Deforestation in Indonesia

Deforestation in Riau province, Sumatra, to make way for an oil palm plantation (2007).

Deforestation in Indonesia involves the long-term loss of forests and foliage across much of the country; it has had massive environmental and social impacts. Indonesia is home to some of the most biologically diverse forests in the world and ranks third in number of species behind Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo.[1]

As late as 1900, Indonesia was still a densely forested country: forests represented 84 percent of the total land area. Deforestation intensified in the 1970s[1] and has accelerated further since then. The estimated forest cover of 170 million hectares around 1900 decreased to less than 100 million hectares by the end of the 20th century.[2] In 2008, it was estimated that tropical rainforests in Indonesia would be logged out in a decade.[3] Of the total logging in Indonesia, up to 80% is reported to be performed illegally.[4]

Large areas of forest in Indonesia have been cleared by large multinational pulp companies, such as Asia Pulp and Paper,[5] and replaced by plantations. Forests are often burned by farmers[6] and plantation owners. Another major source of deforestation is the logging industry, driven by demand from China and Japan.[7] Agricultural development and transmigration programs moved large populations into rainforest areas, further increasing deforestation rates. The widespread deforestation (and other environmental destruction) in Indonesia is often described by academics as an ecocide.[8][9][10][11][12]

Logging and the burning of forests to clear land for cultivation has made Indonesia the world's third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind China and the United States.[13] Forest fires often destroy high capacity carbon sinks, including old-growth rainforest and peatlands. In May 2011, Indonesia declared a moratorium on new logging contracts to help combat this.[14] This appeared to be ineffective in the short-term, as the rate of deforestation continued to increase. By 2012 Indonesia had surpassed the rate of deforestation in Brazil,[15] and become the fastest forest clearing nation in the world.[16]

  1. ^ a b ABC Four Corners: Background information on Indonesia, deforestation and illegal logging Archived 16 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Retrieved 28 May 2010
  2. ^ Matthews, Emilly (ed.): The State of Forests Indonesia, Bogor 2002, Retrieved 28 May 2010
  3. ^ China is black hole of Asia's deforestation, Asia News, 24 March 2008
  4. ^ Riskanalys av glas, järn, betong och gips Archived 13 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine 29 March 2011. s.19–20 (in Swedish)
  5. ^ "Indonesia without trees? - Record breaking logging of last rainforests". foei.org. Friends of the Earth International. Archived from the original on 8 December 2015. Retrieved 8 March 2017.
  6. ^ Slash and burn, Encyclopedia of Earth
  7. ^ "Japan depletes Borneo's rainforests; China remains largest log importer". News.mongabay.com. Archived from the original on 29 May 2012. Retrieved 18 August 2013.
  8. ^ "Forensic Architecture". forensic-architecture.org. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  9. ^ "Explainer: What is ecocide?". Eco-Business. 4 August 2022. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  10. ^ Aida, Melly; Tahar, Abdul Muthalib; Davey, Orima (2023), Perdana, Ryzal; Putrawan, Gede Eka; Saputra, Bayu; Septiawan, Trio Yuda (eds.), "Ecocide in the International Law: Integration Between Environmental Rights and International Crime and Its Implementation in Indonesia", Proceedings of the 3rd Universitas Lampung International Conference on Social Sciences (ULICoSS 2022), vol. 740, Paris: Atlantis Press SARL, pp. 572–584, doi:10.2991/978-2-38476-046-6_57, ISBN 978-2-38476-045-9
  11. ^ Alberro, Heather; Daniele, Luigi (29 June 2021). "Ecocide: why establishing a new international crime would be a step towards interspecies justice". The Conversation. Retrieved 5 July 2023.
  12. ^ Setiyono, Joko; Natalis, Aga (30 December 2021). "Ecocides as a Serious Human Rights Violation: A Study on the Case of River Pollution by the Palm Oil Industry in Indonesia". International Journal of Sustainable Development and Planning. 16 (8): 1465–1471. doi:10.18280/ijsdp.160807. ISSN 1743-7601. S2CID 245606762.
  13. ^ Higgins, Andrew (19 November 2009). "The Washington Post, November 19, 2009". Washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 18 August 2013.
  14. ^ "Indonesia's forest moratorium: A stepping stone to better forest governance?", CIFOR Working Paper 76, 2011
  15. ^ Bachelard, Michael: "World's worst illegal logging in Indonesia", in The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 June 2014
  16. ^ "Deforestation in Indonesia Is Double the Government's Official Rate", in Scientific American, 30 June 2014