Indonesia on the front line:impacts of biofuel expansion for people, forests and climate

Palm oil is the single biggest driver of deforestation in Indonesia,itself the country with the world’s highest rate of deforestation.[1]

Palm oil plantations now cover 13 million hectares of land in Indonesia – an area bigger than Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands combined. The Indonesian government has made it clear that between 2010 and 2020, 14 million hectares of Indonesia’s forests will be destroyed[2] – despite EU Member States providing economic support and engaging in multilateral agreements to protect Indonesia’s forests as wildlife habitats and carbon sinks.  

The expansion of the palm oil industry is propelled by rising biofuels demand - 20% of the EU biodiesel mix is now made up of palm oil mainly from Southeast Asia. Biofuels are the single biggest cause of rising palm oil imports to Europe. Palm oil imports for car fuel have increased by 365% since 2006 in fulfilment of EU biofuel targets.[3]

2) Biofuels cause land grabbing and conflict

The expansion of oil palm plantations into forest and peatlands is the major trigger of land conflicts, which are a growing source of violence in Indonesia.

Indonesian NGO Sawit Watch has identified 731 current land conflicts linked to palm oil – 53 more than just a year ago. The oil palm industry is able to exploit Indonesia’s weak legislation on land tenure to take over land which local and indigenous communities rely on for growing, hunting or gathering food. Whether by legal or illegal means, many companies are driving their plantations into areas where communities have farmed communally-held land for decades or even for generations. In forest areas, indigenous peoples’ agroforestry systems are being wiped out by the advance of oil palm plantations – despite the fact that these systems can better manage forests and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.[4] Many communities are strongly resisting eviction, despite facing violence, killings or criminalisation.

Stories of communities whose lives are devastated by land grabbing are too rarely heard by the international community, allowing companies to continue to commit human rights and environmental abuses with little likelihood of being held to account. Even initiatives aimed at cleaning up the industry like the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) have been unable to stop its member companies like Wilmar from involvement in illegal plantations, taking over communities' and indigenous peoples' lands without their Free Prior and Informed Consent, clearing forests without environmental impact assessments, or illegal forest burning.[5]

3) Biofuels threaten food sovereignty and security

Biofuels drive the conversion of vast areas of land otherwise used for daily sustenance by local communities in Indonesia, threatening their ability to hunt, gather or produce their own food.

Vast areas of Indonesia’s forests are crucial for providing food for local communities (through gathering, growing and hunting). An estimated 80-95 million people in Indonesia depend on the forests, including 30-70 million indigenous forest people.[6]  People should have the right to define their own food systems. Through promoting the conversion of these forests to plantations for biofuels, EU policies threaten the food sovereignty of those who rely on them most.

Using land to grow crops for fuel rather than food increases the level and volatility of food prices internationally, and presents significant risks to the food security of low-income countries.[7] By promoting land-based biofuels, the EU’s policies are indirectly exacerbating the risks of hunger for some of the world’s poorest communities. 

4) Biofuels undermine women’s rights and labour rights 

Studies have found that the oil palm plantation system has undermined the livelihoods of women and weakens their position in their communities.[8]

In rural areas, women traditionally play an important role in agriculture, rural development and forest use and management, yet often are left out of any decision-making on oil palm development.[9] Even where women have customary rights to land, companies and government officials fail to properly consult with or consider them in the plantation land permit process: women lose their access to land.[10]

Women employed on oil palm plantations often undertake work which presents significant health hazards such as spraying chemical pesticides and fertilizers.[11] In certain cases women and their children have been forced to work on plantations without pay to assist their husbands to meet over-demanding quotas under the exploitative piece-work system.[12] In cases where women work on a hired basis, they often receive lower wages than men. In addition, they are expected to work on the plantations as well as carry out domestic chores and childcare, resulting in women working far longer hours. There is evidence that the rapid social changes associated with new oil palm plantations have been linked to an increase in domestic violence against women.[13]

Labour conditions in Indonesia’s palm oil sector are also poor. Sixty percent of palm oil workers are day-labourers[14] whose wages are insufficient to meet even their daily needs. Recent research by Sawit Watch found that a plantation company operating in East Kalimantan failed to pay its labourers for two years and many were forced to leave.

5) Biofuels are bad for the climate