In May 2010, the Indonesian president declared a new national strategy to develop oil palm plantations on degraded land instead of on forests or peatlands.
Oil palm expansion is a cause of deforestation in Indonesia. Utilizing degraded land—areas that were cleared of forests and now contain low stocks of carbon and biodiversity—is a strategy that could break the link between oil palm and deforestation.
Due in part to WRI, this strategy received significant political and financial boosts in 2009 and 2010. In December 2009, the Indonesian government and its National Development Planning Agency (BAPPENAS) first announced policy recommendations to support this strategy. In January 2010, the U.K committed £50 million and Norway followed in May by committing $1 billion to tackle Indonesian deforestation. These commitments will fund a two-year suspension of new concessions in natural forests, development of a degraded land database, and incentives to establish oil palm plantations on degraded lands.
Through Project POTICO, WRI helped catapult this strategy onto the agenda. WRI, and local partner Sekala articulated the degraded land strategy, built an economic business case, developed a methodology for identifying acceptable degraded lands, mapped degraded lands, and initiated an on-the-ground pilot. BAPPENAS incorporated the degraded lands strategy, economics, and a profile of POTICO into its official recommendations. We engaged decision-makers to build support for the strategy.
When Project POTICO was launched in 2009, utilizing degraded lands neither was on the political agenda nor had international financial support. Now it has both.