InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA – In the recent days, there was a publication about the palm oil study done by IUCN. It was responded well by the government. Coordinator Minister in Economy, Darmin Nasution even mentioned that the palm oil plantations have better impacts to the wild life and conservation rather than those from other kinds of plantations because palm oil plantations need narrower areas.
In the recent official statement to InfoSAWIT, the government was also urged not to ignore the other points in the study. The first is that palm oil should be responsible on the massive natural forest damages where the tiger, orangutan, sumatran elephants, and other species which are about to extingtion live that IUCN put in the Red Lists.
The second is that the report also noticed that it is important to stop deforestation, prevent the palm oil expansion to the natural forests for the two would destroy the conservation.
So the government should have the high standard in sustainability through Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) and should run the traceability system in the chain of stock, and implement the monitoring system, report and forest verification/deforestation better. The first thing to do is that the government should get the concession data to improve the transparency and accountability.
“We never deny that palm oil is one most efficient plantation in the area need. But it has had bad history in deforestation, the inefficient production method, and enrivonmental pollution, such as, chemical fertilizer usage in massive numbers,” Executive Director of Sawit Watch, Indah Fatinaware said.
Knowing that the study of IUCN in Indonesia was launched in the same week when the voting in European Union took place to know that European would set the phase out date of palm oil usage in biofuel from 2030 to be 2023, Minister Darmin should consider everything to what IUCN recommended seriously and implement those as soon as possible to convine European Union and others that Indonesia is really committed to produce palm oil sustainably. Not only to get the income (exchange) but also to protect the environment and human rights.
“At this point, it is very important for our country to improve the forest and plantation governance from its base and increase the sustainable palm oil production. It starts by strengthening the palm oil moratorium, ISPO, and prioritize the fund from Palm oil Plantation Fund Management Agency to support the smallholders when cutivating in the best practices. Everything must be verified that palm oil from Indonesia is sustainably produced,” Executive Director of Yayasan Madani Berkelanjutan, Muhammad Teguh Surya said. (T2)
