The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve REDD Project

Indonesia currently has an estimated 5.5 million hectaresof palm oil plantations, and the area under cultivationthrough the development of an additional 6.1 millionhectares in Kalimantan, Papua, and other provinces(Guerin 2007).While about three quarters of Indonesia’s productioncomes from Sumatra, the provinces with the greatestpotential for continued growth are Kalimantan and IrianJaya, due to the relative availability of land for conversionto plantations. According to the Indonesian Chamber ofCommerce, in 2006 East and Central Kalimantan togetheraccounted for over 30 percent of the remaining land areain Indonesia suitable for conversion to oil palmplantations. This has resulted in an increasing area withinCentral Kalimantan that supports industrial oil palm, goingfrom no formal plantations in 1967 to 200-­‐300,000 ha ofplanted area in 2002. The Indonesian Chamber ofCommerce reports that palm oil area in CentralKalimantan grew from 240,000 hectares in 2003 to nearly270,000 hectares in 2005 (ICCI 2006).In July 2008, the Central Kalimantan government reported2,847,720 ha of proposed oil palm plantations in theregion, by 186 companies, with investments on the orderof US$25M planned (GCK 2008).Barriers to Alternative Scenario #2 (continuation of pre-­projectland use as production forest with continued illegallogging).Institutional barriers: Though the project land was zonedas production forest in the past, in 2006 individualpermits were issued by the district governments todevelop at least four palm oil concessions in the ProjectArea. One concession is already active. CentralKalimantan’s 2006 Spatial Plan (RTRWP), currentlyundergoing approval by the Indonesian government,shows the entire carbon accounting boundary area zonedfor agricultural development, thereby supporting thenotion that the project region was re-­‐designated fromproduction forest to development land, likely becausemuch of the valuable timber in the region has alreadybeen extracted. Therefore, continued classification asproduction forest faces institutional barriers because thecurrent designation by the government is another landuse.Barriers to Alternative Scenario #3 (conversion to agriculturethat is not palm oil):Barriers due to local ecological conditions: The projectarea is not suitable for agricultural development due to itspresence on peat. The failed Mega Rice Project washalted in the late 1990s in Central Kalimantan after it was95