Jakarta. The British Embassy in Jakarta recently announced a new £350 million —or about $470 million— partnership between the UK and Indonesia in climate investment.

"The UK appreciates and is grateful for our long-standing cooperation with Indonesia, and we hope to sustain this over the coming decade, not least through the new £350 million programme we announced this week,” British Ambassador to Indonesia Owen Jenkins said in a statement on Friday.

“We want to support Indonesia’s goals and priorities, including its ambition to be a global leader in promoting legal and responsible trade in commodities that can put forests at risk,” Owen said, while also praising Indonesia’s declining deforestation rates.

According to the embassy’s development director Amanda McLoughlin, the £350 million investment will support Indonesia in reaching net carbon sink in the forestry and land use sector by 2030.

“We look forward to working closely with Minister Siti and her team from today onwards to develop a true partnership that reflects our mutual interests and goals,” Amanda said. 

Indonesia and the UK are entering its 20th year of cooperation in forest and land use.

The Indonesia-UK partnership seeks ways to support trade and livelihoods, while also protecting the environment within the context of sustainable development, according to the British Embassy. 

The UK-funded Multistakeholder Forest Partnership (MFP) program has transformed Indonesia’s timber trade with the establishment of the timber legality verification system (SLVK). So far, Indonesia is the first and only country in the world to qualify for preferential access to EU markets worth $1 billion a year and UK markets worth £200 million a year. 

The state revenue from forests and legal trade volumes have increased ten times over since the system was put in place – showing that it is benefiting Indonesian people, the British Embassy reported.

Indonesia has also decided to extend the MFP project until at least March 2023. This will pave the way for the country to explore the verification of other agricultural commodities.Other options for expanding trade, while protecting the environment, are being followed up. 

Indonesia and the UK are also working closely together as co-chairs of the Forests, Agriculture and Commodities Trade (FACT) Dialogue, in support of the global trade in sustainable commodities.