Vice President Jusuf Kalla. TEMPO/Imam Sukamto

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta-Vice President Jusuf Kalla said on Friday, November 13, that the government is committed to restore Indonesia’s peatlands and forests in five years.

Kalla said Indonesia had made mistakes in the past in allocating permits to utilize the forest causing forest degradation that lead to forest fires and haze with the worse felt this year.

International experts and representatives of foreign countries and donors gather in the Shangri-la Hotel in Jakarta on Friday for an intensive discussion to identify a pathway for a long-term solution to Indonesia’s fire and haze crisis.

“We invite everyone to find solutions together. This will not be a meeting to find root causes but rather a technical meeting to determine what to do this year, the second year and so on,” said Kalla at the opening of the two-day meeting.  

“The government will allocate appropriate budgets and we will also ask corporations to bear the common responsibility. Not only keeping it in Singapore but return it to restore the environment,” Kalla said.

Kalla said he expect a similar effective solution such as the restoration of Aceh after the 2004 tsunami. “A peatland restoration agency will be established and work in five years,” he said.

The event is organized jointly with the Norwegian Embassy and the United Nations Development Program. 

NZM