Setting Boundaries for Working Areas of Forest Utilization License Holders

Ministry of Forestry Regulation No. P.19/Menhut-II/2011 on Boundary Arrangement of Working Area for Forest Utilization Licenses (“Regulation”) has been issued to ensure that overlapping working areas between forest utilization license holders can be prevented. The Regulation consists of 9 Chapters and 31 Articles.

A forest utilization license holder has to set their working area boundaries and secure a determination within 1 year after receiving its license from the Minister of Forestry (Article 5 (1)).

The arrangement of the working area boundary, pursuant to Article 5 (2), consists of several stages:

Pursuant to Article 6, license holders have to prepare and submit their proposal (Article 1(9)) regarding the working area boundary to the Director General of Forestry Planology, within 60 working days from the forest utilization license being granted by the Minister of Forestry. The proposal will then be evaluated and a decision rendered within 30 working days.

The next stage is the execution of the plan, where the license holder is required to coordinate with the head of the Forestry Area Stabilization Office (Article 8), to whom they must submit their approved proposal within 7 working days from receiving the approval. Executing the proposal to determine the working area boundary can be outsourced or done by the license holder itself (Article 8 (3)).

The head of Forestry Area Stabilization Office will take 7 days to evaluate the planned boundary. If required by the head of Forestry Area Stabilization Office, a License holder can be requested to revise its planned boundary, and has to do so within 7 working days from receiving an order to do so (Article 22).

For the determination of the working area, pursuant to Article 24, the Director General must, within 30 working days from receiving the report of executing the proposal from the head of Forestry Area Stabilization Office, assess and propose the report to the Secretary General of the Ministry of Forestry.

Within 7 working days from receiving the report, the Secretary General will review and provide a draft of a Ministerial Decree on the Determination of a Working Area of Forest Utilization License, including a map of the determined working area. Within 15 working days after receiving the draft, the Ministry of Forestry will issue a Determination.

The Regulation repeals and replaces the Ministry of Forestry and Plantation Decree No. 900/kpts-II/1999 on the Measurement and Arrangement of Working Area Boundary of business rights on the Forestry Sector.

The Regulation has been in force since 4 April 2011.