Environmentalists call for extension of oil palm permit moratorium

Green groups on Thursday urged Indonesia to extend a moratorium on new oil palm permits and improve its implementation, warning of a risk of losing millions of hectares of forest to plantation expansion.

Indonesia, the world’s top palm oil producer, launched the moratorium in September 2018 to try to stop deforestation caused by oil palm plantations, while seeking to boost output from existing cultivated areas. The moratorium ends on Sept. 19.

Three years is not enough to solve palm issues related to deforestation, Inda Fatinaware, executive director at nongovernmental group Sawit Watch, said in a virtual seminar.

“Not only the moratorium needs to be extended, but it also needs concrete governance improvement,” she added.

In its implementation, Inda said, the government has not been transparent and issues beyond permits were barely addressed.

Aside from suspending new permits, the government is required to review areas given to companies for oil palm cultivation that have not yet been utilized, or are suspected of being used for other purposes.

As of July 2019, the government had found 1.49 million ha of unused concession area and over 1.5 million ha used not in accordance with their permits, government data showed. Some land will be redesignated as forest area.

Officials at the Coordinating Economic Ministry, which oversees the moratorium, did not immediately respond to Reuters messages seeking comment. Separately, Forest Watch Indonesia found deforestation linked to palm oil was continuing, despite the ban.

It estimated more than 21 million ha of forest could potentially be destroyed for cultivation of the vegetable oil if the moratorium ends, executive director Mufti Fathul Barri said on Wednesday.

Indonesia has over 16 million ha of plantation area for the vegetable oil, mostly in Kalimantan and Sumatra, but expansion of cultivation has started to shift eastward, to areas such as Papua.