THE WORLD'S LARGEST DEFORESTATION PROJECT HAS BEGUN. Amid the paradise forests of #Papua, #Indonesia, a business consortium has started destroying what will eventually be 20,000 square kilometers slated for the "Meruake Intergrated Food and Energy Development Area." That’s 112 times the size of Washington, DC.
The company, PT Global Papua Abadi and partners like Sulaidy (linked to First Resources Ltd.) are destroying habitat for endangered tree kangaroos and birds of paradise. The land was allotted to the companies without seeming concern for the Indigenous communities who live on it.
The photo below is of the latest shipment of 264 excavators bought from China. It's part of a mind-boggling order of 2000 land-clearing machines. This is likely the largest single deforestation project in the world…and it makes no sense.
Although the stated rationale is that the project will provide climate resilience and food security, the reality is the opposite: this level of deforestation will pump about a billion tons of carbon pollution into the atmosphere and bulldoze local food gardens to make room for mono-culture sugar and rice plantations. Much of the sugar won't go to food, but rather ethanol to be burned in gas tanks. Simply put, it is a disaster.
It follows previous failed efforts to establish state-backed plantation agriculture: the "Mega-Rice Project" on Borneo's peatland rainforest resulted in hundreds of thousands of acres of degraded land…but no permanent rice (rice doesn't grow well on peat). This project seems likely to end in similar failure.
The tragedy is that this project would also single-handedly undermine Indonesia's greatest climate success: reducing the rate of commodity deforestation by an amazing 90%.
I hope that President Jokowi, incoming President Prabowo, and Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurubaya will examine the project to see if the companies involved are actually delivering on its purposes – or are instead breaking the government's legal commitments.
There is reason for hope: the government recently took the brave step of stopping another company's threat to forests: Mayawana Persada’s destruction of more than 90,000 acres in Borneo. They acted acted because the destruction undermined the government’s nationally determined climate commitments (NDCs): to restore 2 million hectares of peatland and 12 million of degraded land.
The Merauke project is about 50 times as big as Mayawana Persada’s: It's hard to understand how it passes legal muster or contributes to the country’s admirable goals.
Indonesia’s forest success has been a signal accomplishment of the Jokowi administration – and an example for the world. As the administration comes to a close, the President and his successor have the opportunity to secure one of Indonesia’s greatest examples of international leadership into the future.
#deforestation #Climate #climatechange #biodiversity #PolyCrises
https://news.mongabay.com/2024/06/sugarcane-megaproject-poses-latest-threat-to-papuas-forests-communities/
