Pangkalan Kerinci, April 29th, 2021 – Pelalawan Regency has a serious commitment to anticipate forest and land fires. In his speech at the signing of the memorandum of understanding between Pelalawan Regency and KEMITRAAN, the Regent of Pelalawan, Mr. H. Zukri hoped that this collaboration would not only be in the implementation of technical coordination meetings, but must be continued with good implementation and collaboration.
Furthermore, the Regent said that the Pelalawan Regency Government (Pemkab) does not only focus on tackling forest and land fires, but also focuses on prevention.
“For example, where this year happened, what caused it, how much area, obstacles and else, the data must be clear. So we can program future steps to prevent it,” explained the Regent.
He added that the Pelalawan Regency Government would map the peat area. “For example, there are 600 thousand hectares of peat in Pelalawan. Is there a concession permit, or a forest area. If it is a concession area, of course there is the responsibility of the permit holder,” he said.
“It is possible that later peatlands that have become crops and not in the concession permit will be reforested by the Pelalawan Regency Government. But with plants that produce economic value for the community,” he said.
He said, basically the Pelalawan Regency Government is very serious about improving the environment in Pelalawan.
“Our focus is more on prevention. This year, we are targeting reforestation by planting 1 million trees in Pelalawan,” he said in front of meeting participants consisting of representatives of the Regional Leadership Communication Forum (Forkopimda), related Regional Apparatus Organizations (OPD) and companies.
KEMITRAAN will support the strengthening synergy between actors in dealing with the threat of forest and land fires with a cluster pattern, and sustainable peatland development in Pelalawan Regency.
In his speech, the Executive Director of KEMITRAAN Mr. Laode M Syarif said that this collaboration was the implementation of 3 main strategies, which are strengthening and supporting the Government, strengthening the role of civil society organizations, and bridging dialogue and multi-stakeholder cooperation, including companies.
In Pelalawan, this program also got support from UNEP (United Nation Environment Program), the UN agency responsible for improving environmental governance internationally.
In addition to signing a memorandum of understanding with the KEMITRAAN, the Coordination Meeting also signed a Joint Commitment of the Parties which essentially supports the implementation of integrated forest and land fire management activities.
