7/12/05 JAKARTA, (Asia Pulse) - Forestry Minister M.S. Kaban said the decision on the controversial plan to establish oil palm plantations in frontier areas will be left to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Both the forestry and agriculture ministries are in favor of the plan with opposition coming from observers including legislators and environmentalists.  

The plan is to set up oil palm plantations over 1.27 million hectares of land in the frontier areas in West Kalimantan and East Kalimantan bordering on East Malaysia.

The forestry ministry said the plan will not affect forest areas as the land includes 478,350 hectares already categorized as non forest land and lying idle as waste land or denuded forest land.

Ahmad Fauzi Mas'ud, the chief spokesman of the forestry ministry, said a survey earlier showed that only 1.27 million hectares of land along the border area with Malaysia are suitable for oil palm plantations.

He said the 478,350 hectares were formerly forest land to be converted into plantations but the plantation companies failed to continue their plan to establish plantations.

Many plantation companies have been known to abandon their project after selling logs from the forests to be converted into plantations. (ANTARA)