Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 11/17/2009 9:23 PM
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a private arm of the World Bank, has announced it will provide loans to local companies interested in reforesting degraded land, to reduce the impacts of climate change.
The IFC launched its sustainable-forest program on Tuesday, targeting to replant 250,000 hectares of damaged forest land — in Sumatra, Kalimantan and East and West Nusa Tenggara — within five years.
Restoring 250,000 hectares of forests could cut around 90 million tons of carbon emissions annually, which could be traded under the clean development mechanism (CDM) stipulated in the Kyoto Protocol.
“The program has several benefits; reducing greenhouse gas emissions, putting the land to a productive use and producing new jobs in rural areas,” IFC Indonesia for Sustainable Forestry program manager Kenneth Mac Dicken said Tuesday.
The program would provide a promising option to investors, as demand for forest products, including timber, would likely increase in future, he said.
“Expansion for new [production] forests will decrease because of pressure [to reduce] the high deforestation rate in Indonesia,” he said.
Replanting projects could be carried out on low-carbon stock areas such as grasslands, by planting fast-growing trees.
According to the IFC, there are around 96 million hectares of degraded land in Indonesia at present, at least 8 million hectares of which is coarse grassland.
The program aims to generate up to 90,000 jobs in rural areas.
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