Study of oil palm plantation on peatland under spatial policies in Jambi Province, Indonesia

According to The State of Indonesia’s Forest 2020 report, 23.96 M ha of peat ecosystems in Indonesia are currently damaged. Peat ecosystems have a high level of vulnerability to landscape changes. Some of the main functions of peatland are ecological conservation, energy, and agriculture. One of major agricultural activities on peatland is oil palm plantation. Extra strict land management is needed to reach sustainability and minimize disaster (e.g., land fires) following The Guidelines for the Utilization of Peatlands for Oil Palm Cultivation, regulated by the Minister of Agriculture No. 14/2009. Still, many other policies also control aspects of protection and cultivation on peatlands. The research focused on analyzing dynamics of spatial policy on peatlands for oil palm cultivation. Spatial policies used included spatial pattern of Jambi Province, land permits, and maps of the status of forest areas. This study analyzed inconsistency of policies on spatial patterns, permits, and forest areas status in oil palm plantations on peatland. This research was conducted in Jambi Province, where 13.86% (121,290 ha) was on peatland. The analysis used a logical alignment matrix and GIS. The results showed that oil palm plantations on peatland with HGU/other permits generally aligned to spatial planning, permit, and forest area status. Its area reached 50,598 ha. Peatland utilization should go through suitable technical planning stages and considering actual land use/tenure and water system functioning.


Introduction
Palm oil (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) is one of Indonesia's mainstay commodities of non-oil and gas foreign exchange sources. Oil palm plantation industry and its various derivative products, including crude palm oil (CPO), are recognized as superior products in this state. Development of domestic palm oil has rapidly increased, especially in the last two decades. Based on the Ministry of Agriculture data [1], total extent of Indonesia's oil palm in 2012 reached 9,074,621 hectares, mainly located in Sumatra Island. Total area of oil palm plantations has increased significantly to 14,030,573 hectares in 2017, of which around 60% were located in Sumatra, 35% in Kalimantan, and 5% in Sulawesi, Java, Maluku, and Papua. Total production of oil palm in Indonesia within 2017 was about 37,812,628 tons [2].
In 2019, Jambi ranked fourth in Sumatra with total extent of oil palm plantation in about 1.06 M ha and 2.99 tons of crude palm oil (CPO) production [3]. Distribution of oil palm spread out in almost 300 villages or 22.17% of the total villages in the Province. Therefore, oil palm became one of the leading commodities in Jambi that can support local income sources [4]. Although the province has extensive oil palm plantations, there are many overlapping issues or inconsistencies with various policies [5].
Locations of oil palm plantations that are not in line with spatial policies tend to be less productive and ignore sustainability aspects in their management [6]. Lands that are not in line with policy terms (community gardens and company plantations) or called conflicted lands, in general, cannot be submitted for assistance (subsidies) [7]. Land legality issues can indirectly determine productivity. Policies and legality of lands in question are spatial planning, location permits, the status of forest areas, and peatlands. Overlapping oil palm plantation permits with mining concessions have already close to 300 thousand hectares. Plantation Business License of oil palm plantations with HGUs also overlaps with HPH and HTI, which means that HGU for oil palm plantations is granted within forest areas. This condition shows that policy overlap (inconsistency) exists in the plantation and forestry sectors.
Within the context of spatial planning, Law No. 41/1999 Article 23 states that the definition of plantation land by spatial planning is not allowed in prohibited areas (core zones for community plants, jungle zones in national parks, forest nature reserves), and following land use planning [8]. The purpose of this study was to evaluate consistency of existing oil palm land cover against various policies, including forest area status, regency/city spatial plans, legal permit status (IUP), and peat maps in Jambi Province. Consistency of oil palm land with policies/regulations is essential to consider by government policies. This study developed a matrix-based approach that described consistency between oil palm cover and various spatial policy categories: spatial pattern plans, forestry plans, government permits, and peat area status based on relevant laws and regulations.

Data
This study utilized secondary data. Maps were obtained from several agencies, including Jambi Province Plantation Service, Jambi Provincial Bappeda, and the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. Details of the data are presented in Table 1.

Methods
Consistency analysis between palm oil plantation and policies/regulation was evaluated by using Geographic Information System (GIS) and developing a policy's alignment matrix of oil palm plantation (polygons). GIS analysis was used for spatial data processing by overlapping land cover map with spatial policy data from various sectors, sources and existing scales. This method is commonly known as Boolean Overlay (overlay) method. Overlay in GIS is a simple method for combining spatial data. A new data layer is formed with a unique spatial unit in which there are combined attributes from data sources [9]. Focus of this research was on land cover of oil palm plantations. Meanwhile, consistency analysis of land cover (oil palm plantations) with various sectors and scales policies was used to determine dynamics of plantation land status in multiple procedures. This resulted land information that is consistent or inconsistent in various policies, presented in spatial data and tabulation/shortlists ( Figure 2). The results of overlay were then analyzed to determine spatial pattern of inconsistencies. There were discrepancies due to map scale used in the analysis. Of course, not every difference will also significantly impact damage or changes in the function of space or area. Therefore, it was necessary to build criteria for non-conformance, which are considered to potentially evaluate the function of the area. According to Figure 2, red-colored boxes indicate inconsistency of palm oil plantation areas with policies/regulations. Green-colored boxes designate the opposite.

Overview of licensing policy, spatial planning, forest area status and peat areas
Spatial policy in Jambi Province is divided into four spatial policies: permit maps (HGU, Non-HGU, other permits), spatial patterns (cultivated and protected areas), forest area status (APL and non-APL), peat areas (peat and non-peat). Complete data on the distribution of spatial policies and existing conditions in oil palm plantations are presented in Figure 3.

Alignment of oil palm plantation with various policies
Oil palm plantations are evenly distributed in Jambi Province based on data from Jambi Provincial Agriculture Office in 2019. These plantations occupied around 874 thousand ha. In this study, analyzed land use was oil palm land, either managed by local community or corporate farms. Therefore, this research showed existing oil palm plantations in Jambi Province, whether they aligned with current spatial planning, permits, spatial planning, forest area status, and peat protected areas. Thus, it is hoped that this information could provide an overview of the alignment of oil palm plantations with these policies.
Oil palm areas having a combination of HGU/IL | S | S | NG means land that has HGU permits/other permits, in line with spatial pattern and status of forest areas and oil palm land on non-peat land. Combined land area was 160 ha or 18% of total areas of oil palm plantations. The opposite applied to oil palm areas with a combination of NHGU | TS | TS | G, and there was a potential for inconsistency. It covered about 3,000 hectares or 0.43% of oil palm areas in Jambi Province (Figure 4 and Table 2).
The most expansive combination was NHGU | S | S | NG area of 442,000 hectares or 50% of oil palm plantations. It means that the land does not have an HGU permit or could be a smallholder plantation, in line with spatial pattern plan, status of forest areas, and non-peat areas. This category is an ideal land

Conclusion and suggestion
This study has identified inconsistencies of oil palm plantation's spatial distributions with various government regulations in Jambi Province. Of all oil palm plantations covering an area of 847,731 ha, 158,249 ha (18.09%) of oil palm plantations were inconsistent with provincial spatial plan, forest area status, and permit status, of which 8,496 ha were located on peatlands. Dominant category of the inconsistency of oil palm plantation in peat areas was situated in non-HGU and forest areas (7,011 ha). Oil palm plantations with the most widespread inconsistency were in Muaro Jambi Regency, covering 5,043 ha (59% of the total inconsistency in peatland). Sustainable management of peat areas needs to be based on harmony between their use/regulations. Spatial conflicts for oil palm plantations in peat areas require information on spatial distribution and variety of cross-sectoral allocation conflicts.