The mangrove development and rehabilitation program is one of President Joko Widodo's flagship programs, with 600 thousand hectares of mangrove trees targeted to be rehabilitated by 2024, he added.
"One of the important issues at the G20 is climate change. Hence, the Indonesian government will showcase mangroves to G20 leaders," Pandjaitan explained while delivering a speech at the launch of a mangrove planting program in Probolinggo district, East Java on Thursday.
He also requested that the mangrove rehabilitation program be prepared optimally to demonstrate Indonesia's commitment to nurturing the environment and slowing the pace of climate change.
"We should ready our mangrove program in the best way to show Indonesia's commitment to maintaining the world's climate," he remarked.
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Meanwhile, deputy of environmental and forestry management at the ministry, Nani Hendiarti, explained that mangrove rehabilitation is a national priority program that was launched by Widodo.
"This program has been included in the Presidential Regulation of Agency of Peat and Mangrove Restoration (BRGM) to accelerate mangrove rehabilitation of 600 thousand hectares until 2024," she explained.
This year's target of focusing on restoring 100 thousand hectares of mangroves was altered to procuring seedlings due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she added.
"2021's recorded target is around 40 thousand hectares. However, we will update it until the year-end because that figure was only from ministries/institutions. We will accumulate those from SOEs (state-owned enterprises), the private sector, and local governments," she informed.
According to Hendiarti, with ambitious schemes and strategic partnerships, it is expected that the 2022 target of restoring 150 thousand–200 thousand hectares of mangroves can be achieved.
"The World Bank, Germany, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will also support next year's (target)," she highlighted. (
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Translator: Ade J, Kenzu T
Editor: Suharto
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