JAKARTA – Oil palm plantation companies are obliged to submit all required legal documents no later than 02 November 2023 to allow them to get their cultivation rights in their oil palm plantations.
After the end of the reporting period, set on 02 November 2023, oil palm plantations identified to have encroached protection forest areas and conservation forest areas are obliged to return them to the state.
“The return of oil palm plantations within the protection and conservation forests to the state is based on the verdict of the supreme court,” the environment and forestry ministry’s (KLHK) Secretary General Bambang Hendroyono said at the office building of Ombudsman on Tuesday, 31 October 2023.
The oil palm plantations allowed to keep their legal status as plantations are only those located in production forests and areas for other uses (APL), but not for those identified in protection and conservation forests.
According to him, currently there are around 200,000 hectares of oil palm plantations that are illegally located in the protection and conservation forests.
Bambang said that the oil palm growers who encroached the protection and conservation forests have to pay administrative fine and regreening cost to the government, and then return their plantation areas after finalizing their first cycle of oil palm cultivation.
“We estimate around 200,000 hectares of the problematic oil palm plantations are located in protection and conservation forests. They will be settled based on the article 110B of the omnibus law on job creation, which requires the return of such plantations to the state after one cycle of cultivation,” said Bambang.
He asserted that the government bans the development of oil palm plantations in protection and conservation forests, although they have paid the administrative fines.
Bambang said that requiring the return of the oil palm plantations in protection and conservation forests to the state is part of the government’s commitment to reduce the impacts of climate change.
“After being returned, the oil palm plantation areas will be replanted with trees to revive their functions as protection and conservation forests,” he said. (*)
Source: sawitku.id
