Indonesia’s Forest Industry Body Backs Integrity Carbon Drive as New Regulation Draws International Investment Interest

APHI, Indonesia’s principal forestry business association, has publicly committed to developing quality carbon initiatives across its members’ concession areas, citing a new ministerial regulation as the enabling framework for domestic and international market participation.

The Indonesian Forest Entrepreneurs Association (APHI — Asosiasi Pengusaha Hutan Indonesia) declared its full support for high-integrity forest carbon development at a Business Forum on Carbon Markets held in New York on 11 May 2026, according to a report by Kantor Berita ANTARA. The forum was convened as part of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) 2026 programme and brought together government officials, forestry businesses, investors, emissions trading associations, and international partners.

APHI Chair Soewarso cited the issuance of Minister of Forestry Regulation No. 6 of 2026 (Peraturan Menteri Kehutanan Nomor 6 Tahun 2026) as a pivotal regulatory milestone that accelerates Indonesia’s forestry carbon market while supplying the legal certainty businesses need to commit to high-integrity projects. He said both domestic and international market acceptance would be essential to sustaining forestry carbon trade, and pointed to peat restoration, forest rehabilitation, and sustainable forest management as priority investment areas.

APHI Secretary-General Purwadi Soeprihanto provided the clearest statement of scale yet made publicly: Indonesia’s forestry concession estate contains at least 48.69 million hectares with potential for greenhouse gas emission-reduction projects and approximately 3.5 million hectares suitable for carbon removal projects. He argued that carbon activities must be positioned not as a stand-alone business but as one revenue stream within a broader multi-use forestry model — Multiusaha Kehutanan (MUK)— one that simultaneously supports community livelihoods and attracts international financing. He named mangrove rehabilitation as an additional project category requiring accelerated international collaboration.

Minister of Forestry Raja Juli Antoni, also present at the New York forum, framed the moment as the start of a new era in which forest management extends well beyond timber to encompass carbon value, environmental services, biodiversity, and community-based green economies. He cited Indonesia’s tropical forest estate at approximately 120 million hectares — roughly 63 percent of total national land — and described it as ready for global investment. The minister stated that Permenhut No. 6/2026 is designed to align Indonesian forestry carbon credits with international standards and to strengthen implementation of MUK, while also advancing Indonesia’s FOLU Net Sink 2030 target. Director General of Sustainable Forest Management Laksmi Wijayanti added that the government’s near-term focus is on accelerating Permenhut No. 6/2026 implementation, tightening operational guidelines, building market trust, and facilitating credible partnerships.

Background

Permenhut No. 6/2026 is presented throughout the ANTARA report as the cornerstone regulatory instrument through which the Ministry of Forestry is constructing a transparent, integrated, and legally certain framework for forest sector carbon trading. The regulation is described as enabling forestry concession holders to generate revenue across multiple streams — including non-timber forest products, environmental services, ecotourism, and carbon trading — under the MUK paradigm, which the minister characterised as a new sustainable forest management philosophy rather than a marginal add-on.

The New York forum was explicitly used by the Indonesian government as an international investor outreach vehicle. Laksmi Wijayanti’s remarks made clear that implementation is still in early stages: strengthening operational guidelines and building market trust appear on the government’s immediate to-do list, signalling that the regulatory architecture is in place but the operational infrastructure needed to bring projects to market at scale is still being built.

Why It Matters

For project developers, APHI’s formal endorsement matters because the association represents the concession-holding companies that physically control the land where most large-scale Indonesian forest carbon projects would be developed. A commitment from this constituency to the high-integrity model reduces a critical source of supply-side uncertainty — namely whether concession holders would engage with the new framework or navigate around it. That said, the explicit acknowledgement that operational guidelines are still being strengthened suggests that significant project pipelines are unlikely to materialise until those details are locked down.

For credit buyers and international investors, the headline figures — 48.69 million hectares for emission reductions and 3.5 million hectares for removal — represent an exceptionally large potential supply base. The government’s positioning of Permenhut No. 6/2026 as an international-standards-alignment instrument, combined with active outreach at a UNFF side forum, strongly implies an intent to supply credits eligible for international voluntary or compliance markets rather than only the domestic exchange. Buyers tracking nature-based supply should monitor the operational guidelines for specific eligibility criteria and any approval pathways for international crediting standards.

For policymakers watching Asian forest carbon governance, Indonesia’s approach — embedding carbon within a multi-use forestry framework rather than treating it as a separate mechanism — merits attention as a model that attempts to pre-empt concerns about carbon projects displacing timber production rights or community access. Whether the MUK architecture delivers those assurances in practice will depend on the spatial planning and landscape governance provisions that are still being operationalised.