The SETAPAK program promotes good forest and land governance as fundamental to achieving sustainable forest management, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and supporting sustainable low carbon economic growth. Direct action by civil society is vital to good land use governance. Increasing public concern and the importance of the rule of law on all levels of government is critical to ensuring environmental sustainability.

SETAPAK partners in Aceh have been active in restoring a forest area destroyed by an oil palm plantation and have been pressing local, regional and national government to halt plans to exploit the protected Leuser Ecosystem, one of the most biodiverse areas remaining on earth. These activities demonstrate how important determined and coordinated citizen action is in holding government to account.

“The district strongly supports the restoration of protected forest areas. This is expected to prevent an ecological disaster in Tamiang,” Razuardi Ibrahim, district secretary, Tamiang Aceh.

Aceh Forest Restoration

Aceh forest cover | Photo: Rhett Butler

Restoring and Protecting Aceh’s Forests

On 29 September 2014, the sound of chainsaws rang out near Tenggulun, a village in Aceh Tamiang district, bordering North Sumatra. The sound was for once a sign of good things to come for the Tamiang forest, part of the Lueser Ecosystem. It marked the beginning of a project to clear 1,071 ha of illegally planted palm oil and restore an area of protected forest. Local community members gathered to celebrate as the head of the region’s forest management unit (KPH Wilayah III) cut down an oil palm tree, and planted a native sapling in its place. Since these ceremonious beginnings a further six ha extending along ten kilometres of the plantation boundary has been cleared, marked with signs, and is now being patrolled while the land is replanted with native forest.

HAkA (Hutan Alam dan Lingkungan Aceh - Natural Forests and Environment Aceh), a SETAPAK partner NGO, have been working to reclaim and restore an area in the Leuser Ecosystem where a former district head had issued illegal permits for a palm oil plantation, violating the forest area’s protected status. Tezar Pahlevie, HAkA’s regional manager, said: “Efforts like this restoration and further citizen actions are needed to save the people of Aceh Tamiang from ecological disaster.” The project brings together the Aceh Tamiang government, Aceh provincial forestry agency and the KPH Wilayah III, Leuser Conservation Forum (FKL), other local NGOs, the local community and the police.

To educate local community members about the damaging ecological impacts of palm oil, and to raise awareness about the value of the Tamiang forest HAkA staff and volunteers held presentations, educational workshops, and conducted door-to-door advocacy. Community demand for restoration of the Tamiang forest grew as a result. With the community behind them, HAkA held a series of meetings with local government officials and the District Head to discuss the ecological and social benefits of restoring the natural forests, and the work required to rehabilitate the forests. After several meetings, the District Head was on board, and on November 6 2014 issued a decree to legalise the eradication of the plantations and to restore 1071 ha of forests and mangroves in Aceh Tamiang.

Since 2000, in the Tenggulun subdistrict of Aceh Tamiang, protected forests were cleared and over 4,000 ha of palm oil was planted illegally. ‘More than 10,000 ha of forest upstream has been severely damaged’, said Rudi Putra, the head of HAkA who was awarded with the prestigious Goldman Prize in 2014. This land clearing has taken its toll on the forests. Following a process of investigation Haka identified that twenty six companies have illegal plantations in the Tamiang forest. This was reported to law enforcement authorities, who charged one company with illegally clearing land, with one person sentenced to six months imprisonment and fined Rp 10 million, and another named a suspect.

Clearing palm oil to restore the forest | Photo: Greeners

Aceh Tamiang forests are part of the Leuser Ecosystem, a 2.6 million ha stretch of world-renown forests listed by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) as one of the ‘World’s Most Irreplaceable Places.’ With two mountain ranges, three lakes and more than nine river systems, the area covers the largest extent of intact forest remaining in Asia and contains some of the world’s highest known levels of biodiversity. It is the last place on earth where endangered Sumatran elephants, orangutans, rhinos and tigers exist in the wild. Clearing the Tamiang forests has fragmented wildlife corridors - critical corridors for these endangered species to connect with other populations.

The Tamiang forest also functions as critical watershed, which intact absorbs heavy rains to mitigate against flooding. Forest conversion has seen disasters such as flash floods and landslides worsening in Aceh, killing scores of people each year, and disrupting agricultural production. Large scale forest clearing, which HAkA estimates to be over 80,000 ha of forests, has severely diminished the forest’s flood absorption ability. In 2006 catastrophic floods and landslides hit Aceh Tamiang district hard. ‘Based on World Bank data, floods in 2006 cost an estimated Rp. 1 trillion loss (US$77 million). It was because of declining forest coverage significantly in the Tamiang water catchment areas,’ said Rudi.

Despite the Leuser Ecosystem’s designation as a National Strategic Area where the law supposedly forbids environmentally damaging land use, conservation faces major challenges. While most of the area is protected, plantation estates, timber

concessions, and community forests exist within its boundaries, or adjacent to them. Aceh has lost more than a third of its cover in the last 20 years, and between 2005 and 2009, 36,000 ha of forest was destroyed.

The expansion of oil palm plantations is one of the biggest causes of forest loss in Indonesia. New plantations are often established in freshly cleared forest and peatland as it costs more to rehabilitate used land than it does to clear new land. Plantation companies often finance operations by logging and selling trees for pulp or timber, and in some cases go no further than clearing the land.

Exploding global demand has driven plantations deep into tropical forests everywhere, including the Leuser Ecosystem. As well as having significant impacts on forest cover, biodiversity, carbon emissions and carbon stocks, these encroachments – along with associated logging, fires and road building – fragment the rainforest, destroy animal habitats, hinder migration and increase poaching. Plantations also pollute the soil and water with pesticides, attract pests such as rats, and cause soil erosion and increased sedimentation in rivers, and palm oil mills often discharge untreated effluent into waterways. Halting the expansion of oil palm enterprises is crucial to reducing Indonesia’s carbon dioxide emissions, preserving biodiversity, and reducing human deaths and economic losses in local communities.

Restoring Crucial Ecosystem Services

Slippery Business Palm oil is an edible oil derived from the fruits of the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis). Used worldwide in a large number of manufactured food products such as margarine, soups, sauces, ice cream, crackers, instant noodles and confectionary products, it is the world’s cheapest and most widely consumed vegetable oil, accounting for 65 percent of all vegetable oil traded internationally. Increasingly included as a component in biodiesel fuels, it has further uses in manufacturing lubricants, detergents, soaps and cosmetics.

Palm oil is popular with producers because it has a high yield, requiring less land to produce than most other vegetable oils. It is attractive to the food industry because it is cheap and semisolid at room temperature. Indonesia is the world’s largest producer (23.6 million tonnes in 2011) accounting for around half of global production, and output is expected to double by 2030. Palm oil currently contributes about 4.5 percent of Indonesia’s GDP, with Sumatra accounting for approximately 67 percent of the total planted oil palm area (9.2 million ha), and 74 percent of national production.

The destruction of illegal oil palm plantations has reached 200 acres of the first phase of the target area of 1,071 hectares | Photo: Junaidi Hanafiah

The Asia Foundation’s SETAPAK program, funded by the UK Climate Change Unit, is focused on improving forest and land governance in Indonesia. As well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate global climate change, the program helps Indonesia’s decentralized governance ensure transparency and accountability in the management, protection and distribution of benefits from natural resources with the intention of achieving sustainable economic growth.

The next step in returning Tamiang forests to life following clearing palm oil is to revegetate with native trees. Various donors, including the Forum of Environmental Conservation (FKL), have contributed IDR600 million (around US$50,000) for reforestation work, but according to Tamiang’s Head of Forestry and Plantations, IDR3 billion (around US$240,000) more is required. To support a request for budget allocation from the district and national government for the restoration, HAkA has worked with local leaders to appeal to the national government for funds and is conducting a budget study with support from the National Secretariat of the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (Seknas FITRA). The study will determine how much money is needed for restoration and which government agencies should be responsible.

To protect Tamiang’s remaining forest cover into the future, a coalition of ten local NGO’s, called the Aceh Forest and Environment Coalition (Koalisi Penyelamatan Hutan dan Lingkungan Aceh) are advocating for a district-wide moratorium on industrial land use emissions. According to HAkA’s research, only 20 percent or 46,100 ha of natural forest cover remains in Aceh Tamiang. The district’s remaining land has been converted to palm oil and rubber plantations, mining concessions and human settlements. Koalisi Penyelamatan Hutan dan Lingkungan Aceh has produced a policy brief and presented it to the District Head in a meeting to promote the benefits of protecting further forests from being allocated for conversion to palm oil or mining. Preserving Tamiang’s remaining forests against further conversion is vital to protecting vital water sources for the Aceh Tamiang local community and for maintaining the Leuser Ecosystem’s ecosystem and climate mitigation functions.

Financing Reforestation