A view of the revitalised mangrove forest in Lubuk Kertang village, Langkat regency, North Sumatra. - The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network
JAKARTA (The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network): The Environment and Forestry Ministry is looking to designate North Sumatra coastal areas for reforestation location in an effort to reduce carbon emissions as well as to develop the local economy and maintain aquatic ecosystems.
Indra Exploitasia, the Environment and Forestry Ministry's biodiversity conservation director, said that the province's coastal areas are appropriate for mangrove reforestation.
“Reforestation is part of our contribution to the 2050 vision Living in Harmony with Nature,” Indra said, referring to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity conference’s targets for reversing the loss of Earth's biodiversity.
The ministry, the Central Tapanuli regency administration and gold mining company PT Agincourt Resources held on Thursday an event planting 30,000 mangrove seeds and 20,000 shellfish spreading on a coastal area of Pandan district.
Dasrul Chaniago, the ministry’s marine and coastal pollution and damage-control director, said that forming mangrove ecosystems is important in Indonesia considering the country’s coastline vulnerability to climate change.
Dasrul said that according to the 2021 mangrove map, Indonesia has a total of around 3.3 million hectares of mangrove forest, which is home to 20% of the world’s biodiversity.
“Unfortunately, Indonesia is losing a significant number of these forests,” he said.
As the world’s fourth-most populous nation has grown, pressure on the mangroves has too.
More than 756,000ha of mangroves have been cleared and turned into brackish ponds to farm water shrimp and milkfish.
Every year for the past three decades, another 19,000ha has been ripped out for aquaculture and increasingly, for oil palm plantations.
As of 2015, an estimated 40% of the country’s mangroves had been degraded or lost.
Indonesia’s ambitious goal is to restore almost all of what has been lost, rehabilitating 600,000ha of mangroves by 2024.
The government has mapped around 77,000ha of the best restoration candidate areas across 300 villages in Sumatra and Kalimantan, working in collaboration with coastal villagers.
