TEMPO.CO, Jakarta-The Peatland Restoration Agency (BRG) will restore 933,000 hectares of degraded peatlands in Riau Province over the next five years and it will need Rp11.196 trillion to accomplish.

“We estimate that it will need over Rp12 million per hectare,” Peatland Restoration Agency chief Nazir Foead told Antara news agency in the launching of peatland restoration in Meranti Islands District, Tuesday, April 12, 2016.

President Joko Widodo established the Peatland Restoration Agency (BRG) in early 2016 to restore two million hectares of peatland within five years. Its main objective is to tackle land and forest fires due to peatland ecosystem degradation.

The restoration will be carried out in peatlands across seven provinces, namely Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan and Papua.

This year, the BRG is aiming to restore 30 percent of degraded peatlands, namely around 600,000 heactares of peatland in Pulang Pisau in Central Kalimantan, Ogan Komering Ilir and Musi Banyuasin in South Sumatera and Meranti Islands in Riau.

Specifically in Riau, Nazir Foead said that President Joko Widodo has called for peatland restoration in Meranti Islands to be top priority.

“Fire scale in Meranti is less significant compared to the other three regions’, still it has been picked out by the President considering that local people could participate [in land restoration] by planting sago palms. Therefore, the launch of BRG first activities is carried in Riau, particularly Meranti,” he said.

However, he said, his agency has yet to receive funds allocation in the State Budget (APBN).

“Designated budget for the BRG in APBN has not been decided yet as it is still being calculated by the Finance Minister and Bappenas [the National Development Planning Agency],” he said.

For the time being, he explained, peatland restoration programs still rely on land rehabilitation budget from Environmental Affairs and Forestry Ministry, as well as aid from Norwegian government and the U.S. through USAID.

Norwegian government in February 2016 has agreed to allocate 50 million US dollars in grants to help Indonesian peatland restoration, whereas the United States has helped in the effort by providing US$17 million.

Nazir also expected that private sectors would support the peatland restoration program. “It’s not an easy task, so we have to appeal the business doers to immediately [provide funds] in an effective way and it will continue to be monitored,” he said.

ANTARA