Indonesia could lose an area of tropical rainforest bigger than Belgium to oil palm plantations over the next three years without existing measures to slow this loss, activists warn. This would negate the government’s own commitment to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2070. (Mongabay)
Indonesia has since 2018 banned the issuance of permits for new oil palm plantations to stem deforestation associated with palm oil production. But existing concessions containing vast swaths of forest may still be cleared. These amount to 3.5 million hectares (8.65 million acres) of forest — and they could be cleared within just three years, according to Anggalia Putri, forest and climate program director at the environmental NGO Madani.
She notes that companies are required to develop their concessions within three years or risk having the land deemed as “abandoned,” seized by the state and given to another firm under existing regulations.
“So oil palm trees have to be planted and the natural forests [in the concessions] will disappear,” Anggalia told Mongabay.
Besides that, the government’s biodiesel program, which seeks to phase out fossil fuel diesel for a blend that contains palm oil-derived fuel, also threatens deforestation, she added. Indonesia’s biodiesel transition program, the world’s most ambitious, will require 15 million hectares (37 million acres) — an area a fifth the size of Borneo — of new oil palm plantations, according to the government.
While it’s not clear whether the new plantations will be established in already deforested areas, the program nevertheless adds further pressure to clear natural forests inside existing oil palm concessions, Anggalia said.
“Various studies show that if the demand for biofuel increases overtime, we will run out of crude palm oil by 2023 or 2024,” she said. “And of course that’s an immense pressure for our natural forests and peatland. If we clear all natural forests [inside concessions] for biofuel [production], we will miss the target” set by Indonesia’s government of turning the country’s tropical forests back into a carbon sink by 2030.
That target is part of a larger goal to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2070; both aims have been derided as massively unrealistic by experts and activists.
