The clear-cutting of forests to make way for oil palm plantations is driving a wave of illegal logging across Indonesia, fundamentally undermining efforts to reform the country’s forestry and timber sectors. A new report from the Environmental Investigation Agency makes clear that this is not a regulatory failure at the margins — it is systemic, and it is getting worse.
The report, Permitting Crime: How Palm Oil Expansion Drives Illegal Logging in Indonesia, details how a widespread culture of corruption and weak law enforcement is generating a flood of illicit timber as plantations push deeper into frontier forests. Case studies from Central Kalimantan — one of the worst-affected regions — document outright violations of plantation licensing, timber and environmental regulations by firms clearing some of Indonesia’s richest tracts of rainforest. The report also reveals clear links between a series of palm oil concessions, a corrupt regional official, and one of the highest-profile political graft cases in Indonesia in recent years. In one instance, a palm oil firm allegedly attempted to pay US$45,000 to police to bury an investigation into its illegal operations.
Almost all palm plantations nationwide are evading Indonesia’s mandatory Timber Legality Verification System, a cornerstone of efforts to ensure only legal timber enters the supply chain. Local governments, the report finds, are colluding with companies to fast-track permits without identifying or mitigating the social and environmental consequences they are legally required to address.
EIA Forest Campaigner Tomasz Johnson was unequivocal: illegal logging in oil palm concessions is out of control, and Indonesia’s revamped timber laws have completely failed to rein it in.
Newly inaugurated President Joko Widodo acknowledged the threat in November 2014, stating that monoculture plantations must be stopped before Indonesia’s tropical rainforest disappears entirely. The EIA is calling on the Indonesian government to enforce existing laws, conduct mandatory legality audits across all palm plantations, revoke non-compliant permits, and establish a task force to prosecute corruption in plantation licensing nationwide.
The full report is available via the EIA website.
