inp.polri.go.id - Jakarta. The Minister of Forestry, Raja Juli Antoni, expressed his commitment to strengthening legal certainty regarding the control and management of forest areas by integrating forestry policies with the national spatial planning system.
The Minister explained that forest areas hold a strategic position within the national spatial planning system. Therefore, harmonizing and integrating the latest forest area maps into provincial and district/city Spatial Planning Plans (RTRW) is a top priority to prevent overlapping spatial use and strengthen legal certainty.
"Integrating forest areas into the RTRW is key to realizing equitable, sustainable, and people-oriented spatial governance. Based on the One Map Policy, the government ensures one map, one data, and one policy," said the Minister on Wednesday (1/28/2026).
Raja Juli also outlined policies for resolving land tenure disputes within forest areas through the Land Tenure Settlement within the Framework of Forest Area Arrangement (PPTPKH/TORA) scheme, forest area utilization, and social forestry as a legal access policy for forest communities.
This approach is taken to resolve tenure conflicts equitably by prioritizing the principle of ultimum remedium through administrative sanctions.
Minister Raja Juli explained that accelerating the designation of customary forests is a national strategic agenda. This is intended to recognize and respect the traditional rights of Indigenous Peoples (MHA) in efforts to protect forest areas.
By December 2025, the government had designated 170 customary forests covering an area of over 366,000 hectares and benefiting more than 90,000 families. In line with the President's directive, the Ministry of Forestry established a Task Force for the Acceleration of Customary Forest Recognition with a target of recognizing 1.4 million hectares of new customary forests between 2025 and 2029.
He emphasized the importance of cross-sector collaboration with ministries/institutions and regional governments, including through memorandums of understanding with the Ministry of ATR/BPN, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Villages and Disadvantaged Regions, the Ministry of Transmigration, and the Geospatial Information Agency (BIG), to strengthen the synchronization of agrarian, forestry, and spatial planning policies.
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