At the BRGM's 'Year-End Reflection' event here on Thursday, BRGM's people empowerment deputy Gatot Soebiantoro informed that the initial target for the mangrove rehabilitation in 2021 was 83 thousand hectares.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the government to revise the target to 33 thousand hectares, he said.
The government determined nine provinces as priority areas for mangrove rehabilitation: North Sumatra, Riau, Riau Islands, Bangka Belitung, West Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, North Kalimantan, Papua, and West Papua, he added.
The mangrove rehabilitation target was 29,500 hectares for the nine priority provinces and 3,500 hectares for 23 other provinces, he said.
Soebiantoro highlighted several problems that emerged during mangrove rehabilitation, including the lack of species diversity due to seed limitation and the need for adjusting the program's execution with the planting season.
He spoke of the necessity for designing seed provision to ensure that seeds are ready when the planting season arrives and to prepare the provision of local seeds.
In addition, he emphasized the importance of supporting regulations for protecting mangroves from land-use changes.
Meanwhile, head of BRGM Hartono affirmed that the peatland restoration and mangrove rehabilitation achievement will be improved in the future through collaboration with other stakeholders.
He noted that earlier, when the agency was called the National Peatland Restoration Agency, it successfully carried out its job to restore peatlands.
The result of this could be observed in the decline in fire frequency in peatlands, he said.
Meanwhile, peatland restoration this year has managed to reach the target of 300 thousand hectares, he added.
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Translator: Prisca Triferna, Fadhli Ruhman
Editor: Sri Haryati
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