Robert S. Eshelman

“The current moratorium policy has probably had a modest effect on reducing emissions below what they would have been otherwise,” Jonah Busch, a research fellow at the Center for Global Development and lead author on the report, told Mongabay.com. “But if Indonesia is to meet its climate targets, a much stronger policy response is needed.”

Indonesia’s new Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya Bakar imposed a moratorium on the issuance of all new logging permits a little over a week after being appointed in late October.

Newly elected Indonesian president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo announced on October 26th that the Ministry of Forests and the Ministry of Environment would be combined and that Siti Nurbaya would become Forests and Environment Minister.

Mina Setra is of Dayak dissent. Her childhood home in West Kalimantan, Indonesia was converted into an oil palm plantation in 1976.

It took five hours by boat from Kepayang in the Indonesian province of South Sumatra to arrive at this remote river community, where most of the residents are illegal loggers.