BAHAYA RENCANA PEMBUKAAN 20 JUTA HEKTAR HUTAN UNTUK PANGAN DAN ENERGI

This policy brief by civil society groups argues against the Indonesian government's plan to open 20 million hectares of forest for food and energy self-sufficiency, claiming it will lead to massive deforestation, human rights violations, and ecological disasters.

• The Indonesian government plans to allocate 20 million hectares of forest for food and energy reserves to support the Prabowo-Gibran administration's self-sufficiency goals. This total includes 15.53 million hectares from protected and production forests not yet burdened by permits (2.29 million hectares of protected forest and 13.24 million hectares of production forest), 3.17 million hectares from inactive PBPH (Forest Utilization Business Permits) areas, and 1.9 million hectares from Social Forestry lands.
• The plan is criticized as a 'legalization of deforestation' that contradicts Indonesia's global commitments, including the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) for emission reductions, and the Ministry of Environment and Forestry's own FoLU Net Sink 2030 policy. Analysis suggests that opening just 4.5 million hectares of natural forest would release 2.59 billion tons of carbon emissions.
• The proposed food estate projects are categorized into three scales: large-scale (1.5 million hectares in Merauke), medium-scale (approximately 100,000 hectares each in Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, and South Sumatra), and small-scale (10,000 to 20,000 hectares in several provinces).
• The document warns of severe economic and ecological losses. Between 2015 and 2022, the state incurred losses of 101.2 trillion rupiah due to hydrometeorological disasters caused by ecosystem changes. Additionally, the loss of commercial timber from the 20 million hectare opening is estimated at 3,000 trillion rupiah, based on an estimated 600 million cubic meters of wood.
• The plan risks significant human rights violations, including the forced eviction of local and indigenous communities. The document notes that 23.8 million hectares of mapped indigenous territories are currently claimed as state forest. It also highlights a pattern of violence and criminalization, citing WALHI data that 1,131 people faced violence or criminalization between 2014 and 2024, and LBH-YLBHI data reporting 212 cases of criminalization against farmers and human rights defenders in National Strategic Projects (PSN) over the last three years.
• The brief argues that the 'food estate' model fails by ignoring local knowledge and imposing monocultures. Examples include the failure of peatland projects in Central Kalimantan due to corporate lack of expertise and the disruption of local crops (such as andaliman, coffee, and incense) in North Sumatra in favor of non-local commodities like potatoes and cabbage.

APA

Trend Asia (n.d.). BAHAYA RENCANA PEMBUKAAN 20 JUTA HEKTAR HUTAN UNTUK PANGAN DAN ENERGI. https://trendasia.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Brief-Paper-Masyarakat-Sipil-20-Juta-Hektar-Hutan.pdf

Chicago

Trend Asia. BAHAYA RENCANA PEMBUKAAN 20 JUTA HEKTAR HUTAN UNTUK PANGAN DAN ENERGI. n.d. https://trendasia.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Brief-Paper-Masyarakat-Sipil-20-Juta-Hektar-Hutan.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Trend Asia |title=BAHAYA RENCANA PEMBUKAAN 20 JUTA HEKTAR HUTAN UNTUK PANGAN DAN ENERGI |url=https://trendasia.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Brief-Paper-Masyarakat-Sipil-20-Juta-Hektar-Hutan.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{trendasiandbahaya, author = {{Trend Asia}}, title = {{BAHAYA RENCANA PEMBUKAAN 20 JUTA HEKTAR HUTAN UNTUK PANGAN DAN ENERGI}}, institution = {Trend Asia}, url = {https://trendasia.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Brief-Paper-Masyarakat-Sipil-20-Juta-Hektar-Hutan.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }