In the zoom meeting initiated by Pulitzer Center on Thursday (23/7), terms like carbon market, ecosystem restoration, enforcement of forest areas, and net zero emission came up repeatedly. On paper, all seemed promising. Indonesia attempted to reduce emission, protect forest, and meet global climate commitment. Yet, behind the technocratic policy language, investigative journalists found more complicated stories.
The discussion attracted journalists, academics, legal activists, and civil society organisations, on two investigative coverages. The two coverages talked about forest governance from different entry points. The first dealt with carbon trading practices and carbon project integration in Indonesia. The second looked into the ways the Enforcement Forest Areas Task Force, a new government with significant portfolio tasked to take back the forest.
Adi Renaldi said that carbon trading was not simply about selling services to store emission to the world. Behind the new mechanism introduced by the government, there was a fundamental question about who truly enjoyed the benefits and who lost their spaces.
He started the presentation with a story of hope. Communities in Bujang Raba, Jambi, managed village forest since 2009. Then, they became a model of success in social forestry which the government recognised. For years local community maintained the forest, prevent destruction, and depended on the forest sustainability for their livelihood. Yet, when the carbon scheme was introduced, that hope was dashed to uncertainty.
Adi argued that communities who expected to get the benefits of carbon credit trade stopped the plan. The reason was not that they were not able to maintain the forest, but that the regulation was not clear.
The biggest problem was the possibility of double counting. Carbon from community forest could be counted twice – as government contribution in national emission reduction and as carbon credit sold to voluntary market. This situation led community to stop and wait for legal certainty.
"On the field, it was very confusing," said Adi.
From that point, investigation moved to bigger issue. It traced a number of major carbon project already registered through international certification organisation. The data obtained informed that at least there were tens of forestry companies, including industrial plantation forest (HTI) that already offered nature-based carbon projects.
That finding led to questions that were not easily dismissed. How could companies that profited from exploitation of the forest also got profit from selling carbon through forest protection? Adi said that the most interesting case was in Semenanjung Kampar, Riau. The old peat zone was about 600,000 hectares, and for a long time had been the subject of conflicts between local communities and corporations.
There, around 150,000 hectares were given to major business groups, while the community who depended on the zone for their livelihood only got a small percentage – around 10,000 hectares. Lately, part of the concession that was no longer active was turned into ecosystem restoration project and carbon project.
The companies promoted a narrative of preventing many years of deforestation and preventing emission of hundreds of millions of carbon gas. Yet, the investigation revealed that a number of basic principles in carbon trading were questioned.
One such question was about additionality. In the carbon trade concept, a project would only be feasible for credit if it truly resulted in emission reduction that would not otherwise happened without the project.
The problem, according to Adi, was that the Semenanjung Kampar zone was protected through a variety of government regulations, including peat moratorium. Hence, the State had the obligation for the protection of the zone, rather than something new came out of the carbon project. In addition, the investigation also found use of comparison areas that were not independent, as the latter were in the same areas occupied by the same business entity groups.
"If the one viewed as the protector and the one viewed as the threat was in fact the same business entities, then a big question arouse about the integrity of the project," he said. He also cited the result of an international certification organisation’s review that found tens of inconsistencies in project assessment process. Yet, the project got the endorsement.
For Adi, the problem was not merely about carbon figures, but about the credibility of the overall carbon trading system in Indonesia.
The next presentation was from Mala, a journalist with Project Multatuli that represented a collaborative Indonesia Leaks. Unlike Adi who talked about carbon market, Mala led participants to the new mechanism known as Task Force for the Enforcement of Forest Zone or Satgas Penertiban Kawasan Hutan. The Task Force was set up through Presidential Regulation No. 5 Year 2025 with a mandate to enforce use of problematic forest zones.
In a number of opportunities, the government presented the results of the Task Force work through ceremonial confiscation of assets and display of confiscated money. Yet, for the investigation team, what was more important was how the mechanism worked on the field. Mala found that the implementing regulation was in force months after the Task Force started its work.
To her, this begged serious question with regards to the legality of the actions already implemented before the regulation was in place. The investigation team also found that the law enforcement officers and the military personnel were dominant in the Task Force structure, whereas the technical ministries only served as members.
That situation, Mala said, rendered the Task Force as a "superbody" with vast authority but minimum supervision.
Another interesting finding was about the new parastatal company - Agrinas Nusantara. Initially it was a company operating in the field of electricity construction. Yet, after the Task Force was operating, the company got the mandate to manage most of the forest zone reclaimed by the State. In practice, many plots of land taken over operated as usual, only the management changed hands.
"Of the four million hectares reclaimed, around 80% was given to Agrinas," said Mala. To her, this situation begged another question. What was the key objective of the enforcement of the forest zone - what it for environmental recovery, or what it simply to shift management to other entities?
The biggest problem during investigation was the minimum transparency. The area location taken over was never published fully. The journalist team had to collect information little-by-little through social media, news articles, and internal documents obtained from resource people.
One such location the investigation team looked at was Tesso Nilo Zone, Riau.
There, the conflict already happened before the Task Force was set up. Some communities had lived for generations and had the land certificate, population records, and the rights to vote in election. Yet, the zone was subsequently declared as conservation zone, and people’s legal status became problematic.
For Mala, the Task Force confiscated a number of certificates without consent and without court order. A number of people eventually accepted their relocation. Yet, the relocation process itself created new conflicts because the location was in other indigenous community land.
On the other hand, legal approaches were different towards small communities and major companies. A number of companies were proven to break the law, yet they were able to operate through a collaboration scheme with the State parastatal company. On the other hand, indigenous communities were facing criminal indictments.
These findings attracted responses from the panellist.
The dean of Forestry and Environment Faculty or Fakultas Kehutanan dan Lingkungan IPB, Prof. Dodik Ridho Nurrochmat reminded of the importance of understanding the basic concept of carbon trade. He said that what was traded was not carbon, but services to absorb and store carbon by the forest ecosystem. He also emphasised that restoration was not simply about planting trees, but returning the ecological functions of a zone.
Meanwhile, the head of Forestry and Biodiversity Division or Kepala Divisi Kehutanan dan Keanekaragaman Hayati Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL), Adam Putra Firdaus criticised the forestry development paradigm which he said viewed forest as object of exploitation. As long as that view remain entrenched, Adam believed that conflicts would always continue to happen.
He also took issue with new regulations that were not consistent with higher regulations. "If the policy is not right and then it is implemented consistently, the result will be a consistent mistake," he highlighted.
The coordinator for Riau Forest Conservation Network or Jaringan Kerja Penyelamat Hutan Riau (Jikalahari), Okto Yugo Setyo added that communities had the will to maintain the forest. Many villages even allocated village funds to conduct forest patrol independently. Yet, access to funding, information, and capacity building was limited.
The discussion reached the same connecting theme. Carbon trade and enforcement of forest zone were set up for a good purpose: to reduce emission, to protect forests, and to improve governance. Yet, with minimum transparency in implementation, lack of community participation, and questionable legal certainty, that purpose potentially led to new problems.
Indonesia’s ambition was important part of a global agenda, and the speakers reminded that the success was not only measured by how many million hectares of forests were recovered or how many million tonnes of carbon were traded. True success would be achieved when communities who lived side by side with the forest got the just space to participate, to get legal protection, and to be the key parts of forest management in Indonesia. (Ast)
