Papua has huge potential in emission reduction: Experts

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/11/13/papua-has-huge-potential-emission-reduction-experts.html

Papua has huge potential  in emission reduction:  Experts

Nethy Dharma Somba, The Jakarta Post, Jayapura | Archipelago | Thu, November 13 2014, 4:22 PM

Experts have said Papua still has huge potential to contribute to land-based carbon emission reduction efforts because it has a lower level of carbon emissions from the land sector compared to other regions in Indonesia.

World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) Indonesia coordinator Sonya Dewi said Papua was the province with the largest forest coverage in Indonesia.

“As of 2013, forests in Papua cover 31,687,680 hectares of land, which is equal to 27 percent of total primary forest coverage in Indonesia,” said Dewi in Jayapura on Thursday.

She said with this potential, Papua could play a vital role in initiatives to reduce carbon emissions from the land sector.

Dewi was speaking on the sidelines of a two-day ICRAF workshop to review the implementation of the Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation by Civil Society on Land-use Planning for Low Emissions Development Strategy (ParCiMon) and the Locally Appropriate Mitigation Action (LAMA-1) programs.

Dewi said ParCiMon was designed to support Papua in achieving its low emission development targets as part of its contribution to the national climate change mitigation strategy.

“The project is focused on developing the capacity of civil society to be able to participate in the planning, monitoring and evaluation process of land-based low emission development activities,” she said.

The ParCiMon project is being carried out in three regencies – Jayapura, Jayawijaya and Merauke – for four years from January 2013 to December 2016.

Meanwhile, LAMA-1, a capacity-building program to help local administrations in formulating good land use planning as a solution to realizing low emission development, is taking place over four years from July 2013 to May 2017.

Dewi said that halfway through the implementation of ParCiMon and LAMA-1 projects in Papua, a number of activities conducted had resulted in several crucial initial lessons.

“In Jayapura regency, the Low Emission Development Initiative Working Group has been successful in implementing two mitigation actions through development plans, namely reforesting critical land and rehabilitating sago palm forests in Sentani,” she said.

Suyanto, team leader of ParCiMon and LAMA-1 from ICRAF, said lessons learned in the three regencies would hopefully give input to stakeholders at the provincial level in anticipating the national action plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (RAN-GRK) which would be implemented in regency and municipality levels soon. (ebf)(++++)