But the long awaited plan to put a two-year halt to forest destruction in Indonesia does not go far enough and will still see tens of millions of hectares of forests facing destruction, Greenpeace said a press statement published on the NGO`s website, Monday.
"This moratorium represents an important political shift towards protecting our forests. But unfortunately, it doesn`t go any further," Bustar Maitar of Greenpeace said in the statement.
The moratorium will put a two-year halt to new logging areas on `primary` forest, which contains areas untouched by humans, and areas containing peat, the destruction of which releases large amounts of climate changing pollution. But Greenpeace have said that this does not go far enough, and large areas of forests, including some of the last habitats of species like the orang-utan and the Sumatran tiger, have been left out.
According to Greenpeace, about 40 million hectares of forest could still be destroyed under the moratorium.
"Millions of hectares of forests will still be destroyed. And most of the areas included on the map are already protected, so the moratorium offers `little` extra," he said.
"In the forests, large scale destruction will continue as usual. This announcement is a long way from the Indonesian President`s commitment to protect Indonesia forests," he added.
According the environment NGO, under the plan to halt forest and peatland destruction, only new concessions to destroy forest will be suspended; the millions of hectares of forest already slated for destruction continue to be under threat; degraded forests that are rich in biodiversity, or valuable for other conservation reasons are not protected; and peatlands, which store enormous quantities of carbon, remain vulnerable to destruction.(Tx.F001/HAJM/O001)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
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