Forest Watch Indonesia (FWI) on September 30, 2024 revealed that deforestation in Papua is the most severe with an area of 552 thousand hectares in the 2022-2023 period, or more than 70 percent of the land area that experienced deforestation throughout Indonesia in the same period covering an area of 753 thousand hectares.
FWI revealed that Kalimantan is also the area with the second largest level of deforestation after Papua in the same period covering an area of 72 thousand hectares. The third position is occupied by Sumatra with an area of 64 thousand hectares.
The fourth and fifth positions are occupied by Maluku and Sulawesi with 29 thousand hectares and 28 thousand hectares respectively.
Meanwhile, Bali and Nusa Tenggara with an area of 4 thousand hectares, and Java is in the last position with an area of one thousand hectares.
Forest fires
According to FWI data, Indonesia is not only vulnerable to deforestation but is also threatened by forest fires in several areas. A total of 1,952 points were monitored in Indonesia until the period of September 2024.
Based on this data, 46 percent of the points occurred throughout 2024 in concession areas, and 54 percent were outside the concession.
Kalimantan is the region with the most hotspots in 2024 reaching 1,051 points. Meanwhile, the second position is occupied by Bali and Nusa Tenggara with 357 points. Sumatra is in third place with a total of 294 points. Then, Java has 117 points.
Meanwhile, the other three regions recorded are Sulawesi with 79 points, Maluku with 35 points, and Papua with 19 points.
Deforestation and forest fires decrease
Siti Nurbaya Bakar, Minister of Environment and Forestry (LHK) said that forest fires and deforestation have decreased drastically in the last 10 years.
“We have a forest fire area of 2.6 million hectares with transboundary haze that lasted for about two months, that happened in 2015, and in 2022, we only experienced forest fires of 200,000 hectares,” Siti Nurbaya said as quoted by Antara on Sunday, September 29, 2024.
She also said that previously deforestation in Indonesia reached 1.09 million hectares in the 2014-2015 period, but dropped drastically to 100,000 hectares in 2023.
