14,000 Hectares Of Muaragembong Forest Land In Bekasi Regency Awaiting Certification

JAKARTA - A total of 14,000 hectares of land for the social forest area in Muragembong District, Bekasi Regency, West Java, are waiting for certification from the relevant ministries after obtaining approval for the release of status through the application process for the last two years.

"I have also conveyed to the Minister of AHY to speed up the process of issuing the certificate. Hopefully this year," said Bekasi Regent Dani Ramdan, quoted from Antara, Tuesday, June 18.

He said the application for this certification was in order to fight for the release of the status of the social forest area or state land that had been occupied for decades by the people of Muaragembong District.

Local governments are obliged to oversee every application that is the aspiration of the local community until all stages can be completed so that they get legal certainty on the legality of the land ownership status in question.

"We have received approval from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (Ministry of Environment and Forestry) to be released and distributed into the property of the community, it's just a matter of process," he said.

Dani hopes that the change in land status can be realized soon so that his party can fully manage and build infrastructure in the northern area of the Muaragembong coast.

Considering that apart from settlements, a number of connecting roads and ponds in several villages in Muaragembong District are also still state-owned. This condition is one of the obstacles for local governments to realize development.

"So we continue to encourage certificates of land ownership that have become settlements or residential houses, government offices, fields, places of worship, schools, roads, and others that still stand on state land," he said.

It is known that in 2022, six villages throughout Muaragembong sub-district will apply for the release of social forest area status to the Bekasi Regency Government. The process continued until it received approval from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry which was followed up with a request for land certificate applications.

The villages that proposed changes to the status of the country's land include Mekar Beach Village, Bahagia Beach, Bakti Beach, Harapanjaya Beach, Jayasakti, and Simple Beach Village with a total request for land acquisition of 14,000 hectares.