Legal protection against forest areas to ensure habitat wildlife in the Wallacea region

Abstract

The forest area is a natural habitat of endemic flora and fauna in the Wallacea Region, which is very important to ensure flora and fauna. Forest conversion is often carried out by the government in a structured and systematic way for clearing oil palm plantations. In addition, the determination of the forest area by the government is also often carried out without verification, which overlaps with the surrounding community who have cleared the land before the area is determined by the government. The stipulation of the Presidential Regulation No. 88 of 2018 concerning the settlement of land ownership is considered to provide legal certainty regarding the status of land ownership in forest areas. The purpose of this study is to analyze effective legal protection schemes to ensure the habitat of flora and fauna in the regional Wallacea to remain sustainable. The normative approach is made by analyzing the contents of the relevant laws. The results of this study indicate that there are fundamental problems at the level of legislation regarding the release of forest areas that are contradictory to other regulations so that it impacts on the threat to the endemic flora and fauna sustainability of the Wallacea region.