Jakarta, 16/04 (Bis­nis Indone­sia): Reduc­tion Emis­sion from Degra­da­tion and Defor­esta­tion scheme pro­posed to address cli­mate change does not nec­es­sar­ily ben­e­fit Indonesia.

“There­fore, we must find an alter­na­tive fundrais­ing scheme for car­bon trad­ing aside of REDD,” said Forestry Min­is­ter M. S. Kaban after open­ing a national sem­i­nar on Rais­ing Ini­tia­tives on Vol­un­tary Car­bon Trad­ing, in Mang­gala Wan­abakti, yesterday.

The alter­na­tive scheme, he said, should be pre­pared from due to the fact that REDD scheme does not nec­es­sar­ily ben­e­fits Indone­sia. “If I can be frankly, we are amazed with REDD, but it is dif­fi­cult to exe­cute plus it does not give much ben­e­fits. We must find a sim­ple, inex­pen­sive scheme capa­ble of sav­ing the forests. Other than that, we still have to pre­vent defor­esta­tion, and at the same time still ben­e­fits the com­mu­nity,” said Kaban.

With REDD scheme, accord­ing to Kaban, Indone­sia expects to receive for­eign fund up to US$ 3,75 bil­lion (Rp. 33,75 tril­lion) per year. How­ever, he could not elab­o­rate what is the real value in the form of money that can be received by Indone­sians who already pro­tected the for­est area.
“REDD can be the one of the ways to obtain for­eign fund to man­age for­est. In other word, our for­est absorbs the car­bon, but we get no fee due to the com­pli­cated scheme,” he said.
“We also urge the devel­oped coun­tries that have been, to date, received ben­e­fit from Indone­sian forests, in where their emis­sions have been absorbed, to pro­vide incen­tive. The prob­lem is, we can not wait. There­fore, we must find a sim­pler and inex­pen­sive alter­na­tive scheme,” said Kaban.

Inex­pen­sive alter­na­tive scheme, accord­ing to him, does not have to come from the gov­ern­ment, such as REDD, but it can also come from other insti­tu­tions such as Indone­sian Eco­la­bel­ing Insti­tute (LEI). LEI is expected to be capa­ble of set­ting up vol­un­tary car­bon trade.
In addi­tion to that, accord­ing to him, LEI is expected to pre­pare reg­u­la­tions on state and com­mu­nity for­est cer­ti­fi­ca­tion before we enter inter­na­tional car­bon trad­ing market.

”By try­ing alter­na­tive scheme lead­ing to vol­un­tary car­bon trad­ing, we can involve the com­mu­nity to pro­tect for­est areas. I believe LEI can arrange a vol­un­tary car­bon trad­ing scheme,” he said.
Accord­ing to the min­is­ter, the coop­er­a­tion between LEI and Kop­erasi Peruma­han Wana Nusan­tara (KPWN) of which man­ages the plant­ing sys­tem based on tree stem man­age­ment prin­ci­ples, can pro­vide the plot or real exam­ple of the vol­un­tary car­bon trad­ing scheme.

Car­bon Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion
Forestry expert from Bogor Agri­cul­tural Insti­tute (IPB), Teddy Rusolono, said that the cur­rently applied car­bon trad­ing scheme involves at least ten stake­hold­ers, from sell­ers to buy­ers. ”There­fore, the vol­un­tary car­bon trad­ing scheme should be able to cut the red tape and reduce admin­is­tra­tional costs,” he said.
LEI Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Daru Asy­carya, said that LEI is at the moment set­ting up the alter­na­tive scheme of vol­un­tary car­bon trad­ing men­tioned ear­lier by Kaban. In addi­tion to that, LEI is devel­op­ing car­bon cer­ti­fi­ca­tion stan­dard for com­mu­nity based forests. (erwin.tambunan@bisnis.co.id)