Photo by Eko Prianto

Indonesia’s globally important biosphere, Tanjung Puting National Park (TPNP), could serve as a potential site for demonstrating a range of activities for reducing carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).

The finding was made in a preliminary survey by CIFOR’s Daniel Murdiyarso. It comes at a time when environmentalists have been expressing concerns about the impact of oil palm development on the 400,000 ha park.

TPNP, in Central Kalimantan, is well known for its orangutan rehabilitation centre run by the Orangutan Foundation International (OFI), six hours via road and river from the district capital, Pangkalan Bun.

However, it’s not just the 6,000 orangutans that make the area attractive for REDD trials, according to Murdiyarso, it is the park’s overall biodiversity and range of ecosystem services.

“Tanjung Puting is a national treasure and a world eco-icon. UNESCO gave it biosphere status for its ecodiversity and potential to demonstrate a balanced relationship between humans and the environment,” Murdiyarso says.

The region’s rich biodiversity includes 220 bird species, 17 reptile species and 29 mammal species, including the long-tailed macaque, the agile gibbon and the Malayan sun bear. Tree species include ramin, ulin and jelutung. According to UNESCO, over 100,000 people live in the biosphere, with most of them relying on subsistence agriculture and, increasingly, tourism dollars.

Murdiyarso is concerned about TPNP’s future. Some 16,000 ha in the north of the park have already been cleared for oil palm, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Further south, where Murdiyarso undertook his survey, more forest may be removed if several companies now planning to develop 60,000 ha of oil palm get local government approval.

Between the 60,000 ha and TPNP lies an important strip of peat forest, which falls under the central government’s jurisdiction. Not only is it a local livelihood source, if carefully managed it could serve as a protection buffer for the park.

The key to this may be its REDD potential. Parts of the zone carry over 150 m3 of timber per hectare, equaling the kinds of carbon density needed to attract REDD funding and offer a viable alternative to oil palm.

“They need to discuss all the issues: jobs, social cohesion, the environment. Local people depend on the forests there for food, materials, watershed protection and other environmental goods and services,” Murdiyarso says.

He stresses that oil palm and tourism are both important for economic development. But TPNP offers the added benefit of conserving important species and protecting environmental services important for people’s development. And it may not be long before investors and governments around the world are wiling to pay to preserve the forests that protect these species and services.

Murdiyarso says several scenarios are under consideration to safeguard the strategic strip of forest. OFI suggests the central government should upgrade the status of buffer zone to Forest for Special Purposes (KHDTK). But Murdiyarso fears this may take too long, as it pits the central government against the local government and its oil palm plans.

Daniel feels OFI and other stakeholders could apply to manage the strip under an Ecosystem Restoration Permit. This would be more acceptable to local interests as the permit holders could promote activities such as a logging moratorium, biodiversity and landscape maintenance, accelerated natural regeneration, enrichment planting and local livelihood activities.

This would conserve the forests and their ecosystems and also earn money by being linked to among others, UN-promoted demonstration REDD activities and through emerging carbon markets.

Murdiyarso’s survey was supported by: USAID, Orangutan Conservation Service Program, Orangutan Foundation Indonesia and World Education.

Story by Greg Clough, CIFOR and USAID