"Next year's elections are pivotal for Indonesia to determine the fate of the richest and most biodiverse forests in the world," said Annisa Rahmawati, a board member at conservation group Satya Bumi.

She and other experts fear the soaring costs of campaigns and little oversight of spending will undercut rainforest protection.

Ward Berenschot, a professor in comparative political anthropology at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, said election campaigns in Indonesia were so expensive that politicians from local to national levels developed "very close ties" with natural resource companies to help finance their ambitions.

"Measures to protect forests have been under pressure because helping campaign donors, or sometimes even family companies, to sidestep or circumvent [them] has been a way to fund campaigns," said Berenschot, who has researched the issue.

Indonesia has a third of the world's rainforests but large areas have been cleared in recent decades due to the expansion of crops like oil palm, as well as mining, pulp and paper expansion, and urbanization.

Trees suck up planet-warming carbon dioxide to grow, but release it when they rot or are burned. Land use change, mainly deforestation, accounts for about 10-20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Indonesia's deforestation rates have slowed in recent years, helped by stricter policies and forest fire controls, but it is still ranked fourth globally for primary tropical forest loss in 2022 by the nonprofit World Resources Institute.

Read also: Indonesia’s record improves as global deforestation worsens

Vote-buying widespread despite crackdowns

Vote-buying has become common in national elections over the last 25 years, despite crackdowns by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). A 2017 poll estimated that a third of voters are impacted by the practice.

After the presidential election in 2019, runner-up Prabowo Subianto, now the defense minister, initially refused to accept the result, with his party citing fraud that included vote-buying. The Constitutional Court dismissed his objections.

With President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo's second and final term due to end, the presumptive candidates for next year's presidential election are Prabowo, former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo and former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan.

Key voter issues include jobs, the economy, healthcare access, the cost of living, corruption, pollution and climate change.

Read also: What climate change? Study finds political parties lack focus on climate issues

Conservationists will be hopeful that Jokowi's successor will build on the results his government has achieved in tackling deforestation and restoring mangroves, including making permanent a moratorium on primary forest clearing.

With a growing population of 270 million, Indonesia's elections are becoming increasingly expensive, leading to forests being used as an "ATM" cash dispenser by many parties seeking campaign financing, said Annisa of Satya Bumi.

This practice should stop "because it humiliates and ruins our progress in democracy [...] destroying our environment and our economy", she said, adding that electoral candidates should be forced to publish the source of all their campaign funds.

Activists carry placards during a Global Climate Strike rally in Jakarta, September 17, 2023. (Reuters/WILLY KURNIAWAN)

Marcus Colchester, a senior policy advisor at the United Kingdom-based Forest Peoples Programme, said Indonesian politicians were often unwilling to regulate corporations because they depend on them for funds.

Those links often harm local and indigenous peoples, whose land is sometimes granted to companies without their consent, he added.

"[The] double whammy, impunity and graft, becomes the main obstacle to social justice and environmental prudence," Colchester said. "Accountability and democracy are undermined, and natural resource governance made impossible."

Big business rules in Indonesian politics

Berenschot at the University of Amsterdam said changes to legislation have often favored big business. The Job Creation Law, for instance, has been criticized by green groups for weakening environmental protections.

"That close connection between business and politics also enabled certain policies and laws [...] to be adopted, which risks accelerating deforestation," Berenschot said.

In addition, the major political parties are often led by wealthy individuals and business owners, who may prioritize the economy over issues like the environment.

Read also: Business stakeholders still uncertain on presidential options

Politicians' campaign spending is hard to track and often lacks transparency.

Ten years ago, an expert survey among 500 local political observers found that a successful candidate for district head spent on average US$1.5 million on campaigning, while an elected governor spent about $10 million, he added.

"For an economy where the minimum wage is about $300 per month, these are very big amounts of money," Berenschot noted.

Bodin, 33, a resident of Wadas, looks for grass to feed his livestock in Purworejo regency, Central Java, December 19, 2022. (Reuters/Asad Asnawi)

After an election, forests face pressure

In election years, deforestation rates have slowed but then usually increased the following year, said Toerris Jaeger, director of the Oslo-based NGO Rainforest Foundation Norway.

"In the past we have seen that before the end of a government period, licenses and permits in the forest and peatland area were being given to companies that provided or backed up campaign funding or that were tied into political parties that are running in the election," said Jaeger.

Failure to tackle the link between elections and deforestation will make it harder for Indonesia to reach its own climate goals related to reducing emissions from deforestation and lead to more frequent natural disasters, he added.

"Transparency and accountability are necessary to break the link between deforestation and funding for political campaigns," Jaeger said.