Center For International Forestry Research/Manuel Boissiere

BOGOR, Indonesia (25 August, 2011)_The Government of Indonesia, through the President’s Unit for Development Control and Monitoring (UKP4), has launched a public disclosure process to stimulate and encourage inputs for the National Strategy for REDD+, a mechanism to give incentives for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.

“Public input is important to produce a national REDD+ strategy that can be successfully carried out. This will determine the success of REDD+,” said UKP4 in its announcement on 17 August 2011. Opinions and suggestions can be submitted for the next 30 days by e-mailing UKP4 and must include details of the person or institutions submitting their input.

A REDD+ strategy development committee will review all public inputs for relevance before using them to construct a finalised document to be signed by the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) in a hope to guide REDD+ implementation in Indonesia. The draft is available for download in Bahasa Indonesia from the UKP4 website.

REDD+ is a key instrument to help Indonesia achieve its commitment to reduce greenhouse gases emissions by 26% from business-as-usual levels by 2020 as the most of the country’s emissions come from forestry and land use change. The public consultation process illustrates the government’s efforts to form policies transparently and by involving all stakeholders.

“In a democracy, the public is on the front line, not only in criticizing, but also in planning and monitoring,” said Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, Chairman of UKP4, when announcing a similar public consultation for the moratorium map recently.

UKP4 has also announced the launch of an official REDD+ website. “Ideally, the public could monitor the progress of REDD+ development in Indonesia through this website,” said Aichida Ul-Aflaha, assistant to the chairman of UKP4. The English version of the website will be added soon, she said.