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Oil palm plantations continue to expand despite moratorium
The moratorium was imposed in September 2018 in response to global criticism over the allocation of land for oil palm cultivation.
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An aerial picture shows vast areas of oil palm plantations in Riau province. Civil society group AURIGA Nusantara said oil palm plantations had continued to expand despite a moratorium imposed by the government in September, last year.
(Antara/FB Anggoro)
T
he government has made little progress in tackling the expansion of oil palm plantations a year after President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo imposed a moratorium on the issuance of new permits, recent data reveals.
During a public discussion, civil society group AURIGA Nusantara researcher Wiko Saputra quoted Environment and Forestry Ministry data that showed that area of forests cleared for oil palm plantation had increased to 5.9 million hectares last July from 5.4 million ha recorded last year.
AURIGA Nusantara’s internal research used satellite information to record 1,121 hotspots across Indonesia resulting from forest clearings for oil palm plantation.
He also quoted Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and Agriculture Ministry data that shows that only 28 percent of companies have allocated 20 percent of their total plantation areas to growing high conservation value forest (HCVF) areas, as required in the moratorium. This had resulted in 1.08 million ha of land not being redistributed for forestry, he estimated.
“We have to find a way out, otherwise smear campaigns will continue to against the palm oil [industry],” said Wiko, calling for enforcement of Jokowi's agrarian reforms that concern land distribution.
Citing such evidence, the watchdog wrote in its presentation that there was “yet to be any significant development” following the moratorium, issued through a 2018 presidential instruction (Inpres) on palm oil plantation license evaluation and productivity increases.
The moratorium was imposed in September 2018 in response to global criticism over the allocation of land for oil palm cultivation. Since the rapid expansion of plantations in Indonesia in the 1990s, oil palm cultivation has been blamed for deforestation and loss of biodiversity.
