Dokumen Indonesia:
Palm Oil Plantation Expansion Underway Massively
Every 10 minutes, Indonesia loses forest nearly the size of four football fields.
The area of oil palm plantations in Indonesia continues to grow. According to data from the Directorate General of Plantations at the Ministry of Agriculture, as of 2017, oil palm plantations reached 12.3 million hectares, an increase of 7.6 million hectares compared to 2001. Massive oil palm plantation expansion occurred in 2006, covering 1.1 million hectares, followed by 892,000 hectares in 2013, and 655,000 hectares three years later.
Research by Kemen Austin of RTI International and Amanda Schwantes of Duke University, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters in February 2019, showed that the expansion of oil palm plantations between 2001 and 2016 resulted in the loss of 23 percent of Indonesia's forest cover. The remaining deforestation was caused by scrubland (20 percent), small-scale agriculture (15 percent), the timber industry (14 percent), and other causes (28 percent).
The expansion of oil palm plantations between 2001 and 2016 resulted in an average of 130,061 hectares of deforestation per year. This figure results in Indonesia losing nearly four football fields' worth of forest every 10 minutes. If oil palm expansion continues unchecked, Indonesia's forest cover will continue to shrink, and could even become history.
