Indonesia Won’t Allow Oil Palm Growers to Cut Primary Forests

Indonesia, the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, won’t allow oil palm growers to cut primary forests for establishing plantations, Minister for Environment Rachmat Witoelar said.

Per capita carbon dioxide emissions in the Southeast Asian nation, the biggest producer of the gas after the U.S. and China, is growing at a rate of 4 percent a year, compared with 3.5 percent in India and 2.7 percent in China, according to a report released yesterday by the World Bank.
Indonesia is trying to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, 75 percent of which results from deforestation. The country is set to overtake Malaysia this year as the world’s largest palm oil supplier and plans to add 1.5 million hectares of the crop over the next three years, the government said.

“Expansion of palm oil plantations will not be allowed to sacrifice natural forests,” Witoelar said in an interview in Bali yesterday. “They will be planted in lots that are already empty. There are plenty of these, 18 million hectares of them.”

Bloomberg