Indonesia enacted a moratorium on forestry, and today the legislation is proving difficult to implement, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Slightly more than a year ago, Indonesia enacted a moratorium on forestry, and today the legislation is proving difficult to implement, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Indonesia said it would stop issuing forest-clearing permits for two years, in an effort to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions. Working against the legislation are special interests, violations of the agreement, challenges to the agreement, and the discovery of logging permits Indonesia's central government hadn't known existed.
After the moratorium was finalized, government leaders produced a map showing areas that fell under the ban, but next individuals and corporations with claims in those tracts came forward to have their territory moved off the protected list, The Wall Street Journal reported; most of the changes are coming from palm oil plantation owners. Today, environmentalists in Indonesia are calling for tougher enforcement and an extension of the moratorium.
Indonesia's deforestation rate is one of the fastest in the world; consequently, it is one of the world's top producers of greenhouse-gas emissions. As part of the United Nations' REDD+ program, Indonesia pledged in 2010 to reduce its emissions by 26% by 2020.
