President Prabowo Subianto’s statement about opening oil palm plantations not causing deforestation because they have leaves is considered very concerning. The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) said that what Prabowo said is not based on scientific knowledge.
The reason is that the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK) in 2022, through its release, affirmed that palm oil is not a forest plant. KLHK also detailed that the expansive, monoculture, and non-procedural practices of oil palm plantations within forest areas have caused various legal, ecological, hydrological, and social issues.
“This shows that President Prabowo’s statement is not based on data and facts published by the government itself,” said the National Executive Campaign Manager for Forests and Gardens of Walhi, Uli Arta Siagian, in his statement on Thursday (2/1).
Based on KLHK data, illegal palm oil in forest areas reaches 3.2 million hectares. This means that a forest area of 3.2 million hectares has been deforested due to large-scale palm oil expansion.That means, Uli continued, the president clearly did not use the government’s own data when talking about deforestation and palm oil.
“Not only does it impact deforestation, pollution, river damage, water crises, floods, and landslides, but forest and land fires also become losses that the people and the environment must bear,” he emphasized.
In fact, earlier this December, Special Rapporteurs and UN Working Groups wrote to the Indonesian government regarding violations of Indigenous Peoples’ rights, environmental degradation, intimidation, and criminalization of Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) widespread in the palm oil industry, adding to the series of concerns over the operations of Indonesia’s palm oil giants, particularly the operations of Astra Agro Lestari (AAL) subsidiaries in Sulawesi.
There is also a public letter from more than 30 organizations highlighting environmental, human rights, and governance violations committed by AAL and demanding RSPO for engaging in greenwashing with the conflicting palm oil companies.
Uli emphasized that the expansion of large-scale palm oil plantations will further extend the chain of agrarian conflicts, environmental damage, forest and land fires, ecological disasters, and corruption in the palm oil sector. Moreover, in his statement, Prabowo Subianto requested the police and military to guard the palm oil plantations.
“This statement is very dangerous because the president openly instructed in public that the police and military must guard the palm oil,” he said.
The fact is that the Police and Military apparatus have tended to side with Companies that have agrarian conflicts with the Community. It is not uncommon for security actors to intimidate, use violence, and criminalize communities in conflict with companies in the palm oil plantation sector.
“Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that we consider this instruction will legitimize a security approach in the implementation of palm oil company production operations by security actors, which has the potential to increase cases of intimidation, violence, and criminalization against the community,” Uli concluded.
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