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| ANTARA FOTO/Indrianto Eko Suwarso/YU |
Former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan has criticised Indonesia’s forest governance, saying the rapid and largely legal conversion of forests into plantations has deepened ecological injustice and worsened the impact of recent floods and landslides across Sumatra.
Speaking at the first National Working Meeting of the Gerakan Rakyat Party in Jakarta on 17–18 January, Mr Anies said Indonesia lost at least 175,000 hectares of forest in 2024, citing official data, with independent monitors estimating the figure could be significantly higher.
He argued that the surge in forest clearance accelerated during the final years of President Joko Widodo’s administration, driven by permissive licensing regimes that allowed large-scale land conversion under the banner of economic growth.
Mr Anies directly challenged a widely repeated political argument, echoed previously by President Prabowo Subianto, that oil palm trees could be considered equivalent to forest trees because both have leaves and absorb carbon.
“That logic is technically simplistic and ecologically wrong,” Mr Anies said, arguing that tropical rainforests store up to ten times more carbon than oil palm plantations because they grow for decades or centuries and store carbon not only in their leaves, but deep within trunks, soil and root systems.
By contrast, oil palm trees are typically cut down after around 25 years, limiting their carbon-storage capacity, he said.
He added that forest ecosystems play a crucial role in regulating water flows, preventing erosion and stabilising soil — functions that oil palm plantations cannot replicate due to their shallow root systems.
“When extreme rainfall hits, areas dominated by plantations suffer far worse flooding than areas with intact forests,” he said, linking land conversion to the deadly floods and landslides that struck Aceh, West Sumatra and North Sumatra on 26 November 2025.
Beyond climate impacts, Mr Anies highlighted biodiversity loss, noting that only around 15% of forest species can survive in plantation landscapes, threatening iconic wildlife such as orangutans, Sumatran tigers and elephants.
While stressing he was not opposed to palm oil itself, Mr Anies said plantations should not expand onto the “ruins of primary forests”, warning that economic gains had been captured largely by downstream corporations rather than small farmers.
International reports, he said, show the global palm oil industry is worth about $285bn, with nearly two-thirds of profits flowing to large companies, while smallholders, who produce roughly a third of Indonesia’s palm oil, see little improvement in welfare.
“The people who profit are not the ones who suffer,” he said. “When floods come, it is not corporate executives’ houses that collapse, it is the homes of farmers, fishers and workers.”
Mr Anies argued that claims blaming environmental damage mainly on illegal logging were misleading, pointing to data showing 97% of deforestation in Indonesia occurs legally, under government-issued permits.
“The problem is not just lawbreakers,” he said. “The problem is a system that allows destruction in the name of development.”
He called for a fundamental overhaul of forest governance and a shift towards what he described as a regenerative economic model, one that allows growth while restoring ecosystems rather than exhausting them.
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