Photo caption: Field staff conducted a recent survey in the digital-based foster forest in collaboration with Telkom and Sinergi Anak Bangsa Foundation in Kiarajangkung, Garut, West Java.

Jakarta, 12 March 2022 – Environmental sustainability is one of the crucial issues in Indonesia and it significantly affects various aspects of Indonesian people's lives. PT Telkom Indonesia (Persero) Tbk (Telkom) proves its commitment and contribution to environmental sustainability and improvement of the digital economy by launching a digitization initiative in the environmental sector through a digital-based forest restoration and conservation program. The initiative is also one of the company's social and environmental responsibility programs.

There are still 14 million hectares of critical mass land in Indonesia, although its size has been shrinking, according to data from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. This critical mass land is a result of land degradation due to reduction of land status physically, chemically, and biologically, thereby reducing its production capacity. It disrupts the forest's conservation, production, and socio-economic purposes for the community.

Senior General Manager of Telkom Community Development Center, Hery Susanto, said “one of the world's problems that we must jointly face and minimize is occurring climate change. This is also a concern for Telkom as a state-owned enterprise and we can play a role to address it by planting trees, since it is one of the effective ways to reduce global warming that causes climate change.”

Furthermore, Hery added that in accordance with Telkom's core business and competencies, and in line with its #DigitalUntukSemua (#DigitalForAll) tagline, this tree planting program utilizes green digital technology of Geographic Information System (GIS) and geo tagging, especially to digitally monitor land and trees' growth so they can grow optimally and provide the maximum benefit.

GIS has several advantages, which includes enhancing forest inventory data and in the future can facilitate forest conditions improvement. This system can carry out sufficient short term and long term planning, estimate forest growth, collect data on the number and types of trees, and report on the growth and development of reforestation products on a regular basis. The geo tagging can help to map and monitor locations remotely. With this initiative, Telkom hopes to continue to expand the digitization system of foster forests and the handling of critical lands in Indonesia.

Telkom distributes digital-based restoration and conservation assistance throughout Indonesia. The location of critical land points has been coordinated with the Ministry of Environment & Forestry and the development process has been carried out. To kick off this initiative, Telkom is restoring and conserving the Masigit Kareumbi and Karangtengah Buru Parks in Garut Regency, West Java as a pilot project. In the future, Telkom has targeted to carry out restoration and conservation on 50 hectares of critical land in several areas across Indonesia. Telkom hopes the distribution of digital-based foster forest could maintain Indonesian forest ecosystem sustainability. 

Telkom Vice President for Corporate Communication, Pujo Pramono said, “this digital-based foster forest that Telkom undertakes is our first effort to support forest management in Indonesia, both protected forests and tourism forests. We hope that Telkom's ongoing forest restoration and conservation, the area would become an eco-tourism area that would still uphold nature conservation and socio-cultural economic empowerment of local communities. Thus, it also would manifest our commitment to accelerating the digitalization of the Indonesian economy." 

Through digital-based foster forests, Telkom remains committed to encouraging development of a digital ecosystem for a better Indonesia. With the various innovations it creates, Telkom hopes it can accelerate the realization of national digital sovereignty in line with the government's target in the next few years and can support the government in creating one data in all sectors.

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