Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) certification standard need to be adopted in the drafting of a presidential regulation on implementation of the forest conversion moratorium, an economist said.

"Palm oil businesses have to provide input for the government so that the planned forest conversion moratorium in 2011-2013 would not harm palm oil industry in Indonesia," Professor of economy of the Lampung Agriculture University, Bustanul Arifin said.

He said that business players still had a chance to provide input for the formulating team which would draft a presidential regulation on the forest conversion moratorium.

Bustanul said that palm oil businessmen needed to cooperate in convincing the formulating team about commitment and sanctions based on the Indonesian National Standard (SNI) and the ISPO.

He said that SNI and ISPO could be taken as references in the management of a sustainable palm oil industry in Indonesia.

The professor said that the REDD (reducing emission from forest degradation and deforestation) scheme was difficult to apply in Indonesia because there was no guarantee that it would be able to solve overlapping land problems.

He said that the scheme would also produce inconsistent policies in various sectors and lack justice perspectives.

"It would be difficult to believe that the REDD scheme would take into account the fate of poor locals around the forests. It would only serve as a safeguarding of financial and investment risks," he said.

He said that palm oil businesses and farmers need to increase their production, namely reaching 40 tons per hectare by applying a production technology.

Earlier, presidential special staff for climate change Agus Purnomo said that the moratorium policy as contained in the Letter of Intent between Indonesia and Norway would not disadvantage oil palm industry at home.

He said that the government was intending to carry out low carbon dioxide development which among others touch on the development of palm oil.

Agus said that the government had also allocated 11 million hectares of land of which five million hectares had been planted.

"Four hectares of non-peatland which have yet to be planted," he added.(*)

Editor: Aditia Maruli
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