Published by
Mongabay
Mongabay
JAKARTA — Environmental activists have cautiously welcomed the Indonesian government’s move to revoke hundreds of permits for logging, plantations and mines, calling it an opportunity to conserve vast swaths of forest. The affected concessions include 192 earmarked for forestry and mines, totaling 3.13 million hectares (7.73 million acres), and 36 for plantations (at 34,448 hectares, or 85,123 acres). Together, they cover an area larger than Belgium. They were revoked because the concession holders had either abandoned them or failed to develop them. A preliminary analysis by environmental NGO…