Indonesia

Forestry Ministry Zulkifli Hasan said the Finance Ministry had agreed to proposals to remove value-added tax (VAT) imposed on log products.

He claimed former finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati had signed a proposal to cancel the tax when she was in the office.

“[Mulyani] agreed to cancel VAT for log products. The regulation will take effect this month. This is good as it will not burden industries because raw materials were not supposed to be taxed,” he said Sunday.

The past few decades have witnessed the increasing importance of forest resources for humankind.

Stepping up its fight against illegal logging, the government began the implementation early this month of a ban on exports of illegally harvested wood and wood products.

The government made it mandatory for forestry companies to obtain official certificates to show that timber has been legally sourced without damaging forests. The policy has been deemed necessary since according to official statistics illegal logging activities have been destroying more than 1 million hectares of forests each year.

Indonesian pulp and paper firm Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) has signed a deal to protect 15,640 hectares of peat forest in Sumatra in exchange for carbon payments, reports Reuters.

Looking to influence how climate change money is allocated, Indonesia will nominate a candidate to serve on the Green Climate Fund’s (GCF) board, the Environment Minister says.

The GCF, which implements the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), will have 25 board members, and be comprised of 15 officials from developed countries and 10 officials from the developing world, including seven Asian members.

The U.S. government announced the first grants under the first phase of its 2009 Tropical Forests Conservation Act agreement with Indonesia.

A new report from World Growth International, a lobby group for industrial forestry interests, contains "false and misleading" information on the economic impact of reducing Indonesia's deforestation rate, says an Indonesian environmental group.

The report, released today, claims that reducing deforestation in Indonesia will cost the country 3.5 million jobs annually by slowing growth of the forestry sector.

The co-founder of an initiative that discourages illegal logging by bringing affordable, high quality health care to impoverished communities in Indonesian Borneo has been recognized with a prestigious conservation award.

Dr. Hotlin Ompusunggu, co-founder of Alam Sehat Lestari (ASRI), was this week awarded the £30,000 Whitley Award during a ceremony hosted in London by Princess Anne.

BOGOR, Indonesia (18 July, 2011)_High income households are responsible for 30 percent more deforestation than low income households, according to preliminary results from the Poverty and Environment Network’s (PEN) global study, suggesting that it is wealth, not poverty that is driving higher ra

Kutai National Park in East Kalimantan made the headlines in 2009 as a conservation area in danger of being split apart for its enormous deposits of high-grade coal.

A long-running violent dispute between the world’s largest teak producer and Indonesian forest communities has been resolved, resulting in the recertification of two Indonesian forest districts by the Forest Stewardship Council

Efforts to stem illegal logging by requiring Indonesian timber exports to be certified will prove futile if cheaper, uncertified wood continues to be available on the market, officials said on Tuesday.

Diah Raharjo, director of the Multistakeholder Forestry Program, a collaboration between the Indonesian and British governments, said progress was being made in getting logging firms to comply but there was still much work to do.