Indonesia

New report from Greenpeace International‘Licence to Clear’ shows systematic violations of permitting regulations as plantations were pushed into forest areas. Since 2000, forest estate land released for plantations in Papua Province has totalled almost a million hectares.

The Indonesian government last year started developing a food estate project in Central Kalimantan. While it is currently spread over 30.000 ha of land, the size of the food estate will be extended over the next two years. Now, the food estate project has been expanded to North Sumatra, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), South Sumatra, Papua, and Riau.

A palm oil conglomerate has begun clearing the ancestral forests of Indigenous tribes in Indonesia’s Papua region without the locals’ consent. Subsidiaries of Digoel Agri group have cleared 64 hectares (158 acres) of forest in the first two months of 2021.

Indonesia is the world’s largest exporter of palm oil and Papua is the new frontier. Kinggo indigenous group that owns the customary forest in Boven Digul Regency, Papua is fighting to protect their land against subsidiary of Korean palm oil giant, the Korindo Group.

Program Food Estate baru di Indonesia akan mengakibatkan lebih banyak kelaparan dan mengancam masyarakat lokal, hutan setempat dan iklim global.

A briefing paper from an international network documents that Indonesia’s new “Food Estate Program” on the islands of Borneo, Sumatra and Papua threaten Indigenous sovereignty, forests and biodiversity, will cause hunger and contribute to the climate crisis.

Land conflicts in Indonesia escalated in 2020, with palm oil and pulpwood companies taking advantage of movement restrictions to expand aggressively, according to a new report.

About 66 per cent of conflicts related to palm oil in West Kalimantan in the last two decades have yet to be resolved, according to a report recently issued by the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV).

Members of the Auyu tribe of Papua, Indonesia, are demanding a halt to the operations of palm oil company PT Indo Asiana Lestari (IAL), which appears to be gearing up to clear their ancestral forests. IAL’s concession is part of the Tanah Merah megaproject that is already dogged by allegations that key operating permits have been falsified.

Germany’s Rainforest Rescue (Rettet den Regenwald) and Washington, D.C.-based Center for International Policy (CIP) blasted a baseless defamation lawsuit brought to the Hamburg Regional Court by a supplier to the Korindo conglomerate, a notorious Korean-Indonesian palm oil, logging and wind tower manufacturing giant.

A report by Global Witness has found that more than 100 Indonesian palm oil mills supplying agribusiness giants ADM and Bunge have been accused of land and human rights violations and environmental destruction.

Two major US commodity traders – ADM and Bunge – are failing to ensure that the hundreds of Indonesian palm oil mills they source from in Indonesia are free from abuse against land and environmental defenders.