The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve REDD Project

Planned DeforestationThe underlying assumption of planned deforestation is that theState is able to guide and control deforestation through spatialand land use planning that allocates specific forest areas forconversion. An investigation of planned deforestation wascarried out for Rimba Raya and found to support the baselinescenario of conversion to palm oil. Spatial plans at the district,province, and national government levels are summarized below.The Central Kalimantan Land Use Planning Agency (BAPPEDA)developed a spatial plan in 2003 that was signed into law 6 . TheRimba Raya area was allocated mostly as production forest with athin strip of conversion forest allocated for communitydevelopment along the Seruyan River. (Figure 22) The land useclasses in the 2003 Spatial Plan located in the Rimba Raya areaconcur with the earlier MoF National Spatial Plan (TGHK 1982).Figure 21. Rimba Raya Project Area (Carbon Accounting Area)Despite having a legal spatial plan in 2003, the province begandeveloping a new spatial plan in 2006, mainly to synchronize thehuge demand from oil palm developers with a spatial plan thatallows for extensive conversion of production forest. Figure 23below, compares the new draft provincial plan (RTRWP) with theMoF National Plan (TGHK) with conversion forest represented bya pink color. From Figure 23 it is obvious that the draft 2006provincial plan seeks to convert a massive swath of productionforest; practically one third of the province would be in oil palmestates. In fact, the province is planning to deforest over 2.6Mha of forest, based on their draft plan, including the Rimba Rayaarea.6 Peraturan Daerah No. 8 Tahun 200381