Carbon Offsets Project the Size of Las Vegas Wins Court Reprieve
Indonesia, where President-elect Prabowo Subianto’s team aims to lift spending, sees offsets as a potential new source of revenue and is planning to remove an existing ban on sales of credits overseas.
(Bloomberg) -- One of the companies behind the world’s biggest carbon offsets project won a key court battle in Indonesia as it attempts to resume activity at the vast site in Borneo.
The Jakarta State Administrative Court backed a request from PT Rimba Raya Conservation to overturn a decision last year by Indonesia’s government to revoke the firm’s license to operate across 36,000 hectares (139 square miles) of tropical peat swamp forest in Central Kalimantan.
Rimba Raya Conservation, which had cut staff, will now attempt to rebuild capacity at the project, said the firm’s president commissioner Rusmin Widjaja. The company is also seeking to resolve a separate dispute with a partner, Hong Kong-based developer InfiniteEARTH Ltd.
The site generates carbon credits through the conservation of a stretch of forest that’s about the same size as Las Vegas. It’s also a buffer zone between oil palm plantations and the Tanjung Puting National Park, which is home to one of the world’s last wild populations of orangutans.
Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry, which will have a right to appeal the ruling, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comme( article continues at BNN Bloomberg )