- Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has called for the expansion of oil palm plantations, saying any criticism that this will cause deforestation is nonsense because oil palms are trees too.
- The remarks have prompted criticism that they go against the established science showing how plantations have driven deforestation, biodiversity loss and carbon emissions.
- Experts have long called for the palm oil industry to improve yields at existing plantations rather than expand into forests and other ecosystems.
- But the main industry association has welcomed the president’s call, and even the Ministry of Forestry under Prabowo has changed its logo from a forest tree to something that resembles oil palm.
JAKARTA — In a controversial speech, Indonesia’s new president argued oil palm plantations are like forests, calling for their expansion by stating, ‘oil palms are trees … they’ve got leaves.’”
Environmental activists and experts have criticized President Prabowo Subianto’s remarks made at a national development conference held in Jakarta on Dec. 30. They say this narrative downplays the scientific evidence about the role of oil palm plantations in driving deforestation, biodiversity loss and carbon emissions.
“Saying that palm oil is a forest crop is so bad because it seems like we don’t understand the difference between forests and plantations,” said Herry Purnomo, a senior scientist and deputy country director of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). “Cassava and grass also absorb carbon dioxide. All crops that have green leaves absorb carbon dioxide.”
Herry told Mongabay that Prabowo’s statements came across as an attempt to defend Indonesia’s palm oil industry, the world’s biggest, from criticisms over its environmental impacts, particularly from foreign countries like members of the European Union.
Prabowo referenced those criticisms in his speech when he called for the expansion of oil palm plantations.
“And I think in the future, we also need to plant more palm oil. We don’t need to be afraid of endangering — what’s it called — deforestation, right?” he said.
“Oil palms are trees, right? They have leaves, right?” he went on. “They produce oxygen, absorb carbon dioxide. So why are we being accused [of deforestation]? Those things they said [about deforestation] don’t make any sense.”
Herry said this was an oversimplification of the issue that could fuel greater environmental degradation and land conflicts, undermining Indonesia’s global climate commitments.
“If we defend palm oil blindly without a scientific basis, other countries will blindly accuse us as well. They will perceive all palm oil [produced in Indonesia] to be coming from deforestation,” he said.
Palm oil is one of seven commodities that will be subjected to the EU’s new antideforestation regulation, or EUDR, when it comes into effect at the end of 2025. The EUDR mandates strict traceability and sustainability for imports of these commodities into the EU market.
By downplaying environmental criticisms, Indonesia could face backlash from markets like the EU that demand the products they buy are sustainable, Herry said. Tellingly, the Ministry of Forestry under Prabowo, who took office in October 2024, has changed its logo from a sacred bodhi tree to a tree that resembles an oil palm.
Not comparable
While it’s true that oil palm plantations store carbon, they’re nowhere near as effective as the forests they replaced.
Clearing a plot of standing forest to establish a palm plantation releases more CO2 than can be sequestered by growing oil palms on the same plot, studies have shown. So while a new oil palm plantation may grow faster and sequester carbon at a higher annual rate than a naturally regenerating forest, it will still end up storing less carbon than leaving the original forest standing.
Carbon losses are even greater when the plantation is established on peatlands, which store vast amounts of carbon in their soil, which is drained to prepare the land for planting.
“Forests store around 300 tons of CO2 per hectare, 10 times more than oil palm plantations,” Herry said.
And by looking at just carbon absorption, Prabowo is essentially downplaying the ecological damage caused by oil palm plantations, including deforestation, biodiversity loss and carbon emissions from land clearing and peatland destruction, he added.
The expansion of oil palm plantations has been a major driver of deforestation in Indonesia over the past 20 years, accounting for one-third of Indonesia’s loss of old-growth forest — an area of 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres), or half the size of Belgium.
And data from CIFOR show that oil palm plantations were the largest contributor to deforestation in Indonesia between 2021 and 2022, resulting in annual greenhouse gas emissions of 200 million metric tons. This coincided with the rapid expansion of oil palm plantations in Indonesia to meet growing global demand.
Today, palm oil is the most widely used vegetable oil in the world, found in around half of all packaged products sold in supermarkets, from processed foods to cosmetics. It’s also used in animal feed and, increasingly, biofuels.
Palm oil expansion has also been linked to biodiversity loss as oil palm plantations support far fewer species than do forests and often also fewer than other tree crops.
Oil palm cultivation already threatens at least 193 species listed as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable, according to the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority. It’s played a major role in the decline in species such as orangutans and tigers, the IUCN noted.
These are all things that Prabowo should understand as president, said Uli Arta Siagian, plantations lead at the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), the country’s biggest green NGO.
“What’s surprising is that the statement of palm oil not causing deforestation because it has leaves was made by the president, who should have spoken based on science, knowledge, research and facts,” she said.
Future threat
If Indonesia continues to expand its oil palm plantations in forested areas, as Prabowo called for in his speech, the country could lose large swaths of its remaining rainforests, effectively reversing the recent trend of declining forest loss in the country, said Andi Muttaqien, executive director of Indonesian environmental and human rights advocacy group Satya Bumi.
Just within existing oil palm concessions, there are still 2.4 million hectares (5.9 million acres) of intact forest; these could be lost if palm oil expansion in the country is left unchecked.
The industry’s expansion beyond existing concessions is also likely to push threatened species closer to extinction. According to the IUCN, 39%, 54% and 64% respectively of all threatened amphibians, mammals and birds are set to be affected by future expansion of the industry.
Further expansion also poses a threat to human safety by raising the risk of natural disasters. A 2024 study found that clearing of forests for oil palm plantations can increase flooding risk and water contamination for downstream communities because the crop, especially when it’s young, is nowhere near as good at retaining water as the forest trees it replaced.
For these and other reasons, environmentalists have long called on the government and the industry to focus on increasing the yields of existing plantations rather than continuing to expand into forested areas.
This is particularly important as there’s already too many plantations in Indonesia to the point that the industry almost exceeded the country’s environmental capacity.
Recent research by Satya Bumi and the NGOs Sawit Watch and Madani Berkelanjutan estimated that the maximum extent of oil palm plantations that Indonesia can host without doing further catastrophic damage to the environment is 18.15 million hectares (44.8 million acres).
The current planted area is 17.3 million hectares (42.7 million acres), or almost at that limit, Andi said.
“These findings are important [when you] remember that the palm oil industry in Indonesia has been expanding too much in the past two decades,” he said. “If the development of the palm oil industry is left unchecked, there will be massive ecological and economic loss.”
Tarnished image
Experts warn that Prabowo’s remarks also risk undermining Indonesia’s credibility in international climate negotiations, as the country’s leadership may appear out of touch with global priorities in tackling climate change.
This could jeopardize billions in green investments and palm oil exports to markets like the EU that demand sustainability.
“Our climate commitment to the world where we [have pledged to] reduce emissions could be threatened,” Sawit Watch executive director Achmad Surambo said as quoted by local media.
Eddy Martono Rustamadji, chair of GAPKI, the country’s main palm oil business association, welcomed Prabowo’s call to expand oil palm plantations. He suggested such an expansion should be aimed at meeting domestic demand for programs like the government’s biofuel initiative.
“If [an expansion us] done, then it should be tasked to state-owned enterprises so that there’s no perception that the private sector will keep expanding the size of palm oil plantations,” he said as quoted by local news.
As for concerns over deforestation, Eddy said there should be no worry if the expansion is done in areas categorized as degraded or no longer forested.
Herry of CIFOR agreed, saying that any future expansion of palm oil plantations should ideally be done on nonforested lands, of which there are around 3 million hectares.
Risk of conflicts
But even if new plantations are established on nonforested lands, there are still risks of conflicts with local and Indigenous communities living in those areas, Surambo said. This is because the government often perceives these state-owned lands as vacant, disregarding the fact that there may already be communities living there for generations, he said.
“If we go to Papua [Indonesia’s easternmost region], nearly all [the land is] Indigenous territory,” Surambo said. “[So] it’s not wise to expand [plantations]. We will create social conflicts. What’s realistic is to intensify [production on existing plantations].”
Risks of conflicts are especially heightened as Prabowo, in his speech, instructed officials to “protect oil palm plantations everywhere,” describing them as “national assets.” This then prompts authorities, including security forces, to interpret this as a mandate to prioritize corporate interests over environmental and human rights concerns, Walhi’s Uli said.
As a result, activists and communities protesting land grabs, deforestation or Indigenous rights violations could face heightened scrutiny, harassment, or even criminalization under the pretext of protecting economic interests.
Even before Prabowo’s remarks, security forces have commonly been deployed to suppress protests, intimidate local communities and enforce evictions tied to palm oil expansion, Uli pointed out. The industry is a major contributor to land conflicts in Indonesia: of the 108 land conflicts recorded related to plantations in 2023, 88 involved oil palm plantations, according to data from the Consortium for Agrarian Reform (KPA).
“That’s why it’s not a stretch for us to think that this instruction will legitimize the approach of militarized enforcement in palm oil plantations,” Uli said. “This will increase cases of intimidation, violence and criminalization against people.”
With heightened risks of land conflicts and deforestation from future expansion of plantations, CIFOR’s Herry urged Prabowo to not forget that he’s the leader of all Indonesians, including those who want to protect the country’s remaining forests.
“People who support forest conservation are also the citizens of Indonesia, led by Prabowo, not only those who work in plantations,” he said. “So we need to find balance between forest conservation and plantation productivity.”
Banner image: An oil palm plantation adjacent to tropical forest in Borneo, where a “triple hotspot for biodiversity, carbon and threat, [means] there is a compelling global case for prioritzing their conservation,” the scientists write. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.
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