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Govt to continue oil palm cultivation on confiscated land
The government plans to utilize 221,000 hectares of confiscated oil palm plantations, much of it protected forest land, to continue planting oil palm as part of its effort to achieve energy security.
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A worker collects oil palm fruits at the Namorambe plantation in Deli Serdang, North Sumatra, on May 12, 2022. (AFP/Andi)
T
he government plans to use swaths of confiscated oil palm plantations to continue planting oil palm in the interest of national energy security, while environmental groups demand the areas’ restoration as forest land.
Prosecutors on Monday handed over more than 221,000 hectares of land seized as part of an ongoing corruption probe to state-owned company PT Agrinas Palma Nusantara, which will temporarily manage them.
The plantation areas, much of which is located in protected forest areas in Sumatra and Kalimantan, were confiscated from nine subsidiaries of privately-owned Duta Palma Group, according to Febrie Adriansyah, an investigator at the office of the deputy attorney general for special crimes.
Duta Palma and its subsidiaries, including PT Palma Satu, PT Banyu Bening Utama and PT Kencana Amal Tani, allegedly falsified location and plantation business permits to use the land.
“We have limitations in managing the [plantations],” Febrie told reporters at a press conference in Jakarta on Monday, explaining why the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) had asked the State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Ministry to temporarily manage the confiscated plantations.
Teo Reffelsen, the Indonesian Forum for the Environment’s (Walhi) legal and advocacy manager, said the AGO should focus on ways to get the forest areas reforested to undo the environmental damage caused by Duta Palma Group subsidiaries.
“Handing over the confiscated [oil palm] plantations to state-owned firm Agrinas will complicate the [longstanding] tenure conflicts,” he told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
