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Southwest Papua Province Environment, Forestry and Land Agency (LHKP) plans to receive nearly US$1.13 million (about Rp18.49 billion) of investment in 2025, by April at the earliest, from a German non-governmental organization (NGO) for the Forest and Climate Change Programme (FORCLIME-FC) program. The program is aimed at overcoming greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation and forest degradation.
The investment will be disbursed through the Indonesian Environment Ministry's Environmental Fund Management Directorate within the 2025 to 2028 contract period. Southwest Papua LHKP Head Julian Kelly Kambu explained in Sorong City on Mar. 11, 2025 that the budget came from Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), which provides development charity and overseas services.
"We have received a positive signal that the budget has been signed based on an Environment Minister Decree," said Kambu.
He explained that even though the Indonesian and regional governments have implemented budget austerity on transfer payments and regional government budgets, respectively, the Southwest Papua LHKP aims for the policy to not hamper its strategy and spirit to continue innovating in fostering collaborations with NGOs at home and abroad. The collaborations are targeted to bring funding for development programs that have direct impact on the people of Southwest Papua.
"We have quite a lot of development partners, who can access cooperation, collaboration with them. We have a program [while] they, one of which is GIZ that is engaged in investment to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, have the money," Kambu said.
He further elaborated that FORCLIME FC is one of the programs that contributes to Indonesia's REDD+ climate change policy framework to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The FORCLIME FC program is developed based on cooperation between the Indonesian government and the German federal government to implement forest conservation strategies and sustainable forest management to achieve the emission reduction target and improve local communities' social and economic conditions.
Kambu said that indigenous people who have customary forests, conservation forests, protected forests, and production forests will be directly involved in managing forest utilization.
"So our people, the indigenous people, are no longer the subject but the object of development. [Ours are] the community that manages and protects forests for the sake of the survival and balance of a sustainable ecosystem," he said.
