Jakarta – President Prabowo Subianto’s government has proposed expanding oil palm plantations without worrying about deforestation as an effort to realize sustainable economic equality. A number of academics support the proposal and explain that opening up land for oil palm plantations does not violate regulations.
Professor of the Faculty of Forestry, Bogor Agricultural University (IPB) Yanto Santoso assessed that the expansion of oil palm plantations is not deforestation if it utilizes degraded state forest land.
“President Prabowo Subianto’s plan to increase oil palm plantations does not fall into the category of deforestation if it uses degraded state forests or non-forested forests,” said Prof. Yanto.
The condition is that only 70 percent of the damaged forest is planted with oil palm, the other 30 percent of the land is filled with local superior plants such as meranti, ironwood, ebony and others.
Prof. Yanto explained that if the palm oil planting system later still pays attention to the composition of forest plants, it can be called reforestation.
”From not having forests, not having plants growing, then it was changed to oil palm plantations. Not pure, yes (70 percent oil palm, 30 percent forest plants). So that is actually reforestation, right? So the President is right, there is no deforestation,” said Prof. Yanto.
According to Prof. Yanto, 30 percent must be planted with local forest plants so that it is not a monoculture that is very susceptible to ecological disturbances. The goal of increasing oil palm land to ensure sufficient food availability for the nation should not be a problem, especially since oil palm is a multi-benefit plant.
The amount of unforested forest is 31.8 million hectares. So far, unused and unmonitored damaged forests can be dangerous because they often suddenly catch fire.
”Often there are oil palm plantations that burn, it turns out the source of the fire is from unmanaged areas. Forests that are left abandoned,” said Prof. Yanto.
Deforestation according to the international definition is the change of forested areas into non-forested areas, regardless of whether the Forest Area or people’s land. Meanwhile, deforestation based on the Indonesian definition is the change of state forest areas whose initial purpose was for forestry to be used for non-forestry purposes. Examples for industrial interests, transmigration, plantations, rice fields and others.
Referring to the definition above, the idea put forward by President Prabowo is not necessarily included in the category of deforestation. Moreover, if later the addition of oil palm land utilizes the degraded forest.
Previously, the Minister of Forestry (Menhut), Raja Juli Antoni in a statement on December 30, 2024 said that there was a big plan by the government to utilize forest land for food, energy, and water needs. According to him, the government has identified 20 million hectares of forest areas that can be utilized for this purpose.
