Climate change to be key topic at Australia-Indonesia talks
Category: REDD NewsRADIOAUSTRALIA.NET
Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has arrived in Australia for talks over a range of topics, including economic issues, trade, education and regional security. Climate change is also a key area of co-operation. Indonesia and Australia have two partnerships underway, in Kalimantan and now in Sumatra, towards shaping a global mechanism on forests and climate change.
Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speakers: Wandojo Siswento, advisor and negotiator, Indonesian Forestry minister; Clare Walsh, assistant secretary, Australian Department of Climate Change
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MOTTRAM: It's known as REDD and it stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. It's considered a vital element of any eventual, so far elusive, international climate change deal because it seeks to address the problem that 15 to 20 per cent of all human induced greenhouse emissions come from cutting down forests. So far, there's international agreement that REDD is necessary but there's no mechanism in place. Australia and Indonesia are taking a lead in trying to shape a mechanism. Last year they joined forces -- Australia's money, Indonesia's forests -- to fund practical projects towards that goal. The first such scheme was announced for the the peatlands of central Kalimantan. Last week, a second project was unveiled for the dryland forest region of Jambi in Sumatra. Indonesia's chief negotiator on forestry issues relating to climate change, is Wandojo Siswento. He's also advisor to Indonesia's foreign minister on such partnerships. He says much turns on being able to effectively measure emissions and emissions reductions in these very different areas, which will have very different management practices.
WANDOJO: We need to learn what emissions will be in the forest that we conduct selective cutting, and in the protected areas and community forests and other managements of the forest.
MOTTRAM: The projects are trial schemes to find out what drives deforestation and forest degradation and to design sustainable livelihoods for local people outside of culling forests. Wandojo Siswento again.
WANDOJO: Australian Indonesia co-operation or partnership tries to find out what is the best answer to that. Then from there we could also try to say to the international community what really happen in the forests and how could REDD become one mechanism that could be adopted.
MOTTRAM: Clare Walsh is assistant secretary for international relations and land negotiations in Australia's department of climate change. She too says measurement and verification are key if the trial schemes are to inform an eventual global mechanism.
WALSH: Ultimately what we're aiming to do is establish a global REDD mechanism and of course globally there are all these different sorts of tropical forests in developing countries and we need to be confident that we understand those different forestry and soil types and then that can come together in a very comprehensive global agreement.
MOTTRAM: The project in Kalimantan covers 120 hectares. The size and exact location of the Sumatra project is yet to be finalised and is the subject of negotiations with local communities and officials. Clare Walsh says the key is that the areas that's finally chosen for the project is representational.
WALSH: That we have sufficient land area and enough challenges there that we understand and are confident that it represents a larger area.
MOTTRAM: Once location is decided, agreements on how benefits will be shared among local communities have to be made. Clare Walsh again.
WALSH: That's a key part of what we're already doing in central Kalimantan working with local communities and the government to look at that distribution mechanism so that local land owners and land dependent communities do actually receive a good economic alternative and an incentive to reduce emissions from their land areas.
MOTTRAM: But REDD has its critics. In the green movement there's concern it'll allow rich countries to keep polluting and logging, while paying poor countries to keep forests intact. Wandojo Siswento says won't solve the problem of human induced climate change.
WANDOJO: They still need to cut emissions, because without that, this is just an excuse, the emissions will not go down or we could not limit to 1.5 degrees.
MOTTRAM: Other critics say REDD is an attempt to control forest policy in developing countries and will deny the poor the chance through forest development to pull themselves out of poverty .. a claim Clare Walsh rejects where Australia's work with Indonesia is concerned.
WALSH: We're working in partnership with the Indonesian government and in partnership with provincial and local communities to do what they have identified as their priorities.
MOTTRAM: Climate change will be on the agenda for talks bewteen Australia and Indonesia during the Indonesian President's visit to Australia this week.
Original Link : www.radioaustralia.net.au/connectasia/stories/201003/s2840488.htm
