Jakarta, July 9 -- Forestry Minister Raja Juli Antoni stated that communities, through social forestry and customary forest schemes, have the opportunity to gain economic benefits from carbon trading.

"Carbon trading is not only for the elite, not only for those who have long been well-off, but also for people at the grassroots level," he said during the launch of the Carbon Unit Registry System (SRUK) here on Thursday.

He noted that around 8.3 million hectares of social forestry areas and 1.4 million hectares of customary forests have the potential to benefit from the future development of carbon trading.

According to him, the ministry has issued approvals for three Forest Utilization Business Licenses (PBPH) and one social forestry s...