-
The HCVF Application in Indonesia
Indonesia has some
of the most biodiverse rainforests in the world, but also the
highest deforestation rate. The HCVF (high conservation value
forest) concept has taken hold in Indonesia as a means of reconciling
economic pressures to open up forest areas with the need to reduce
the rate of forest loss.
Several NGOs have
actively encouraged the use of the concept, integrating HCVF within
their ongoing work on conservation, sustainable forestry and land
use management, in collaboration with government ministries, the
private sector and local communities. The urgent objective of
applying the concept, as far as many are concerned, is to help
pre-empt forest conversion and the loss of biodiversity and social
values that accompanies it.
HCVF assessment represents
an embryonic concept introduced and promoted by the Forest Stewardship
Council (FSC) – originally intended for site specific Forest Management
Units (FMUs) – and now adopted further such as by the Round Table
on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). The basic premise is that all
forested areas possess biological, environmental and social values
with identifiable conservation attributes. If these attributes
are identified, then management should ensure maintenance and/or
enhancement of High Conservation Values (HCV) described by these
conservation attributes.
The Indonesian HCVF
toolkit was the first national version to be produced, in 2003,
and various arms of government are currently studying how HCVF
can fit into existing government policies and planning processes.
If this integration of HCVF into government policy goes ahead,
it will help to align government land-use decisions with demands
from international markets for ‘HCVF-free’ paper products and
sustainably-produced palm oil.
To date, HCVF work
in Indonesia has included a considerable number of HCVF assessments
at the concession level by pulp, palm oil and timber companies,
including more than a dozen in Sumatra and a handful in Kalimantan.
WWF (in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Papua), The Nature Conservancy
(in East Kalimantan), Tropenbos (East Kalimantan), Flora and Fauna
International (West Kalimantan) and Sumatran Orangutan Conservation
Programme (North Sumatra & Aceh) have been working with companies
and local governments to designate, manage and monitor HCVFs within
plantations and logging concessions.
Several landscape-level
HCVF assessments have also been undertaken in, for example:
- The
Trans-fly region of southern part of Papua Province, where the
HCVF assessment identified priority conservation areas and important
indigenous social/cultural areas, and helped WWF to influence
local government to incorporate this in its planning process;
- Riau
Province, Sumatra, where the coarse-scale HCVF assessment provided
the basis for negotiation to secure the conservation of the few
remaining large intact forest blocks such as the Tesso Nilo Forest
complex;
- West Kalimantan
Province, Kalimantan, where HCVF assessment provided the arguments
for WWF and other
NGOs to sustain remaining forest areas and protect the ‘Heart
of Borneo’.
The HCVF landscape
analysis is predominantly approached through the generation of
maps and spatial analysis. In Papua and West Kalimantan cases,
the HCVF landscape level assessments have been strengthened by
the efforts to acknowledge and incorporate social and cultural
values. This part of assessment was undertaken through a series
of consultative meetings and a workshop with social experts and
representatives of indigenous communities.
In the case of timber
plantations, WWF has been urging pulp and paper companies APP
and APRIL to protect the HCVFs in their concessions in Riau, Sumatra.
In response, APP appeared to commit to protecting the HCVF found
in one of its concessions and commissioned Smartwood to map HCVFs
in three of its other FMUs in the area. On the basis of this mapping,
APP announced that it would protect the HCVFs identified and signed
an agreement with Smartwood to track how well it is managing its
HCVFs over the next five years. However, recent monitoring reports
have shown that APP has failed to protect these areas from fires,
illegal logging and further forest conversion, despite its earlier
pledges.
For its part, APRIL
conducted its own HCVF assessments in several of its FMUs, with
support from local and international experts. APRIL also commissioned
Proforest to conduct additional HCVF assessments. Furthermore,
the company pledged it would not convert any HCVFs, as identified
through application of the Indonesian toolkit, in any of its new
concessions and would not source wood from HCVFs anywhere in the
world for any of its mills. However, in April 2006, an investigation
found that natural forest in a concession associated with APRIL
was being logged, causing disturbance to elephant habitat.
In oil palm concessions,
three of Indonesia’s major palm oil producers, PT SMART Tbk.,
PT Astra Agro Lestari Tbk. and PT. London Sumatra Tbk. have signed
Memoranda of Understanding with WWF to undertake pilot HCVF assessments
with WWF in some of their concessions. Both companies have agreed
to implement the protection and management prescriptions identified
in the HCVF work, and to apply the lessons learned in their other
concessions throughout Indonesia. The companies hope to apply
the lessons-learned from this pilot to their other concessions.
However, the effectiveness of HCVF application in this sector
is yet to be seen.
The overall HCVF
application in Indonesia still raises several key challenges,
which include:
-
The first version
of Indonesia HCVF toolkit was developed by a relatively small
group of interested
practitioners and experts. Since then, much experience in
HCVF assessment has been gained and many more stakeholders
have become involved. The challenge now is to involve a wider
group of stakeholders in a process to strengthen the toolkit
based on this experience, including stronger social/cultural
analysis and lessons-learned from the oil palm experience;
-
The results of
HCVF assessment at landscape and provincial-wide levels need
to be further used to influence
government’s land use and development planning
– for instance, by being gazetted in the provincial and/or
district spatial planning;
-
The cases with
pulp and paper and oil palm companies highlight the need for
active stewardship of HCVFs if company commitments are to
make a real difference in practice.
Article compiled and
re-written by Fitrian Ardiansyah, WWF-Indonesia (fardiansyah@wwf.or.id)
based on several articles on HCVF written by WWF-International
and WWF-Indonesia
