Oil Palm Plantations Not Cause Of Deforestation: Academian

JAKARTA, March 22 (ANTARA)- Indonesian experts and observers have defended Indonesian palm oil industry facing voting in Europe blaming oil palm plantations for extensive deforestation in the country. The voting based on reports by non governmental organizations (NGOs) is feared to continue discrimination against Indonesian palm oil products in the European market. Europe has been one of the largest markets for Indonesian crude palm oil and derivatives, which are among the largest export earners for the country. A professor of the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) Dr Yanto Santosa said it is wrong to blame oil palm plantations for deforestation in Indonesia. The lands used for oil palm plantations in Indonesia did not belong to forest areas, the professor said here on Monday. "I definitely say that oil palm plantations are not the cause of deforestation in Indonesia," he said, adding the European Parliament has been wrong in accusing oil palm plantations of damaging the country's tropical forests. Yanto Santosa said his statement was based on a result of surveys in 2016 involving eight big oil palm plantations and 16 plantations owned by smallholders. The plantations are located in the regencies of Kampar, Kuantan Singingi, Pelelawan, and Siak in Riau. According to the survey the lands used for oil palm plantations no longer had the status of forest lands. Yanto Santosa said when the business license and the land use title (HGU) were issued the lands used by all large plantations were no longer in the status of forest lands. He said 68.02 percent of 46,372.4 hectares of lands used by the large plantation companies were originally conversion forest lands , 30.01 percent originally limited production forests and 1.97 percent originally production forest lands. Around 91.76 percent of the 47.5 hectares of smallholders' plantations surveyed no longer had the status of forest lands when the farmers began to cultivate them. "Only 8.24 per cent still had the status of forest land," Dr Yanto said. He said the allegation of the European Parliament was caused by differences in terminology in definition of deforestation. For the European and foreign non governmental organizations (NGOs), deforestation is the clearing any lands covered with live trees. "Deforestation in their understanding is when clearing any lands having many trees. While in the Indonesian law deforestation is the use of forest land for non forestry purposes," he said. Meanwhile, a member of the Expert Council of the Indonesian Association of Masters of Forestry (Persaki), Petrus Gunarso, said based on a survey , the country has around 11 million hectares of oil palm plantations and the largest part of them were originally rubber plantations. Conversion of rubber plantations into oil palm plantations was a result of shrinking price of natural rubber latex over the past several years. Fresh fruit bunches of oil palm trees were much more profitable for the growers. Petrus said part of oil palm plantations in Indonesia also were originally degraded forests categorized by the government as non forest areas. He acknowledged that parts of the land used by oil palm plantations were forest areas allowed for other uses (APL). "APL areas are legally allowed to be used for non forestry purposes," he said. Therefore, most of the lands used by oil palm plantations were originally non forest areas, he said. "Non forest areas converted into non forest lands used for other purposes, therefore, it is not deforestation," he said. Indonesia's exports of palm oil are restricted again in the European Union (UE). The result of voting in the EU parliament was that oil palm plantations had caused deforestation, habitat degradation, and problem in human rights, degradation of social standards and employment of child workers. The voting held by the Committee for the Environment, Community Health and Food Security showed that 56 votes agreed with and only one against the NGOs' reports that oil palm plantations were the cause of deforestation in Indonesi8a. Although the result of the voting is yet to be brought to a plenary session on April 3-6, the implication of the report would be bad for the country's exports to Europe. Moreover, the use of palm oil for bio-diesel program in Europe in 2020 would likely be tightened with the adoption of one system of certification of palm oil in Europe. General chairman of the Indonesian Association of Agro-economy (Perhepi) Bayu Krisnamurthi said the voting was a political step that has no respect for the Indonesian-EU cooperation agreements, as it was based on "incorrect" report. "This is a concrete form of negative campaign having strong nuance of trade competition," Bayu Krisnamurthi said.