InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA -  President Joko Widodo signed Palm oil Moratorium in the form of President’s Instruction No. 8 / 2018 on Wednesday (19/9/2018). The policy would frozen some palm oil concession licenses for the next three years.

The moratorium would be for the protected forests that Ministry of Forestry manages. It does not cover the areas where the regional government manages or the forest in the palm oil concession license – that may make million hectares of forest and peat not protected.

Team Leader of Forest Campaigner, Greenpeace Indonesia, Arie Rompas thought, palm oil moratorium is a good thing to do but it has no power (tusk) still for it is temporary and leaves million hectares of unprotected forests and there is no sanction if any institution (one) breaks it.

“Palm oil industries in Indonesia have serious reputation that the government could improve in a whole. Once for all by forbidding the permanent practice to damage the forest, including those in the concession areas,” he recently said in the official statement to InfoSAWIT.

Greenpeace thought, the three year – palm oil moratorium to prevent the new palm oil plantation allocation in the forest regions and in the areas where the central government manages, might have weakness, such as, it does not prevent the allocation of new concession areas to million hectares of natural forests in the other usage allocation where the regional government manages.

The moratorium does not also prevent the cutting of the forest and peat development in the palm oil concession areas that the companies would do. “The moratorium in the form of President’s Instruction does not regulate (bind) in the legal perspective to the government or local institution, and there is no sanction to those who would break it,” Arie said. (T2)