Mangrove Rehabilitation to Start on 150,000 Hectares Lands in 2021, Luhut Says

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan targeted the mangrove rehabilitation program will be started on 150,000 hectares (ha) of land in 2021.

It was conveyed in the coordination meeting on the acceleration of mangrove rehabilitation on Monday. The online conference was participated by Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya, Fisheries and Maritime Affairs Minister Wahyu Trenggono, as well as representatives of Home Affairs Ministry, and Bappenas, and World Bank chief representative for Indonesia and Timor Leste Satu Kahkonen.

“I ask, if it’s possible, [we rehabilitate] 150,000 ha of critical and prone to tsunami lands this year,” Luhut said in a written statement on Tuesday, Jan. 26.

The program targets to rehabilitate mangrove plots measuring 600,000 hectares on nine provinces in 2021-2024. The criteria of prioritized provinces include the regions with critical lands, tsunami-prone areas, threatened by coastal abrasion, and have a green port/company CSR.

The state budget (APBN), including the additional budget (ABT) through the national economic recovery program (PEN), will fund the majority of mangrove rehabilitation, or 84 percent, this year, and the 16 percent will be funded from non-APBN.

But in the next years, the state budget allocation will gradually be decreased and replaced by non-APBN funding. One of them is through strategic partners and international organizations such as the World Bank.  

Moreover, Luhut explained, there will be a large-scale seeding to support the program. Therefore, he asked for the cooperation of regional governments.

The minister also talked of the potential optimization of carbon credit through mangrove rehabilitation. The environment ministry will, therefore, identify the location that is deemed fit for carbon trading and that the regulation regarding it is underway.

Meanwhile, the Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya asserted that this is a crucial program as it will affect the climate change agenda.

“The good news is the climate change in Indonesia is in the medium category. We’re nearly becoming a role model country for a good climate change,” Siti Nurbaya remarked.

Previously, the minister stated that the mangrove rehabilitation program would be conducted in a well-measured and integrated manner by involving various strategic parties in the country, until international organizations.

“The Indonesian Government is committed to rehabilitating 600,000 hectares of land within the next four years, which is 2020-2024, by involving multi-stakeholders,” Luhut said in early November 2020.

Read: Indonesia Commits to 600,000 Hectare Mangrove Rehabilitation

ANTARA