Deforestation in Indonesia

Stopping deforestation and reducing atmospheric carbon emissions by keeping carbon locked up in trees takes more than just banning forest clearance, as Indonesia is finding out.

The country — home to the world’s third-largest tropical forest and some of the highest carbon emissions from deforestation — is halfway through a two-year moratorium on the issuing of new permits to clear forests on 65 million hectares of land. The initiative is part of a US$1-billion deal with Norway to protect the South East Asian nation’s forest and cut the country's greenhouse-gas emissions by 26% by 2020. It puts Indonesia’s efforts to conserve its forests a step ahead of those taken by most other heavily forested nations.

But as increasingly accurate forest maps and data on clearance permits become available, it is growing clear that the moratorium is having little effect on deforestation rates and carbon emissions — and secures a smaller area of forest than was thought.

However, the Indonesian government has confirmed its commitment to its climate-change pledge by extending the protected area and stripping a palm-oil firm of a permit to develop carbon-rich peatland.

“No other country has done anything like this,” says Daniel Murdiyarso, a climate-change scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), based in Bogor, Indonesia.

The government’s transparency in providing accurate data on forested areas and clearance permits is an “achievement and great step forward”, says Murdiyarso, although that in itself won’t do much to reduce carbon emissions.

Norway’s environment minister, Bård Vegar Solhjell, acknowledges the limitations of the moratorium. “We know that the moratorium itself is not sufficient to reach the climate mitigation pledged or to stop deforestation in the speed necessary