51% Indonesia's Land is Still Forest: Government

TheIndonesia.id - Director-General of Forestry Planning and Environmental Management (PKTL) of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK) Ruandha Agung Sugardiman said that currently, the forest cover area in Indonesia reaches 95.6 million hectares (369,113.66 square miles) or about 51 percent of Indonesia's total land area.

"If we are asked how much Indonesia's forest is now? What is still covered with forest, both secondary and primary, is around 95.6 million hectares, meaning that 50 percent or even 51 percent of the area (of Indonesia) is still covered in forest," he said at the 2021 Year End Reflection event, which followed online by Antara news agency in Jakarta, Thursday, December 16, 2021.

According to KLHK data as of 2020, he said, of the 95.6 million hectares of total forest area, around 46.9 million hectares are primary forest, 43.1 million hectares of secondary forest, and 5.4 million hectares of plantation forest. Meanwhile, the area of non-forest land is around 92.1 million hectares.

This amount, he said, will play a role in Indonesia's efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and meet the targets to tackle climate change. He said Indonesia's gross deforestation from the results of the 2019-2020 image monitoring reached 119,091 hectares, which was accompanied by reforestation of 3,631 hectares. This brings the total deforestation in Indonesia in that period to 115,459 hectares.

"This is the lowest deforestation in the last 20 years from the historical data we have," he said.

KLHK data shows that the largest deforestation occurred in Kalimantan with an area of 41.5 thousand hectares, followed by Bali and Nusa Tenggara 21.3 thousand hectares, Sumatra 17.9 thousand hectares, Sulawesi 15.3 thousand hectares, Maluku Islands 10.9 thousand hectares, and Papua 8.5 thousand hectares, said Ruandha Agung Sugardiman.