KOTAWARINGIN BARAT, KOMPAS.com – The Ministry of Forestry encourages investors who have obtained business license for timber forest product utilization in industrial forest (HTI) to immediately realize planting activity. Indonesia will be able to meet the needs for forest industry raw materials from plantation forest if it is able to plant 10 million hectares by 2012.
Minister of Forestry, Zulkifli Hasan revealed this matter while observing the concession of industrial plantation forest owned by PT Korintiga Hutani in West Kotawaringin Regency, Central Kalimantan, Friday (9/7/2010). Korintiga Hutani is a subsidiary of Korindo Group, from South Korea.
“There are indeed (investors) of industrial forest plantations who are misbehaving (because they do not carry out planting), but there are many good ones. Among them is Korintiga Hutani. We have seen their commitment in planting. Other (investors) of industrial forest2 plantations have do the same in their areas as well,” Zulkifli said after observing Korintiga Hutani’s industrial plantation forest area.
Industrial forest plantation area that has been planted is only 4.3 million hectares. This area is almost half of 8.7 million hectares of HTI concessions that have received a definitive decree (SK) from the Minister of Forestry.
The Minister of Forestry was accompanied by the Director General of Forestry Production Development, Hadi Daryanto, South Korean Ambassador for Indonesia, Kim Ho-Young, Special Delegation of French President for Climate Change, Jacques Le Guen, who is also a member of the French Parliament, and Central Kalimantan Vice Governor Ahmad Diran. They went around observing a small portion of 97,850 hectares of area owned by HTI Korintiga Hutani in West Kotawaringin and Lamandau, Central Kalimantan.
Korintiga Hutani has been planting acacia, eucalyptus, and waru trees since 1998, and has now reached an area of 60,088.7 hectares. The management is now opening a corridor to transport their initial harvest from 3,620.6 hectares of area since October 2010.
Forestry observer, Transtoto Handadhari, revealed that the realization of planting activity in industrial forest plantation is considered slow due to several reasons. Among them are the less-supportive government regulation, social and land conflicts, and capital issue due to minimum banking support. Transtoto gave an example that in the decree for industrial forest plantation license, there are still prohibition to carry out logging in a forest within the HTI area.
Meanwhile, the condition of forest is very poor, yet still inteferes the plantation forest entrepreneurs. “The government should examine the field to establish a truly viable industrial forest plantation area with an appropriate silviculture system, that does not undermine forest conservation functions, and to be free of conflicts,” Transtoto said.
Source : Kompas
