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Some background and more on GLNP replanting!

September 26, 2008

Since 1982, a transmigration project in northern Sumatra, supported by the Asian Development Bank, has been encroaching on the Gunung Leuser National Park, a major area of focus for the OIC. Development plans were incompatible with forestry policy, and rapidly resulted in the expansion of oil palm plantations inside the boundaries of the protected area. The transmigration project, in combination with community plantation developments, has enhanced business investment in the region. Subsequently, the area of land under cultivation with oil palms has expanded rapidly in the Langkat regency.

The on-site nursery in Besitang

One of the main priorities of forestry policy-making is forest rehabilitation programmes. This sort of policy had its formal beginnings in what was called the National Forest Rehabilitation Movement, also known in Indonesia as the GERHAN/GNHRL. The programme was started by former President Megawati Soekarno Putri, and was later continued as the Gerakan Indonesia Menanam program (Indonesia planting movement), which was inaugurated by the current President, Susilo Bambang Yudoyono, in 2007. The replanting program calls for fast replanting in order to offset the damage already done to Indonesia’s forests, (which are being destroyed at a rate of 1.6 million hectares per year, equating to 3 hectares per minute). To support major national programmes such as this, stakeholders from all relevant sectors must be engaged and become part of the solution, including local and national government officials, industry members such as logging companies and plantation management groups, and the local people living alongside the forests.

The oil palm trees in the background are the remaining 100 hectares of illegal trees in the national park that we are still seeking funding to remove and replant with indigenous forest species

Replanting programmes in Indonesia thus need to be implemented to restore critical degraded land and counter this rapid level of deforestation in Indonesia; therefore the OIC embarked upon a large-scale forest replanting project being in the Besitang region of the Gunung Leuser National Park. We have just in the last few months signed a 5-year extendable MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the national park, so many of our programmes are done in conjunction with GLNP officials.

Around four million people living in the provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra depend on the 25 million hectare Leuser Ecosystem (which contains the one million hectare GLNP) for ecological services such as the provision of water for consumption and irrigation, soil fertility, flood control, and climate regulation.

The OIC programme, sponsored by Lush, Musim Mas, and now with contributions made from the Rainforest Site (Link to the Rainforest site), serves to rehabilitate the park through the reforestation of degraded land in the park buffer zone. This is a local community development project aimed at undoing the damage caused through large-scale conversion of national park forest into plantation agriculture by the management group PT. Putri Hijau and PT. Rapala, amongst other smaller offenders. In addition to forest rehabilitation, the project provides sustainable alternative livelihood schemes for local people living adjacent to this area, thus they will not only gain from having the forests regrown (and therein a return of the water supply previously lost to the high rate of water absorption by oil palms), but will also benefit as a community through training and agroforestry schemes.

It's nearly a desert out there, but with the programme ongoing soon again it will be forest capable of supporting rich levels of biodiversity!

As the ecosystem is restored, local people benefit from increased levels of soil, water, and mineral retention, increased plant pollination and pest control from forest fauna and flora, flood and fire prevention, carbon storage, etc. This helps local people as they benefit from these ecosystem services, and in the process biodiversity levels are maintained and, over time, increase. We also work closely with local government bodies to establish a program of continuous monitoring and rehabilitation, as well as law enforcement initiatives to ensure long-term sustainability.