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Bogor. For the past decade, forestry has been categorized as a sunset industry, although forests themselves have now taken on a new economic value not from exploitation but from protecting them.
With 75.27 million hectares of rainforest, according to Ministry of Forestry data, Indonesia could earn billions of dollars in carbon trading if it were able to protect and properly manage its forests.
In fact, Frances J. Seymour, director of the Center for International Forestry Research, or CIFOR, which has its headquarters in Bogor, West Java Province, said Indonesia could earn at least $1 billion a year.
At the top of the agenda at the international convention on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December this year, will be deliberation about the standard to be used in the carbon trade mechanism.
Seymour sees the convention as an opportunity for Indonesia to show the world its carbon potential and its significance in lowering greenhouse gas emissions, and in so doing, slowing the rate of global warming. But to do this, Indonesia will need to overcome all the problems related to its forest management.
The assumption of $1 billion in carbon revenue is no exaggeration when looking at the countrys large potential for emission-reducing projects, estimated conservatively at 250 million to 500 million tons of carbon a year.
The Copenhagen gathering will set a new mechanism for carbon trading, and international standards to limit carbon emissions by industry.
The mechanism will require corporations and countries exceeding a carbon-credit cap to buy carbon credits from other countries. And with 75 million hectares of forested area, Indonesia has everything it takes to become a major player in the scheme.
One response to this was President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyonos establishment of the National Commission on Climate Change in 2005, which has so far approved 24 carbon trading projects.
Among them are a small-scale hydroelectric power plant in South Sulawesi Province, with an expected emissions reduction of 68,238 tons a year; a biomass electricity plant in North Sumatra Province, at 1.1 million tons; and a waste-handling and disposal operation in West Kalimantan Province, saving 1.9 million tons. Nine of the 24 projects have been registered with the United Nations.
Approved carbon-reduction projects receive Certificates of Emissions Reduction, or CER, from the United Nations, based on the tonnage of carbon emissions offset.
The CER allows carbon trading with 38 industrialized nations that have committed themselves to cutting their greenhouse gas emissions to 5.2 percent below 1990 levels. A ton of reduced carbon dioxide is currently priced at between $5 and $10.
EcoSecurities Indonesia alone has set sales targets for next year as high as 25 million tons worth of carbon credits. The carbon credit volume is valued at between $250 million and $300 million.
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