Indonesien

Indonesia will reconsider its cooperation with the World Wild Fund (WWF) and other foreign agencies for their failure to help manage the country`s forests effectively, according to Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan.

A non-governmental organization said a claim that Rimba Raya Conservation had obtained approval from the Indonesian government for its world’s largest carbon project, on 64,000 hectares of areas in Indonesia, was in fact untrue.

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.

Norway has been accused of climate hypocrisy in Indonesia, where it has won plaudits for financing forest protection even as its state pension fund allegedly secures even greater revenues from logging, plantations, mining and other environmentally destructive practices.

The Ulu Masen project was developed by the Provincial Government of Aceh with the assistance of Fauna and Flora International (FFI) and the carbon brokerage firm, Carbon Conservation.