Carbon trading, climate change mitigation, and REDD become the focus of multilateral development banks. On last Wednesday (11 / 8), under the coordination of the Ministry of Forestry, the parties such as related units in the Ministry of Forestry, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the IFC (International Financial Corporation), and NGOs were invited to Manggala Wanabhakti, Jalan Gatot Subroto, Jakarta to listen to the socialization of the Forest Investment Program.

This event, that promotes the three main issues of the multilateral development banks programs which are FCPF (Forest Carbon Partnership Facility)-LoI Norway, Forest Investment Program, and REDD Readiness, seems not much attended by NGOs of forestry and environment field. This is due to the beginning of Ramadan month in which the offices are closed on the first day of fasting.

“If this is seriously wanted to be known by NGOs, there should be not only a few of NGOs were invited. The proof is there were only two institutions from NGOs that could attend,” Rio Bertoni of KpSHK said when asked about the seriousness of the socialization event of the Multilateral Development Banks’ visit to the Ministry of Forestry related to the Scoping Mission Forest Investment Program.

In the exposure of the Forest Investment Program (FIP), Indonesia has already received a form of soft loan amounting to 140 million U.S. dollars as the cost of the Clean Technology Fund (CTF) program. While the funding of other programs in the form of Strategic Climate Fund (SCF) and the Investment Arrangement is planned to be granted by six countries such as Australia, Denmark, Norwey, Japan, the United States of America and England with a total of 406 million U.S. dollars.

This FIP socialization meeting is the continuity of the previous meetings involving the private sectors and research institutions such as GTZ. After this meeting there will be a follow up again to reinvite the same circles, NGOs, because it seems that at this meeting there are only two NGOs.

“I think the Ministry of Forestry has many lists of NGOs to be invited in this event” said Mina Setra of AMAN in this FIP meeting.

Mina Setra also explained, AMAN responds to REDD in the way to fight for the concept of forest management by the indigenous people which has currently been proposed to the President.  AMAN sugests alternative model for REDD, the proposed area for indigenous people governance which are members of AMAN has reached approximately 1 million hectares area.

“Together with JKPP, AMAN is currently mapping the governance rights of indigenous regions for 1 million hectares, which is proposed through the letter to the President,” said Mina Setra.(rb).