The government and private sector have made various efforts to restore the peat ecosystems. However, even when they work together, these efforts cannot be carried out easily.
Transparency of peat restoration activities in concession areas is one of the obstacles. Under Article 5 (c) of the Minister of Environment and Forestry Regulation No. 16 of 2017, restoration activities must be carried out by permit holders of business and/or activities on peatlands. The government's role in restoration is to establish an order for the restoration of degraded peat based on the results of field verification, ratify the restoration plan document submitted by the companies, as well as supervise and assess the restoration activities carried out by the concession holders.
During the 2015-2020 period, supervision activities in the concession area have been carried out by the Peat Restoration Agency (BRG) with a total target of 1,772,712 hectares. Another report by MoEF claims that 294 companies or around 3.6 million hectares of Industrial Plantation Forest (HTI) concession areas have been successfully restored during the 2015-2020 period.
However, there is no transparency regarding the monitoring activities carried out in the field and methods to measure the success of restoration activities that have been carried out based on existing regulations.
Based on Pantau Gambut field observations in the concession areas, there are still degraded peatlands that have not been restored. Therefore, it is very important to evaluate the implementation of restoration activities in the concession areas, especially the reasons why some concessions have not carried out restoration activities on degraded peatlands in their areas.
This is a challenge for the government to build a system that can ensure that concessions carry out restoration activities. Therefore, the government must immediately insist on peat restoration in concession areas and the transparency of the restoration implementation in those areas must also be informed to the public.*
*THIS ARTICLE WAS PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED ON 4 JUNE 2021 ON ONLINE MEDIA TEMPO.CO
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