- The recent New York Declaration on Forests has published data claiming Indonesia’s deforestation has increased dramatically;
- However, the claims are at odds with verified, FAO-supported and IPCC-compliant data that shows Indonesia’s dramatic decreases in deforestation;
- The EU Council approves the EUDR delay while NGOs continue to disapprove
Does The Forest Declaration Report Inflate Indonesia’s Deforestation?
A report published by campaign group Climate Focus on the eve of New York Climate Week does Indonesia’s efforts on deforestation a considerable disservice. The report is part of the New York Declaration on Forests assessment series, which is released on a semi-regular basis.
At its heart is a major contention regarding Indonesia:
“After years of progress, deforestation in tropical Asia is once again on the rise, increasing by 39 percent from 2022 to 2023. Indonesia’s 1.18Mha of deforestation was 65 per cent of the region’s total and marked a 57 per cent increase for the country from 2022, which means it missed its Assessment-identified target for 2023 by 82 percent.”
For many this comes as a surprise.
It appears to completely ignore the fact that Indonesia recorded its lowest deforestation rate on record in 2022 and had, up until that point, reduced its deforestation by around 90 percent since peaks earlier in the century.
Second is that to come up with the ‘increase’ figure, the researchers cite “original analysis for this report”, yet this appears to be contradicted by recent FAO research contradicts this statement, and support for Indonesia’s IPCC-compliant data on deforestation by Matthew Hansen, arguably the world’s authority on deforestation.
While the report states that there is 1.18 Mha of deforestation in Indonesia is 2023, published and verified data indicates that deforestation (based on primary forest loss) is closer to 290,000 ha for 2023.
The question is this: Where does Indonesia’s mystery 1.18Mha of deforestation comes from?
The report authors use an unusual definition for deforestation, stating at the beginning of the report that:
There are many different definitions of deforestation, which are appropriate in their own contexts. This report defines deforestation as a loss of tree cover that is expected to be permanent or result in permanent impacts.
Many would heartily disagree this definition. There is literally one definition of deforestation that is used internationally. The FAO is quite clear that deforestation is the “conversion of forest land to other uses, or the long-term reduction of tree canopy cover to less than 10%.”
This is an internationally accepted definition that is clear across UN bodies and even in the EU’s current Deforestation Regulation.
The Climate Focus definition dispenses with that definition for one that is unusually broad – and it is based on two things, hidden in its Annex. First, it uses 50 per cent tree cover loss within a 30m2 area as its basis for deforestation, when that cover loss is permanent, or when that loss occurs within a humid tropical primary forest. In other words, it takes all forest cover loss (permanent or otherwise) within tropical humid primary forests as deforestation.
Ironically, a key source that the study uses for its deforestation analysis states that following:
“our analysis contributes to a more informed discussion about forest conservation, restoration, and management options globally by providing an enhanced experience for the more than 2 million users of the Global Forest Watch platform to understand what is driving forest change around the world, thus preventing a common misperception that any tree cover loss shown on the map represents deforestation.”
So, why does Climate Focus deviate from this internationally accepted definition? Is it because stating the facts, i.e. that deforestation in Indonesia has decreased significantly and that things are improving, does little to generate headlines?
Perhaps this isn’t the case. But either way, the deviation is not explained well, and overblowing any deforestation does two things.
First, it undermines Indonesia’s success and punishes Indonesia in public forums for clear progress over the past decade or more.
Second, it undermines the credibility of the report authors themselves, as well as its funders.
Climate Focus and its backers – the Climate and Land Use Alliance (CLUA) – provide considerable funding for civil society across Indonesia. Much of this funding goes to organisations that are clearly anti-palm oil, such as Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network.
The question is whether these organisations want to be taken seriously in Indonesia by government, the private sector and other organisations, or whether they are happy being just another protest group.
EUDR Update: Council Approves, NGOs Disapprove
The Council of the European Union has agreed to support the Commission’s proposal to delay the EUDR. Although this wasn’t a surprising development, it increases the well-founded expectation that the European Parliament will also agree to the new measure.
The support from the Council – comprising EU member state representatives – wasn’t surprising because the Member States themselves were key actors in pushing for a delay via the various Council meetings, particularly the agriculture ministers. In addition, the member state Competent Authorities, i.e. the state-level agencies that will have to enforce the rules, have been appealing to the Commission to make it clear what the rules actually are.
Equally unsurprising is that NGOs launched a last-ditch attempt to have the Council vote against the delay. At this stage, the NGO position remains somewhat confused. They are at once stating the EU should support smallholders with implementation because the regulation remains inadequate, but nonetheless force an entry date with no changes to the regulation.
As we’ve pointed out before, there’s considerable opposition to the rules among smallholders; separating the smallholder position from national positions is extremely difficult. The fact remains that the vast majority of countries and their smallholders across EUDR commodities simply aren’t ready.
Equally, a key idea within the NGO position is that ‘large companies’ such as Nestle support the regulation – and therefore it’s a good regulation. Precisely when did groups such as Greenpeace become Davos champions?