An Indonesian official said it would levy $310 million in fines on growers of palm oil on land which should be forest
Indonesia said on Friday that it would slap palm oil companies operating within forest areas with fines amounting to a total of 4.8 trillion rupiah ($310.1 million).
More than 475 billion rupiah ($30.7 million) in fines have been issued so far, an official from the ministry of Maritime Affairs and Investment Firman Hidayat told reporters, who did not provide further details or identify the companies fined.
But experts and campaigners said it would be difficult to check if fines had actually been paid and that the level of fines is “miniscule”.
Greenpeace Indonesia forest campaigner Arie Rompas said that the government and palm oil companies were “fearful” that new European Union rules against deforestation would exclude Indonesian palm oil. So they are “attempting to paper over the illegal destruction of the past”, he said.
Pardoning palm oil
Indonesia said last month it had identified some 200,000 hectares of oil palm plantations in areas designated as forests, which are expected to be returned to the state to be converted back into forests.
Indonesia, the world’s biggest palm oil producer and exporter, issued rules in 2020 to sort out the legality of plantations operating in areas that are supposed to be forests, aimed at fixing governance in the sector.
Sudan’s Cop28 delegates “really hurt” by silence on their civil war
Officials said the measures were necessary as some companies have already been tending the land for years.
Rompas described the measures as a “pardoning of companies that have illegally expanded their oil palm plantations into the forest estate”.
“This effectively encourages companies to continue expanding into forest as they know they will be given an amnesty later,” Rompas said.
Companies have to submit paperwork and pay fines to obtain cultivating rights on their plantation by Nov. 2, 2023, according to the rules.
While 3.3 million hectares of the country’s nearly 17 million hectares of palm plantation have been found in forests, only owners
Read More
