Indonesia is set to embark on what environmental groups are calling the largest planned deforestation effort in the world, with over 30,000 square kilometres of forest land — an area roughly the size of Belgium — earmarked for clearance. The land will be used to cultivate sugarcane for bioethanol production, alongside rice and other food crops, according to an Associated Press report citing government plans.
The sweeping land clearance is part of Indonesia’s long-term ambition to enhance food and energy security. However, environmental watchdogs have raised serious concerns about the ecological cost of the project. Glenn Hurowitz, chief executive of US-based non-governmental organisation Mighty Earth, warned of the profound environmental damage: “Imagine every piece of vegetation in that area being completely cleared… having all the trees and the wildlife erased from the landscape and replaced with a monoculture. It’s creating a zone of death in one of the most vibrant spots on Earth.”
Indonesia is home to the world’s third-largest rainforest, housing a rich diversity of plant and animal life, including critically endangered species such as orangutans, Sumatran elephants, and giant forest flowers. The scale of the planned deforestation — totalling around 30,689 square kilometres — poses a grave threat to these ecosystems.
The proposed expansion is an extension of the food estate programme championed by former President Joko Widodo. His successor, President Prabowo Subianto, has since accelerated these initiatives, focusing more heavily on crops used in renewable energy production, particularly bioethanol — a plant-derived fuel that is part of Indonesia’s strategy to diversify its energy mix.
“I am confident that within four to five years at the latest, we will achieve food self-sufficiency. We must be self-sufficient in energy and we have the capacity to achieve this,” Subianto stated in October 2024.
Despite the country’s vast agricultural potential, Indonesia currently lacks sufficient quantities of sustainable feedstocks such as sugarcane and cassava to support large-scale bioethanol production. An earlier attempt to roll out bioethanol-blended fuels in 2007 was abandoned due to inadequate crop supply.
To address this, the government has initiated a large-scale food and energy estate spanning 4.3 million hectares across the islands of Papua and Kalimantan. The most expansive section of this development, the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate, is expected to cover over 3 million hectares in Papua, overlapping with the ecologically sensitive Trans-Fly ecoregion. This area is home to Indigenous communities and numerous species found nowhere else on the planet.
Experts warn that clearing these forests will accelerate biodiversity loss, increase soil erosion, and exacerbate the frequency of extreme weather events. While the government has pledged to reforest 6.5 million hectares of degraded land as a mitigation measure, critics argue that replanting efforts cannot replicate the carbon storage, water regulation, and biodiversity functions provided by old-growth forests.
“Thus, the food estate programme continues while we mitigate the possible negative impacts with new programmes, one of which is reforestation,” said Hashim Djojohadikusumo, President Subianto’s brother and the government’s official representative for energy and the environment.
Nevertheless, environmental experts maintain that the destruction of primary forests could severely undermine both conservation efforts and the long-term sustainability of Indonesia’s environmental and climate goals. The development has prompted renewed calls for a more balanced approach that safeguards both food and energy security while preserving the nation’s irreplaceable natural heritage.
