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International criticism of Indonesia's massive biofuel
development program will not affect the project, which is expected to
turn the country into one of the biggest biofuel producers in the
world, says an official.
The director of the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry's research
and development unit, Nenny Sri Utami, said in Jakarta on Monday that
the plan to turn more than five million hectares over to growing the
feedstock for the biofuel plants would go ahead as planned.
Nenny, who is also a member of the government biofuel development
committee, said that allegations being made by some international
non-governmental organizations to the effect that the program would
endanger the environment were groundless.
A 2006 presidential decree on the development of the biofuel sector
states that only idle or critical land can be used for the development
of biofuel-feedstock plantations. Feedstock is produced by, among other
plants, oil palms, sugarcane and jatropha.
As part of the project, the government has allocated 5.25 million
hectares of idle land for the growing of the basic feedstock for
bioethanol and biodiesel production.
About 1.5 million hectares will be allocated for oil palms, 1.5 million
hectares for jatropha, 0.75 million hectares for sugarcane and about
1.5 million hectares for cassava.
Under the program, Indonesia is expected to be able to produce the
basic components for biofuel production, including fatty acid methyl
esters (FAME) and about 3.95 million tons of ethynol a year by 2010. At
this production level, Indonesia would be one of the world's biggest
biofuel producers.
To date, the Forestry Ministry has set aside a total of 5.06 million
hectares in 13 provinces to be used for such plantations.
"Looking at the list, we can see that none of these areas are located
in protected forests," Deka Mardiko of the Forestry Ministry told The
Jakarta Post on Monday.
"We are working together with the National Land Agency, Agriculture
Ministry and Home Ministry to check whether the areas are located in
forests or not," Deka said. "If anyone is caught clearing land in a
protected area, even if he wants to grow biofuel feedstock, he will be
charged with illegal logging."
The Forestry Ministry's director of renewable energy, Ratna Ariati,
said she understood the concerns of the international NGO's over the
biofuel program.
"They are not only afraid of the environmental consequences arising
from land clearance for biofuel-feedstock plantations, but also that
production will disrupt food supplies as many of the plants that
provide biofuel feedstock are also edible," Ratna said.
The International Herald Tribune says that scientists around the world
are taking a second look at what biofuel really has to offer, with many
questioning the environmental feasibility of the current system used
for developing green energy.
In an article published last January, the Herald Tribune said that
rising demand for palm oil in Europe had brought about the razing of
huge tracts of Southeast Asian rain forest and the overuse of chemical
fertilizer there. Not only that, the space for the expanding palm
plantations was often created by draining and burning peatland, which
sent huge amounts of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
One NGO that is concerned with environmental issues, Friends of the
Earth, estimates that 87 percent of the deforestation in Malaysia
between 1985 and 2000 was caused by new oil-palm plantations, while in
Indonesia, the amount of land devoted to oil palm has increased by 118
percent in the past eight years.
One study says that the draining of the peatland used for biofuel
plantations in Indonesia releases 600 million tons of carbon into the
atmosphere a year and that fires contribute an additional 1,400 million
tons annually. According to the researchers, the total, 2000 million
tons, is equivalent to 8 percent of all global emissions caused
annually by burning fossil fuels.
In response, Ratna said that the government would strictly abide by the
basic principles of environmental protection.
"We are doing it for the sake of the environment. It would be nonsense
if we were to destroy the forests in the process," Ratna said.
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