Indonesia has signed a number of bilateral agreements with richer nations to get climate funding — mostly in forest-related areas. “But, even without their money Indonesia will go ahead to protect the planet,” State Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta told The Jakarta Post. “It is our moral responsibility to tackle climate change for the sake of our people.”
The minister also insisted that bilateral agreements would not ruin ongoing multilateral talks on climate change after the Copenhagen conference failed to hammer out a binding agreement on emissions cuts and climate funding.
After the Copenhagen meeting Indonesia signed MoUs on climate change issues with the governments of Australia, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Norway, New Zealand and the United States.
The Australian government has provided A$30 million (US$27.74 million) to fund a Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) project in Jambi province, which is scheduled to begin this month. It also channeled A$40 million to another REDD project in Central Kalimantan in 2009.
Indonesia is the world’s third-largest forest nation, with around 120 million hectares of rainforest. However, it has also been labeled the worlds fastest in deforestation, with more than 1 million hectares of forests cleared each year.
A study by the Bogor-based Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) has warned that billions of dollars set to flood into Indonesia was at risk because of graft, unless the country can put strong oversight mechanisms into place.
“Investors should be looking very carefully at the conditions of financial governance in countries where they will be investing their funds. Like Indonesia, many tropical forest countries have long track records of mismanaging public financial resources, particularly in the forestry sector,” the report’s co-author, Christopher Barr, said as quoted by Reuters.
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