"The forests of West Sumatra have the ideal qualities and conditions for the implementation of climate change projects under the Kyoto Protocol scheme," Hendri Koswara, an environmental affairs observer at Andalas University, said here Saturday.
But to actually implement such projects in West Sumatra`s forests, the local authorities must ensure institutional readiness, an adequate budget allocation and regulatory support, he said.
So far, the West Sumatra provincial government had issued Perda (bylaw) No 6/2008 on the utilization of customary lands.
"But since the issuance of the bylaw, the West Sumatra government had often faced dilemmas related to the lcal people`s rights in the relevant land management," he said.
This situation then had given rise to the question of whether the policy or bylaw was indeed the result of careful contemplation or only a response to the issues that exists at the time the policy was adopted , like the climate change policy.
He said that the West Sumatra provincial government`s must have a certain direction response or to consider the consequences for the protection of the rights and interests of local indigenous communities.
Hendri said that on every Indonesian local government`s development plan also conducted in West Sumatra, and it should be done through a gradually process to accommodate the community`s aspirations.
"The issued by-law is naively did not used properly, on contrary, the policy was issued is still a public reaction on contextual political configuration," Hendri said.
The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
These amount to an average of five per cent against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012.
The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. The detailed rules for the implementation of the Protocol were adopted at COP 7 in Marrakesh in 2001.(*)
Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
