SETAPAK partners in Aceh have been active in restoring a forest area destroyed by an oil palm plantation and have been pressing local, regional and national government to halt plans to exploit the protected Leuser Ecosystem, one of the most biodiverse areas remaining on earth.

1. The SETAPAK program promotes good forest
and land governance as fundamental to achieving
sustainable forest management, reducing greenhouse
gas emissions, and supporting sustainable low carbon
economic growth. Direct action by civil society is vital
to good land use governance. Increasing public concern
and the importance of the rule of law on all levels
of government is critical to ensuring environmental
sustainability.
SETAPAK partners in Aceh have been active in
restoring a forest area destroyed by an oil palm
plantation and have been pressing local, regional
and national government to halt plans to exploit the
protected Leuser Ecosystem, one of the most biodiverse
areas remaining on earth. These activities demonstrate
how important determined and coordinated citizen
action is in holding government to account.
“The district strongly supports the restoration of
protected forest areas. This is expected to prevent
an ecological disaster in Tamiang,” Razuardi
Ibrahim, district secretary, Tamiang Aceh.
Aceh Forest Restoration
Aceh forest cover | Photo: Rhett Butler
Restoring and Protecting
Aceh’s Forests

2. On 29 September 2014, the sound of chainsaws
rang out near Tenggulun, a village in Aceh Tamiang
district, bordering North Sumatra. The sound was for
once a sign of good things to come for the Tamiang
forest, part of the Lueser Ecosystem. It marked the
beginning of a project to clear 1,071 ha of illegally
planted palm oil and restore an area of protected forest.
Local community members gathered to celebrate as
the head of the region’s forest management unit (KPH
Wilayah III) cut down an oil palm tree, and planted a
native sapling in its place. Since these ceremonious
beginnings a further six ha extending along ten
kilometres of the plantation boundary has been cleared,
marked with signs, and is now being patrolled while the
land is replanted with native forest.
HAkA (Hutan Alam dan Lingkungan Aceh - Natural
Forests and Environment Aceh), a SETAPAK partner
NGO, have been working to reclaim and restore an area
in the Leuser Ecosystem where a former district head
had issued illegal permits for a palm oil plantation,
violating the forest area’s protected status. Tezar
Pahlevie, HAkA’s regional manager, said: “Efforts like
this restoration and further citizen actions are needed
to save the people of Aceh Tamiang from ecological
disaster.” The project brings together the Aceh Tamiang
government, Aceh provincial forestry agency and the
KPH Wilayah III, Leuser Conservation Forum (FKL),
other local NGOs, the local community and the police.
To educate local community members about the
damaging ecological impacts of palm oil, and to raise
awareness about the value of the Tamiang forest HAkA
staff and volunteers held presentations, educational
workshops, and conducted door-to-door advocacy.
Community demand for restoration of the Tamiang
forest grew as a result. With the community behind
them, HAkA held a series of meetings with local
government officials and the District Head to discuss
the ecological and social benefits of restoring the
natural forests, and the work required to rehabilitate the
forests. After several meetings, the District Head was
on board, and on November 6 2014 issued a decree to
legalise the eradication of the plantations and to restore
1071 ha of forests and mangroves in Aceh Tamiang.
Since 2000, in the Tenggulun subdistrict of Aceh
Tamiang, protected forests were cleared and over 4,000
ha of palm oil was planted illegally. ‘More than 10,000
ha of forest upstream has been severely damaged’,
said Rudi Putra, the head of HAkA who was awarded
with the prestigious Goldman Prize in 2014. This land
clearing has taken its toll on the forests. Following
a process of investigation Haka identified that
twenty six companies have illegal plantations in the
Tamiang forest. This was reported to law enforcement
authorities, who charged one company with illegally
clearing land, with one person sentenced to six months
imprisonment and fined Rp 10 million, and another
named a suspect.
Clearing palm oil to restore the forest | Photo: Greeners

3. Aceh Tamiang forests are part of the Leuser
Ecosystem, a 2.6 million ha stretch of world-renown
forests listed by the World Conservation Union
(IUCN) as one of the ‘World’s Most Irreplaceable
Places.’ With two mountain ranges, three lakes and
more than nine river systems, the area covers the
largest extent of intact forest remaining in Asia and
contains some of the world’s highest known levels
of biodiversity. It is the last place on earth where
endangered Sumatran elephants, orangutans, rhinos
and tigers exist in the wild. Clearing the Tamiang
forests has fragmented wildlife corridors - critical
corridors for these endangered species to connect with
other populations.
The Tamiang forest also functions as critical
watershed, which intact absorbs heavy rains to
mitigate against flooding. Forest conversion has seen
disasters such as flash floods and landslides worsening
in Aceh, killing scores of people each year, and
disrupting agricultural production. Large scale forest
clearing, which HAkA estimates to be over 80,000 ha
of forests, has severely diminished the forest’s flood
absorption ability. In 2006 catastrophic floods and
landslides hit Aceh Tamiang district hard. ‘Based on
World Bank data, floods in 2006 cost an estimated
Rp. 1 trillion loss (US$77 million). It was because of
declining forest coverage significantly in the Tamiang
water catchment areas,’ said Rudi.
Despite the Leuser Ecosystem’s designation as a
National Strategic Area where the law supposedly
forbids environmentally damaging land use,
conservation faces major challenges. While most
of the area is protected, plantation estates, timber
concessions, and community forests exist within its
boundaries, or adjacent to them. Aceh has lost more
than a third of its cover in the last 20 years, and between
2005 and 2009, 36,000 ha of forest was destroyed.
The expansion of oil palm plantations is one of
the biggest causes of forest loss in Indonesia. New
plantations are often established in freshly cleared
forest and peatland as it costs more to rehabilitate
used land than it does to clear new land. Plantation
companies often finance operations by logging and
selling trees for pulp or timber, and in some cases go
no further than clearing the land.
Exploding global demand has driven plantations deep
into tropical forests everywhere, including the Leuser
Ecosystem. As well as having significant impacts
on forest cover, biodiversity, carbon emissions and
carbon stocks, these encroachments – along with
associated logging, fires and road building – fragment
the rainforest, destroy animal habitats, hinder
migration and increase poaching. Plantations also
pollute the soil and water with pesticides, attract pests
such as rats, and cause soil erosion and increased
sedimentation in rivers, and palm oil mills often
discharge untreated effluent into waterways. Halting
the expansion of oil palm enterprises is crucial to
reducing Indonesia’s carbon dioxide emissions,
preserving biodiversity, and reducing human deaths
and economic losses in local communities.
Restoring Crucial Ecosystem Services
Slippery Business
Palm oil is an edible oil derived from the fruits of the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis). Used worldwide in a large
number of manufactured food products such as margarine, soups, sauces, ice cream, crackers, instant noodles
and confectionary products, it is the world’s cheapest and most widely consumed vegetable oil, accounting
for 65 percent of all vegetable oil traded internationally. Increasingly included as a component in biodiesel
fuels, it has further uses in manufacturing lubricants, detergents, soaps and cosmetics.
Palm oil is popular with producers because it has a high yield, requiring less land to produce than most other
vegetable oils. It is attractive to the food industry because it is cheap and semisolid at room temperature.
Indonesia is the world’s largest producer (23.6 million tonnes in 2011) accounting for around half of global
production, and output is expected to double by 2030. Palm oil currently contributes about 4.5 percent of
Indonesia’s GDP, with Sumatra accounting for approximately 67 percent of the total planted oil palm area
(9.2 million ha), and 74 percent of national production.

4. The destruction of illegal oil palm plantations has reached 200 acres of the first phase of the target area of ​​1,071 hectares | Photo: Junaidi Hanafiah
The Asia Foundation’s SETAPAK program, funded by the UK Climate Change Unit, is focused on improving
forest and land governance in Indonesia. As well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate global
climate change, the program helps Indonesia’s decentralized governance ensure transparency and accountability
in the management, protection and distribution of benefits from natural resources with the intention of achieving
sustainable economic growth.
The next step in returning Tamiang forests to life
following clearing palm oil is to revegetate with
native trees. Various donors, including the Forum
of Environmental Conservation (FKL), have
contributed IDR600 million (around US$50,000)
for reforestation work, but according to Tamiang’s
Head of Forestry and Plantations, IDR3 billion
(around US$240,000) more is required. To support
a request for budget allocation from the district and
national government for the restoration, HAkA has
worked with local leaders to appeal to the national
government for funds and is conducting a budget
study with support from the National Secretariat
of the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency
(Seknas FITRA). The study will determine how
much money is needed for restoration and which
government agencies should be responsible.
To protect Tamiang’s remaining forest cover into
the future, a coalition of ten local NGO’s, called the
Aceh Forest and Environment Coalition (Koalisi
Penyelamatan Hutan dan Lingkungan Aceh) are
advocating for a district-wide moratorium on industrial
land use emissions. According to HAkA’s research,
only 20 percent or 46,100 ha of natural forest cover
remains in Aceh Tamiang. The district’s remaining land
has been converted to palm oil and rubber plantations,
mining concessions and human settlements. Koalisi
Penyelamatan Hutan dan Lingkungan Aceh has
produced a policy brief and presented it to the District
Head in a meeting to promote the benefits of protecting
further forests from being allocated for conversion to
palm oil or mining. Preserving Tamiang’s remaining
forests against further conversion is vital to protecting
vital water sources for the Aceh Tamiang local
community and for maintaining the Leuser Ecosystem’s
ecosystem and climate mitigation functions.
Financing Reforestation