Indonesia

This article and podcast tell the story of women's resistance to oil palm plantations, REDD and a large-scale project for food production (Food Estate) in three villages in Central Kalimantan.

PT Inecda, a Samsung subsidiary, violated the RSPO sustainability standards by failing to obtain consent from an Indigenous community in Sumatra before clearing more than 5,000 hectares of forests for palm oil plantations.

A total of 2 million hectares of forests, wetlands and grasslands in Merauke, Papua province will be razed to make way for a cluster of giant sugarcane plantations. Five consortiums, consisting of Indonesian and foreign companies, are confirmed to be participating in the 130 trillion rupiah ($8.4 billion) project.

"Baladna (a Qatari company) is willing to help us in the free nutritious meal programme by investing in dairy farming in Indonesia to meet our milk needs," says Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman.

The Ministry is engaging with private investors and international partners. Recent discussions include an investor from the Middle East seeking 20,000 hectares and interest from China and Vietnam for a minimum of 5,000 hectares.

A state-owned palm oil company and an industry association have begun early work to push a vast new plantation strategy in Sulawesi, one of Indonesia’s largest islands. The proposal includes aspirations for production of a form of environmentally friendly fertilizer hope that it will enable producers to apply for climate finance incentives, despite the deforestation implied in the plan.

Since 2010, the unpleasant experience, pain and suffering from the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate program have not ceased and have continued to pile up

Allegations of illegal activity and land-grabbing against Indonesia’s second-largest palm oil company continue to mount as a new report reveals the firm’s violations appear to be more extensive than initially documented.

Cerca de 18.000 hectáreas de concesiones de aceite de palma de AAL se superponen con tierras forestales de áreas protegidas de Indonesia, afirma el informe de FOE. Diez marcas han suspendido las compras a AAL, mientras Unilever y Olam son compradores y BlackRock poseía el 11 por ciento del grupo.

Indonesia is going ahead with a project to convert millions of acres in Papua into a gigantic sugarcane plantation to produce bioethanol. But Indigenous communities and environmentalists worry that the project in South Papua’s Merauke regency will lead to land grabs, ecological damage, and the destruction of traditional livelihoods.

Representatives of the Awyu and Moi communities from the Indonesian province of West Papua held traditional ceremonies outside the country’s Supreme Court calling for their traditional land and forests to be protected from palm oil plantations. The Awyu have also intervened in appeals taken by two other palm oil companies against a decision to cancel permits that it had previously issued for them to clear Indigenous lands.

Food estate yang sudah dan akan dikerjakan di beberapa wilayah Indonesia seolah menjanjikan ketersediaan pangan berkelanjutan dan meningkatkan ketahanan pangan nasional. Namun, di balik semua janji manis, banyak sisi gelap perlu dipertimbangkan secara serius. Semua kajian memperlihatkan ”food estate” lebih banyak membawa kerugian, bahkan kekerasan, terhadap masyarakat.