Jakarta – Indonesia’s deforestation during 2021-2022 significantly dropped by 8.4% compared to that of the 2020-2021 period. Net deforestation in Indonesia during 2021 -2022 reached only 104,000 hectares, while during 2020-2021 its deforestation was 113,500 Ha.

According to the environment and forestry ministry’s (KLHK) Forestry Planology and Environmental Governance Acting Director General Ruandha A. Sugardiman said that based on its previous deforestation trend, this year Indonesia’s deforestation is relatively low and tends to be stable.

“It shows that all efforts pursued by the KLHK to reduce the deforestation have paid off,” Ruandha said recently.

According to Ruandha, the condition of land cover and forest in Indonesia is dynamic along with the needs of lands for economic developments.

The change of forest cover happens from time to time as a result forest conversions to cater for the needs of economic developments, forest encroachments, forest fires or forest rehabilitation.

“To find out the latest condition of forest cover and deforestation, we regularly conduct monitoring of the forests and deforestation every year,” he said.

He pointed out that the forest and deforestation monitoring is regularly conducted across Indonesia which has a total land area of 187 million hectares. “The monitoring is conducted inside forest areas and non-forest areas based on Indonesia earth map (RBI) under the program of one map policy (KSP).

The monitoring is implemented by using the main data of landsat satellite image provided by the aviation and space research organization (OR-PA) of the national research and innovation board (BRIN) and identified visually by the KLHK’s technical interpreter staff available across Indonesia.

Based on its forest monitoring 2022, Indonesia has a total forested area of 96.0 million or 51.2% of its total land areas. (*)

Source: sawitku.id