One Map Policy
Previous Climate Scorecard posts have referenced the One Map Policy (OMP) in Indonesia. It appears in several of our thematic reports because it relates to many aspects of Indonesia’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Indonesia’s current land tenure system is fraught with inconsistencies and overlapping claims. The lack of clear land ownership makes implementation of REDD+ projects and government policies to manage land and forests next to impossible. Management of forests is consequential in reducing GHG emissions as 80% of Indonesia’s carbon emissions come from forest destruction and clearing. Clear demarcation of land tenure, claims, and responsibilities is a prerequisite for effective land and forest governance. This demarcation can be achieved through mapping land claims.
OMP began out of the 2011 Law no. 4 regarding spatial information when President Yudhoyono was presented with the highly conflicting sectoral maps of the Ministry of Environmental and Ministry of Forestry. The law states that only the government of Indonesia shall have authority to create a national base map. The Geospatial Information Agency (BIG) is responsible for creating the base map. OMP’s purpose is to pull together the sectoral maps of many government agencies into a uniform base map. The sectoral maps of government agencies have a lot of overlap as each was designed without a reference base map. There are also overlapping maps between concessions for different production activities, and between state forest areas, and customary and districts lands. OMP seeks to reconcile these conflicts.
The development of the state map can be accessed by the public through a ‘one geo portal’, which accepts public and participatory mappings This transparency and public participation in map-making is a new development in Indonesian mapping. In the past, government agencies’ ability to issue permits and rights to land often resulted in favoritism and patronage. The Ministry of Forestry was especially notorious for its opaque forest data, forest maps, and license issuing. OMP was developed in the context of Yudhoyono’s 26% GHG emissions reduction promise after COP-13 that led to the $1 billion Norway-Indonesia REDD+ partnership. The partnership required suspensions of licensing new concessions in primary forests and peatlands. This moratorium would only be achieved if the Forestry Ministry underwent major reform. In 2010, the government led a corruption investigation of the ministry that concluded that it needed institutional change. The ministry was tasked with producing an Indicative Moratorium Map (IMM), which improved the transparency of forestry maps and increased communication between government agencies and the public. The moratorium map covers 65 million hectares of land. President Widodo has extended the moratorium into 2017. The REDD+’s push for public participation and transparency led to the beginning of the OMP.
When One Map is completed, land claims and government responsibilities should be resolved. Clear land data is a prerequisite in moratorium enforcement, peatland restoration, assigning of responsibility to sustainably manage land, and other efforts aimed to reduce emissions. The public participation in One Map allows masayarakat adat (indigenous Indonesians), forest-dependent people, and communities to submit maps. These community-made maps often more sustainably manage forests and land than under government agencies or concessions. If these submissions to One Map are prioritized, emissions reductions will be more achievable.
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http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/37/1/012054