Jakarta (ANTARA) - Indonesia's efforts to reduce deforestation, including through forest and land rehabilitation, continue to receive global attention, with a reduction in forest cover declining in the last few years, Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya stated.
"In the context of forestry, two aspects that receive the most spotlight are the issues of deforestation and forest and land rehabilitation, (including) tree planting," Nurbaya remarked at the inauguration of the Liang Anggang Nursery in Banjarbaru, South Kalimantan, monitored online in Jakarta on Monday
The minister accentuated the role of public-private partnership (PPP) in speeding up forest and land rehabilitation and the construction of nurseries in several regions of the country. "The PPP is very important and is in the spotlight on the international stage," she remarked.
She stated that forest and land rehabilitation efforts encompassing tree planting must be followed by monitoring to obtain accurate data about the efforts.
Data from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (LHK) showed that Indonesia's net deforestation in 2021-2022 stood at 104 thousand hectares derived from deducting the gross deforestation figure of 119.4 thousand hectares from the reforestation figure of 15.4 thousand hectares.
Meanwhile, based on forest monitoring conducted from 2020 to 2021, the country's deforestation during the period stood at 113.3 thousand hectares obtained from deducting the gross deforestation figure of 139.1 thousand hectares from the reforestation figure of 25.6 thousand hectares.
Thus, if the results are compared, Indonesia experienced an 8.4 percent reduction in deforestation during the 2021-2022 period.
The minister projected that going forward, satellite imagery would be able to detect more areas of new tree plantations.
Nurbaya further affirmed that this achievement would also be visible to other international communities monitoring the extent of the world's forest cover through satellite technology.
"Indonesia must be strong in handling deforestation," she stressed.
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Translator: Prisca Triferna, Raka Adji
Editor: Azis Kurmala
