Jakarta – President Prabowo Subianto's statement about not being afraid to open new palm oil plantations and plans for palm oil expansion is not particularly surprising, as these plans are already evident in existing policies and programs.
What is surprising however, is the statement that opening palm oil plantations does not cause deforestation because they have leaves had to come from the mouth of a president who should instead speak based on science, knowledge, research and existing facts.
Yet the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK) emphasised in a 2022 release that palm oil is not a forest plant. The KLHK also detailed the practice of expansive, monoculture and non-procedural palm oil plantations within forest areas, which have given rise to legal, ecological, hydrological and social problems.
"This shows that President Prabowo's statement is not based on data and facts published by the government itself", said Indonesian Forum for the environment (Walhi) National Executive Forest and Plantation Campaign Manager Uli Arta Siagian.
Based on KLHK data, illegal palm oil plantations cover approximately 3.2 million hectares within forest areas alone, meaning that 3.2 million hectares of forest have been deforested due to large-scale palm oil expansion.
This means that the president is clearly not using the government's own data when discussing deforestation and palm oil. This not only has an impact on deforestation, pollution, river damage, the water crisis, floods, landslides and forest and land fires, but also causes losses to the ordinary people and the environment.
Moreover, in early December (December 8, 2024), the United Nations Special Rapporteurs and the UN Working Group wrote to the Indonesian government regarding widespread violations of indigenous peoples' rights, environmental degradation, intimidation and the criminalisation of human rights defenders, which have spread in the palm oil industry, adding to a growing list of concerns over the operations of the Indonesian palm oil giants, particularly the operations of subsidiaries of the company PT Astra Agro Lestari (AAL) in Sulawesi.
The expansion of large-scale palm oil plantations will further perpetuate the chain of agrarian conflicts, environmental damage, forest and land fires, ecological disasters and corruption in the palm oil sector. Furthermore, in his statement, Prabowo ordered the police and military to safeguard palm oil plantations. This statement is extremely dangerous, because the president has openly instructed the police and military to guard palm oil plantations.
The fact is, up until now the police and military have tend to side with companies involved in agrarian conflicts with communities. Security actors often resort to intimidation, violence and criminalisation against communities in conflict with companies in the palm oil plantation sector.
"Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to consider that this instruction will legitimise the security approach used by security actors in the implementation of palm oil production operations by security actors, which has the potential to increase cases of intimidation, violence and criminalisation against communities", Siagian concluded.
Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi)
Contact: Walhi on 0811-5501-980
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Pernyataan Presiden Prabowo Anti Sains dan Rentan Melegitimasi Pendekatan Keamanan di Bisnis Sawit".]
