FCPF-CF (Forest Carbon Partnership Facility Carbon Fund) is established by the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) as one of the programs under the mechanism of REDD+ to support countries in their efforts to reduce emissions. The FCPF-CF provides payments to developing countries for verified emission reductions achieved through forest conservation and sustainable management activities.
The program aims to incentivize reduced deforestation and forest degradation in the province through sustainable forest management activities, including forest licensing improvements, strengthening forest management capacity, and promoting community-based planning.
REDD+ selected East Kalimantan as the only province in Indonesia for a program to save forests from deforestation and forest degradation. This is likely because 54% of the region’s area is comprised of dense tropical forests. This provides the region with the potential to hold huge amounts of carbon reserves, making it a very viable candidate to participate in the program.
East Kalimantan was selected as a pilot province for FCPF-CF in May 2015 and started its readiness phase in 2016. The program’s Emission Reduction Project Document (ERPD) and Emission Reduction Payment Agreement (ERPA) were completed in 2019.
The program is performance-based and worth a total of 110 million US dollars as compensation if East Kalimantan is able to reduce emissions by 22 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions within five years (2019-2024). In 2022, Indonesia received an advance payment of US$20.9 million (IDR 320 billion) under the Emissions Reduction Payment Agreement between the Government of Indonesia and the World Bank’s FCPF for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) in East Kalimantan province.
In March 2023, led by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, the province signed an Incentive Payment Agreement for East Kalimantan Province in the framework of the Implementation of the FCPF REDD+ Program between the Environmental Fund Management Agency (BPDLH) with the Governor of East Kalimantan Isran Noor and Regents/Mayors throughout East Kalimantan.
The ultimate goal of the program is to reduce greenhouse gas emission to help mitigate the impacts of climate change. However, there are also several additional benefits the program offers to the province, such as incentives for local communities to participate in sustainable forest management practices, and payments to encourage local communities to take an active role in the program implementation whilst benefiting them economically.
In the long run, the program will further improve the livelihoods of local communities, including indigenous people and will eventually help alleviate poverty in the province.
The impacts and scope of the FCPF-CF program in East Kalimantan can be further explained with the geographical concept of scale. The concept of scale in geopolitics refers to the geographic extent of political actions and the interconnectedness of different scales that can be categorized into local, national, and global levels.
The participation of East Kalimantan in FCPF-CF will expand the scope of impact of the region from local to a global level. This is because by participating as the pilot province in the FCPF-CF program, East Kalimantan is directly contributing in the global issue of climate change, thus making East Kalimantan’s participation in the FCPF-CF program as what started as a local-level initiative into a program that has globally impactful outcomes.
The implementation of the program in East Kalimantan is also beneficial for the scope of influence of the province as a whole. As the pilot province, East Kalimantan will become a role model for the implementation of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) worldwide. This role model status could lead to more funding and support for the province’s sustainable development initiatives in the future.
