InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA -In the late days there comes kinds of accusation cornering palm oil industries nationally. Some claimed, palm oil industries have become the sources of premier forest damages.
Whether the claims based on the fact, and whole researches or only the claims based on small cases, but, Board of ‘Pakar Persatuan Sarjana Kehutanan Indonesia (Persaki)’, Petrus Gunarso ensured, palm oil idnsutries develop not by enlarging the natural primier forest.
Based on his researches in 2010 in thre countries, such as, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea, in Indonesia, the natural primier forests were enlarged to develop palm oil reaching only 0,2% in thefirst place. “Most of the areas develop when the people fell down their rubber trees and substituted to be palm oil areas,” he recently said in Jakarta.
Petrus continued, this also happened in Malaysia. So the conservation of rubber areas to be palm oil happened for the economy. When rubber had no good price, and no sign to get better, the land owners decided to substitute their areas to be palm oil. “This has something to do with interest to plant particular commodity. Many would choose to plant profitable commodity,” Petrus who was active in independent research institution about Tropenbos forestry, said.
So some accusations to palm oil might have political issue. He also mentioned, if the goal is politics, think rationally not theortically. In addition, palm oil develops fast not only to fulfill the food needs but also to woof and fuel. Then it is thought as the commodity threatening the production of vegetable oil from the sub tropical continents.
Petrus also thought, if it is about to improve the area management, it needs the spatial approach. From the beginning, the national spatial policy keeps changing in every five years. Actually the 5 year changes should be permanent characteristics. “It is a habit that in Indonesia if there is a broken forest area, and there has no tree, one thing to do is to make the status of the area lower, that is, other usage area. Actually, the area should be planted again,” he said.
If this condition keeps happening, the forests will be less and stop to be other usage areal. The government should understand this well. For example, every five years, there should be forest improvement but not damage. It is time to control. “Don’t change in every five years. This will be a mass. It should understand the landscape in a whole and should be re-managed,” he who becomes a directors in a pulp and wood company said. (T2)
