JAKARTA — Indonesia’s plan to clear rainforests half the size of Switzerland for sugarcane plantations isn’t just an agricultural gamble, experts warn — it’s a potential environmental catastrophe.
A new report by Jakarta-based think tank the Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS) found that the government’s so-called food estate program will drive a significant spike in global carbon emissions from massive forest loss.
The project involves clearing 2 million hectares (5 million acres) of forests, wetlands and grasslands in Merauke district in the country’s eastern Papua region, on the border with Papua New Guinea, to make way for a cluster of giant sugarcane plantations.
This makes the project one of the largest legalized deforestation undertakings in the world.
Based on the estimated biomass of the forests in Merauke, the deforestation will release 782.45 million metric tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, according to the CELIOS report.
That’s the equivalent of the emissions from 187 coal-fired power plants in a year, and would amount to an estimated $3 billion loss in carbon value, the report says. These emissions would also represent up to 143% of Indonesia’s annual emissions from deforestation, and would nearly double Indonesia’s current share of global emissions, from 2-3% at present to close to 5%.
This would set back by a decade the government’s stated goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2060, the report says.
The sheer scale of this deforestation would also mean the loss of critical ecosystems in southern Merauke, a unique mosaic savanna, grassland and closed-canopy evergreen forest.
“This is a wake-up call that large-scale development without environmental considerations could backfire, worsening the global climate crisis and impacting Indigenous communities in Papua,” said Media Wahyudi Askar, director of public policy at CELIOS.
The sugarcane project is a part of the wider food estate program in which the government aims to set up industrial-scale plantations throughout the country. Another food estate project in Merauke seeks to establish 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of rice fields. Other food estate projects also exist in northern Sumatra and in central Borneo.
The CELIOS report on Merauke focused only on the sugarcane project, not the rice project.
Deforestation begins
Deforestation for both the sugarcane and rice projects in Merauke has already started in recent months.
An analysis by Greenpeace Indonesia found 2,527 hectares (6,244 acres) of land has already been cleared, the size of 50,000 basketball courts, in one of the sugarcane concessions, held by PT Global Papua Abadi (GPA).
As for the rice project, satellite monitoring by technology consultancy TheTreeMap reveals that more than 2,800 hectares (6,900 acres) of forests have been cleared as of this month to build a port and road supporting the project. The infrastructure will be used to bring in farming equipment and take out harvested rice, with irrigation canals also planned alongside the road.
This deforestation doesn’t just impact the environment, but also the Indigenous communities who live in the region, according to local NGO Forest Watch Indonesia (FWI).
At least 24 Indigenous communities rely on the forests in South Papua province, where Merauke is located. Data from FWI show these communities have already seen their living space shrink as deforestation in the region has ramped up in recent years.
In 2023, forest loss in South Papua more than doubled from the previous year, to 190,000 hectares (469,500 acres), or nearly three times the size of Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital and largest city.
Both the sugarcane and rice projects will further threaten Indigenous communities and their territories, which is why it’s crucial that these undertakings secure the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) of communities before proceeding, said FWI campaigner Anggi Prayoga.
Yasinta Moiwend, an Indigenous woman from Ilwayab subdistrict in Merauke, said her land and that of others in her community had been cleared for the rice project without their consent.
Yasinta said they’d protested against the project because they were never properly informed or consulted about it, yet the clearing for the infrastructure development went ahead regardless.
“We already rejected [the project] both in written form and in verbal form, but the central government and the local government don’t respect us,” she said at a press conference in Jakarta in October.
With the loss of their land, Yasinta and others in her community also lost their subsistence crops like banana and coconut, she said. Some of the cleared forests were also hunting grounds for the community to catch deer and crocodile, Yasinta added.
“Our kitchen has been bulldozed. So where should we look for food?” she said.
Rukka Sombolinggi, secretary-general of the Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), the country’s largest advocacy group for Indigenous rights, called the government’s decision to establish the food estate projects in areas home to forest-dependent communities shows how the country’s politicians perceive Indigenous Papuans.
“The notion that Papua is an empty land is always being pushed [by the government],” she said. “Even if there are people there, they’re ‘savages.’ That’s exactly what the Dutch did when they tried to colonize Indonesia and called some people ‘savages’ because they couldn’t be controlled [by the Dutch]. And that’s such a colonial mindset.”
Opposition to the projects hasn’t come from just affected Indigenous communities and their defenders. Indonesian climate envoy Hashim Djojohadikusumo, the brother of President Prabowo Subianto, said he’d heard heavy criticism about the food estate program’s impacts during last month’s U.N. climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, from some parties, including other countries’ delegates.
Yet despite these criticisms, the government will proceed with the program, he added.
“I already responded and I told [the critics] that our national food program is nonnegotiable,” Hashim said as quoted by Kompas daily at an event in Jakarta in December.
He said the food estate program is necessary to ensure Indonesia has enough food to meet domestic demand and doesn’t have to depend on imports.
This stance means the government has effectively decided to ignore the voices of Indigenous peoples, activists and other countries, said Sekar Banjaran Aji, a forest campaigner with Greenpeace Indonesia. She likened this attitude to the three decades of authoritarian rule known as the “New Order” under former strongman Suharto (who was also Prabowo’s father-in-law).
“It’s so embarrassing that our government doesn’t want to hear [criticism] when everyone already voices [their concerns about the food estate program],” Sekar told Mongabay. “This shows that we are returning to the authoritarian New Order era, when people’s voices aren’t being heard.”
Restore, not destroy
Citing the massive environmental and social impacts of the food estate program, CELIOS called on the government to halt the sugarcane project in Merauke.
Doing so shouldn’t be an economic blow to the region and local communities, it said. Instead, the government can still empower communities, grow the economy and increase food security at the same time by developing a restorative economic model.
This is a global movement that aims to create a sustainable economy that prioritizes people and the planet over endless growth and profit. Examples of it have already been implemented through pilot projects in some regions, such as West Kalimantan province in Borneo, where focusing on nontimber forest products has improved community livelihoods while keeping forests standing.
CELIOS says the government can encourage a similar transition in Merauke by promoting the production of nontimber forest products such as honey and rattan, as well as sustainable agriculture.
By saving the 2 million hectares of forests that would otherwise be cleared for the sugarcane project, Indonesia would be able to sequester 400 million metric tons of greenhouse gases a year, the report says. As a result, its contribution to global emissions would be reduced to 1-2%.
Another potential solution if the government truly wants to provide enough food for its citizens is to empower local small farmers who already have their own lands, according to Dewi Kartika, secretary-general of the Consortium for Agrarian Reform (KPA). Helping communities to control their food systems and produce food in a sustainable and culturally appropriate way can lead to food sovereignty, she said.
Dewi pointed out that there are 27 million farmers registered in Indonesia, 17 million of whom are small farmers with plots smaller than 0.5 hectares (1.2 acres). This means there are around 8.5 million hectares of agricultural lands available for cultivation, she said.
If the government were to empower these small farmers by strengthening their land rights and providing access to training and capital, they would be able to improve their production. This way, the government wouldn’t need to establish industrial-scale plantations, thereby sparing millions of hectares of forests in the process, Dewi said.
With climate commitments at stake and Indigenous livelihoods threatened, Indonesia must decide whether to persist with destructive projects or embrace solutions that empower communities and preserve its natural heritage, she added.
“Why does the government need to look for 3 million hectares of land [in Merauke] for food estates while risking conflicts with Indigenous peoples?” Dewi told Mongabay. “Why doesn’t it empower existing agricultural fields?”.
Banner image: Land clearing already started to make way for sugarcane plantation in Merauke, South Papua, Indonesia. Image courtesy of Yayasan Pusaka.
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