REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA - A new agency to protect Indonesia's rain forests is ready to begin work to implement a first of its kind environmental program. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono signed Presidential Regulation No. 62/2013 on August 31, 2013, entitled Managing Body for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD), concluding a process that took more than two years. 

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, known as REDD+, is a UN-designed program to ensure that it becomes more profitable for developing countries to leave their rainforests intact, rather than chopping down forests and selling the wood. As part of the program, rich countries are expected to pay forested nations to preserve their trees.

The new REDD+ Agency seeks emissions reductions by preventing deforestation and forest degradation, including in peatlands, and to ensure that these efforts are properly managed. The REDD Agency is crucial to help realize the governments commitment to the reduction of CO2 emissions in Indonesia by 26 percent by 2020, and by 40 percent with international support. The commitment was announced by President Yudhoyono in October 2009. 

The Government of Norway welcomed the Indonesian commitment and agreed to sign a Letter of Intent (LoI) with Indonesia on May 26, 2010. Norway has pledged to provide assistance worth 1 billion USD to Indonesia, based upon verified emissions reductions as part of the REDD+ plan.

President Yudhoyono appointed Heru Prasetyo as the REDD+ Agency Head in a Presidential Decree dated December 12, 2013, to enable the Agency to become fully functional. The Head of the REDD+ Management Agency is responsible directly to the president, and his responsibilities include assisting the president in all aspects of implementing REDD+ policies in Indonesia.

"It is important and timely for the REDD+ Agency to immediately move forward at full speed for the sake of Indonesia and the entire earth," said Heru Prasetyo, who previously acted as secretary and member of the REDD+ Institution Preparation Task Force (REDD+ Task Force) and Deputy I of the Presidential Working Unit for the Supervision and Management of Development (UKP4). 

Preparations to establish the REDD+ Agency involved at least 18 ministries and agencies, as well as 11 provincial and district governments. The operation of the REDD+ Agency is also a key component in initiating the second phase of the Letter of Intent signed by the Governments of Indonesia and Norway, the statement said. 

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