Abstract
The Manokwari Declaration is an unprecedented pledge by the governors of Indonesia’s two New Guinea provinces to promote conservation and become SE Asia’s new Costa Rica. This is an exciting, yet challenging endeavour that will require working on many fronts that transcend single disciplines. Because Indonesian New Guinea has the largest expanse of intact forests in SE Asia, large-scale conservation pledges like the Manokwari Declaration will have a global impact on biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation.
Highlights
New Guinea is the largest tropical island in the world, with >75% of its forests still intact (Mittermeier et al, 1998; Newbold et al, 2016)
Its vast forests are globally important for climate change mitigation, but extensive concessions assigned for palm oil (Franky and Moragan, 2015), timber (Klute, 2008) and improper infrastructure development, place the region under great risk of large-scale deforestation (Brun et al, 2015)
Massive deforestation in March-April 2018 in PT MJR — a palm oil concession controlled by the Hayel Saeed Anam Group — included an area zoned for protection where development is prohibited (Greenpeace, 2018)
Summary
New Guinea is the largest tropical island in the world, with >75% of its forests still intact (Mittermeier et al, 1998; Newbold et al, 2016). On October 10th 2018, the Governors of Indonesia’s two New Guinea Provinces signed the Manokwari Declaration (Manokwari Declaration, 2018), committing to the conservation 70% of the forest cover for the western half of the island1 (Box 1). These discrepancies highlight the need for close monitoring and transparent indicators so that the provinces’ commitments to conservation actions are both implemented and sustained.
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