CEO Note: What does nationalization in Indonesia mean for Nature?

The document critiques the Indonesian government's strategy of nationalizing companies that violated environmental laws, arguing that state-led initiatives like the Food and Energy Estates are causing massive deforestation in Papua. It warns that these projects risk repeating the failures of the 1990s Mega Rice project and may deter foreign investment due to perceived legal instability and corruption. The author suggests that the government should instead leverage its power to force companies to fund ecosystem restoration and shift agricultural expansion to degraded lands rather than intact forests.

• President Prabowo has taken aggressive action against illegal land use, including pulling permits for 28 companies involved in palm oil, dams, and mining in Sumatra and confiscating 4 million hectares of illegal plantations and mines in his first year.
• The primary threat to Indonesian forests has shifted from the private sector to state-backed initiatives, specifically the Food and Energy Estates, which have destroyed nearly 110,000 acres in Papua with 6.9 million more acres planned for destruction.
• There are concerns that the Food and Energy Estates will fail economically and environmentally, mirroring the 1990s Ex-Mega Rice project in Kalimantan, which destroyed over one million acres of peatland forests and orangutan habitat but failed to produce economically viable rice.
• Nationalization and state project irregularities are threatening Indonesia's investment climate; foreign direct investment was flat in 2025, and the MSCI index has threatened to downgrade Indonesia from an 'emerging' to a 'frontier' economy.
• Allegations of corruption surround the Jhonlin Group, the developer of the food estates, including claims that the company bypassed legal tender processes and received a 1.2 trillion Rupiah ($71 million USD) payment through a retroactive government decree (#3/2025) influenced by lobbying.

APA

Hurowitz, G. (2026). CEO Note: What does nationalization in Indonesia mean for Nature? Mighty Earth. https://mightyearth.org/article/ceo-note-what-climate-legacy-is-president-prabowo-building/

Chicago

Hurowitz, Glenn. CEO Note: What does nationalization in Indonesia mean for Nature? Mighty Earth, 2026. https://mightyearth.org/article/ceo-note-what-climate-legacy-is-president-prabowo-building/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Hurowitz |first1=Glenn |title=CEO Note: What does nationalization in Indonesia mean for Nature? |publisher=Mighty Earth |date=6 February 2026 |url=https://mightyearth.org/article/ceo-note-what-climate-legacy-is-president-prabowo-building/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{hurowitz2026ceo, author = {Hurowitz, Glenn}, title = {{CEO Note: What does nationalization in Indonesia mean for Nature?}}, publisher = {Mighty Earth}, year = {2026}, month = feb, url = {https://mightyearth.org/article/ceo-note-what-climate-legacy-is-president-prabowo-building/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }