Forest cleared for a sugarcane plantation in South Papua, Indonesia. Ulet Ifansasti / Greenpeace
Indonesia appears to be reversing course on a plan to turn vast swaths of tropical rainforest into rice and sugarcane plantations.
Since 2023, Indonesia has been working to convert 7 million acres of tropical forest in New Guinea to farms that will grow rice for food and sugarcane for biofuel, an effort critics have dubbed “the world’s largest deforestation project.” A similar project, spanning some 3 million acres, is underway in Borneo. The aim of both undertakings is to make Indonesia less dependent on imported food and energy.
The country appears to be making significant progress on the first of those two goals, officials said at an event last week. Indonesia has achieved rice self-sufficiency three years ahead of schedule, they said, and it will no longer need to expand rice cultivation in forest areas. They also said that future food and biofuel production will use degraded land.
“This signals a potentially huge move from the government of Indonesia,” said Glenn Hurowitz, head of conservation group Mighty Earth. However, he told Mongabay, “for these positive statements to have impact, they have to be implemented, including by changes in decrees and other policies.”
Indonesia saw the loss of forest surge to an eight-year high last year amid the push to convert forest to farmland. The losses have left campaigners skeptical of the government’s commitment to stemming deforestation.
It is unclear, for instance, what the statements mean for forest that is currently being converted to farmland in New Guinea and Borneo. A Forest Ministry spokesperson told The Straits Times that the government “cannot yet say that all activities in the two regions will automatically stop, nor confirm when they will stop.” It is also unclear if the government will continue to convert grasslands, wetlands, or savannas to farmland.
Solidaritas Merauke, a coalition of civil society groups opposing the project in New Guinea, said that, historically, the government’s stated commitment to sustainable development “has been reflected minimally in policy programs and has been weak in practice.”
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