Indigenous peoples have made an important and positive contribution to efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which are a part of Indonesia’s climate targets, according to the Environment and Forestry Ministry.

The local wisdom of indigenous peoples has contributed positively to efforts to cut emissions, as stipulated in the Nationally Determined Contributions document, and achieve net absorption in the forestry and land sector, or FOLU Net Sink 2030, Director General of Social Forestry and Environmental Partnerships at the ministry Bambang Supriyanto said in a statement received here on Tuesday.

“Indigenous peoples have contributed to reducing carbon emissions by 5.2 percent of the FoLU Net Sink emission level target of minus 140 million tons of CO2 equivalent,” Supriyanto highlighted during a discussion at the Indonesian Pavilion at the United Nations Climate Conference (COP-27) in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Monday (November 7, 2022) local time.

He cited the Kasepuhan Adat Ciptagelar activity in West Java as an example of the adoption of local wisdom in forest management wherein the village designated Leuweung Tutupan or a protected forest area, Leuweung Titipan or a conservation forest area, and Leuweung Garapan or a management area, including for increasing carbon stocks.

The ministry is also pursuing the social forestry scheme to promote the involvement of communities living around forest areas in sustainable forest management and resolve tenure conflicts.

Under social forestry schemes, the ministry has granted permits to communities for community plantation forests, community forests, village forests, partnerships, and customary forests, among others.

Since 2016, as many as 105 customary forests covering an area of 148,488 hectares and involving 47,158 hectares have been acknowledged, Supriyanto informed. The indicative area of customary forests is around 1.09 million hectares.

At the same discussion, chairperson of the Wahid Institute, Yenny Wahid, said that the management of social forestry, including customary forests, is one of the pillars for achieving the FoLU Net Sink target of greenhouse gas emission levels of minus 140 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).

“(Salute) to indigenous peoples who manage customary forests for supporting the operations of FOLU Net Sink,” Wahid remarked.

Source: Antara News