deforestation in indonesia case study

Read The Diplomat , Know The Asia-Pacific

• Central Asia
• Southeast Asia
• Environment
• Asia Defense
• China Power
• Crossroads Asia
• Flashpoints
• Pacific Money
• Tokyo Report
• Trans-Pacific View
• Photo Essays
• Write for Us
• Subscriptions

Deforestation in Indonesia Spiked Last Year, But Some Trends Are Improving

Recent features.

The Complex Legacy of Ahmad Shah Massoud

Diplomacy Beyond the Elections: How China Is Preparing for a Post-Biden America

Sri Lanka’s Presidential Manifestos: What’s Promised for Women?

The Global Battle for Chip Talent: South Korea’s Strategic Dilemma

Bangladesh’s New Border Stance Signals a Shift in Its Approach to India 

The Solomon Islands-China Relationship: 5 Years On

Finding Home in Bishkek: Kyrgyzstan’s South Asian Expats

Kashmir at the Boiling Point as Elections Loom

Kim Jong Un Abandoned Unification. What Do North Koreans Think?

The Domestic Politics Behind Inter-Korean Relations

Amin Saikal on the United States’ Many Mistakes in Afghanistan

Why the Nuclear Revolution Matters in an Era of Emerging Great Power Competition

Asean beat  |  environment  |  southeast asia.

According to one resources analyst, large-scale deforestation appears to be shrinking compared to the past.

A man uses a machete to clear land to make way for a corn plantation in Polewali Mandar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, Sunday, April 21, 2024.

From trees felled in protected national parks to massive swaths of jungle razed for palm oil and paper plantations, Indonesia had a 27 percent uptick in primary forest loss in 2023 from the previous year, according to a World Resources Institute (WRI) analysis of deforestation data. But the loss is still seen as historically low compared to the 2010s, it said.

“Deforestation has been declining from six or so years ago, when there were peak rates,” said Rod Taylor, global director of the forests program at WRI. “It’s good news and commendable for Indonesia.”

But others saw cause for concern in the uptick, and tied some of the more recent deforestation to the world’s appetite for mining Indonesia’s vast deposits of nickel, which is critical for the green energy transition.

The latest data from the University of Maryland’s Global Land Analysis and Discovery laboratory was shared on Global Forest Watch, a platform run by WRI that provides data, technology and tools for monitoring the world’s forests.

A vast tropical archipelago stretching across the equator, Indonesia is home to the world’s third-largest rainforest, with a variety of endangered wildlife and plants, including orangutans, elephants and giant forest flowers. Some live nowhere else.

Since 1950, more than 74 million hectares (285,715 square miles) of Indonesian rainforest — an area twice the size of Germany — have been logged, burned, or degraded for the development of palm oil, paper, and rubber plantations, nickel mining and other commodities, according to Global Forest Watch. Indonesia is the biggest producer of palm oil, one of the largest exporters of coal, and a top producer of pulp for paper. It also exports oil and gas, rubber, tin, and other resources.

Expansion of industrial plantations occurred in several locations adjacent to existing palm oil trees and pulp and paper plantations on the tropical islands of Kalimantan and West Papua, according to the analysis.

The Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry said the expansion occurred in concessions granted before the current administration took office in 2014.

The Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry did not respond to questions and a request for comment sent by The Associated Press.

Global Forest Watch’s data on Indonesia’s loss of primary forests — which are old-growth forests typically high in stored carbon and rich in biodiversity — are higher than the official Indonesian statistics. That’s because much of the primary forest loss in Indonesia, according to the analysis, is within areas that Indonesia classifies as secondary forest — areas that have regenerated through largely natural processes after human actions such as agriculture clearing or timber harvest. Secondary forests typically have a reduced capacity for storing carbon than primary forests.

Deforestation linked to the mining industry occurred in Sumatra, Sulawesi, Mlauku, and Kalimantan, according to the analysis.

Indonesia has the world’s largest reserves of nickel — a critical material for electric vehicles, solar panels and other goods needed for the green energy transition. And part of this deforestation can be directly linked to the expansion of Indonesia’s nickel industry, said Timer Manurung, director of Auriga Nusantara, a nongovernmental conservation organization based in Indonesia.

Manurung said it’s not clear exactly how much of Indonesia’s deforestation is due to mining. But he called it a “significant driver,” and said the government’s rapid development of the country’s mining and nickel industry — including more than 20 new smelters to process the nickel ore — is “repeating Indonesia’s oil palm and pulpwood mistakes” of increasing deforestation.

But Taylor noted that deforestation done on a massive scale seems to be shrinking, compared to the past.

In the 2010s there was gargantuan oil palm, timber and large-scale plantation expansion across Indonesia. Research in the Nature Climate Change journal found that the deforestation rate doubled to approximately 2 million hectares per year during 2004-2014.

In 2023, primary forest loss in patches greater than 100 hectares made up just 15 percent of the loss, according to the analysis.

Taylor attributes this lack of large-scale deforestation patches to the reputational risks that companies face if they are found to be razing trees. In recent decades nongovernmental organizations, consumers and governments — including the European Union — have pushed for companies to move away from deforestation practices.

In 2018 Indonesian President Joko Widodo put a three-year freeze on new permits for palm oil plantations. And the rate of deforestation slowed between 2021-2022, according to government data.

But small-scale primary forest loss was still prevalent throughout the country, including within several protected areas such as Tesso Nilo National Park and Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve on the island of Sumatra. Both areas are home to critically endangered animals such as tigers and elephants.

A wetter than usual El Nino — which usually leads to less rainfall and higher temperatures that can cause rapid spread of fires set to clear land for agriculture — contributed to a quieter than expected fire season, Taylor said. So did investments made by the Indonesian government in fire prevention capabilities, as well as efforts to suppress fire by local communities.

During Indonesia’s last El Nino in 2015-2016, fires intentionally started to clear land for agriculture rapidly spread, sending haze across Southeast Asia. Several Indonesian provinces declared states of emergency, respiratory illnesses spiked and thousands of Indonesians had to flee their homes.

“The good news in Indonesia is that the fire prevention measures are much more sophisticated than they were in years past,” said Taylor. “It’s really making a difference.”

Indonesia’s Participation at COP26

By noto suoneto and gracia paramitha.

Indonesia’s Massive Metals Build-out Is Felling the Forest for Batteries

By victoria milko, ed davey, and camille fassett.

The Last Glaciers of Indonesia

By sribala subramanian.

Development and Conservation Clash at Indonesia’s Komodo National Park

By victoria milko.

Arakan Army Commander-in-Chief Twan Mrat Naing on the Future of Rakhine State

By rajeev bhattacharyya.

US Air Force Deploys More Stealth Jets to Southeast Asia

By christopher woody.

Islamic Fundamentalism Raises Its Head in Post-Hasina Bangladesh

By snigdhendu bhattacharya.

By Kwangbaek Lee and Rose Adams

By Freshta Jalalzai

By Seong-Hyon Lee

By Harini Fernando

By Rajiv Kumar

Advertisement

Spatial analysis of deforestation in Indonesia in the period 1950–2017 and the role of protected areas

• Original Research
• Open access
• Published: 17 July 2023

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Antonio Santoro   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4667-8082 1 ,
• Francesco Piras   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6273-8121 1 &
• Qingyi Yu   ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0007-9187-1491 2  

4202 Accesses

2 Citations

2 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

Indonesia is one of the countries with highest forest loss rates in the world. Protected areas (PAs) can have a key role in counteracting deforestation, especially if they are combined with the active involvement of local communities, rather than be only based on strict nature conservation. The study aims at assessing and measuring forest transformations in 1950–2017 through GIS-based spatial analyses, and to evaluate the role of PAs in preserving forests from deforestation. At national level forests dramatically decreased, passing from 78.3% of the total surface in 1950, to 63.8% in 1982 and to 46.8% in 2017. In the period 1950–2017, 35% of the national territory (over 66 million of hectares) has been affected by deforestation at an average rate of 985,200 ha/year; the areas where deforestation proceeded at higher rates are Sumatra (356,100 ha/year) and Kalimantan (303,360 ha/year). Deforestation occurred with higher intensity at lower altitudes and along the coast, due to the spread of modern plantations. The only exception is represented by Java and Bali as most of deforestation already occurred before 1950. PAs demonstrated to be effective in slowing down deforestation rates, but not in stopping it as deforestation is also affecting PAs. The study provided reliable spatial data on forest transformations in the last 67 years, highlighting differences related to geographical zone and altimetry, allowing the identification of the most vulnerable PAs. The amount of data produced at national and regional level could support further studies aimed at recognizing the best strategies to counteract deforestation, contributing to sustainable forests management and to forest preservation.

Similar content being viewed by others

Forest conservation in Indigenous territories and protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon

Deforestation and trends of change in protected areas of the Usumacinta River basin (2000–2018), Mexico and Guatemala

Quantification and monitoring of deforestation in india over eight decades (1930–2013).

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

Indonesia is one of the countries with the highest primary forest loss rate in the tropics (Turubanova et al. 2018 ; Margono et al. 2014 ) and deforestation is a topical issue at governmental and environmental level. Understanding the origins, causes, and effects of deforestation can help in properly address forest planning and policies at national and/or local level.

The most common cause of deforestation in Indonesia has always been related to the conversion of forests into agricultural land, a driver that is largely recognized to be the first cause of deforestation in most of the tropical countries (Pendrill et al. 2022 ). The cutting of forests to obtain new spaces for agriculture does not always occur in the same way and with the same techniques throughout the decades. In particular, there is the need to distinguish the spread of modern and intensive plantations on large surfaces from the small-scale traditional shifting agriculture. Indonesia has been particularly affected in the last decades by the spread of intensive palm plantations for palm oil production, that occurred with higher intensity in Kalimantan and Sumatra (Singh and Yan 2021 ; Carlson et al. 2013 ). Oil palm plantations are not the only cause of large-scale deforestation, as also fibre or timber plantations are considered relevant causes of deforestation in Indonesia (Austin et al. 2019 ; Petersen et al. 2016 ). Small scale and shifting agriculture have, and had, a different impact on deforestation in Indonesia and in other tropical countries, respect to intensive agriculture. Shifting agriculture in the past decades was usually reputed as a major threat to biodiversity and one of the main causes of deforestation in the tropics (Myers 1992 ; Lawrence et al. 2010 ). More recently, the impact of shifting agriculture on the environment has been reassessed, highlighting the reduced impact on soil erosion and water quality, the capability in preserving high levels of agrobiodiversity and traditional knowledge, and in some cases also contributing to counteract large-scale deforestation, especially if local indigenous communities are involved in forest planning and management (Brown and Schreckenberg 1998 ; Jinggut et al. 2012 ; Hernandez Marentes et al. 2022 ; Shimrah et al. 2015 ).

Another major cause of deforestation at national level is related to mining activities, especially considering that a significant part of Indonesian unprotected forests falls within mining concessions (Giljum et al. 2022 ; Abood et al. 2015 ). Finally, anthropic expansion, including new buildings or new infrastructures can also represent a threat to Indonesian forests at local level, but with a reduced impact concerning the overall surface compared to the aforementioned causes.

Despite the cause, tropical deforestation has serious effects on different environmental and social aspects, both in the short and long term. Tropical deforestation is considered a major source of greenhouse gases (GHG) (Houghton 2005 ), and according to Olsson et al. ( 2019 ) tropical deforestation and forest degradation emit several tons of CO 2 /year. Tropical deforestation can lead to increase in surface temperature and a decrease in evapotranspiration and precipitation (Shukla et al. 1990 ), without considering the indirect effects caused by the emissions of new human activities. Deforestation means the shrinking of habitats for fauna and flora species, and therefore a significant loss of biodiversity (Symes et al. 2018 ; Enuoh and Ogogo 2018 ; Vijay et al. 2016 ), also at soil level (Franco et al. 2019 ). Soil, one of the most important natural resources, is also directly threatened by deforestation, partly due to the increased risks of erosion that can occur right after forest cutting where there is no vegetation that can intercept heavy tropical rains, and partly due to the opening of new logging roads combined with the use of heavy tractors and trucks that compact the soil making it more difficult for the water to infiltrate and therefore favouring runoff and erosion (Moisa et al. 2022 ; Mohammad and Adam 2010 ; Karamage et al. 2016 ). In addition, deforestation is also directly related to forest fires; as reported by Adrianto et al. ( 2019 ) for Riau Province, Indonesia, the shrub vegetation developed after a cutting has a fire frequency more than 60 times compared to the one of primary forest.

Finally, it is important to highlight that tropical deforestation has direct and indirect effects on the wellbeing and health of local communities. Large-scale forest loss contributes to rising temperatures at local and regional level and to increasing the occurrence of extreme weather events, that are considered important drivers of emerging infectious diseases (Ellwanger et al. 2020 ; Thomson and Stanberry 2022 ). According to studies conducted in Indonesia among rural farmers, these climatic modifications also affect the work conditions, increasing the unsafe work time and the all-cause mortality, as well as declining the cognitive performance of rural workers (Wolff et al. 2021 ; Masuda et al. 2020 ). Deforestation can favour the spread of malaria (Garg 2019 ), a disease that tends to disproportionately infect women during their first pregnancy, causing greater harm to children born from these pregnancies (Chakrabarti 2021 ).The following table (Table  1 ) summarizes the main causes and the direct and indirect effects of deforestation at national level.

Protected areas (PAs) can have a key role in counteracting deforestation, even if they are not exempt from illegal logging or burning to obtain areas for pasture and/or agriculture (Wade et al. 2020 ). According to Brun et al. ( 2015 ), who conducted a study on Indonesian PAs comparing remote sensing data of 2000 and 2010, PAs exclusively managed for biodiversity conservation were ineffective in slowing down deforestation rates. The same risk is described by Curran et al. ( 2004 ), who reported that Kalimantan PAs are becoming increasingly isolated, since their surrounding areas are more and more degraded and deforested. However, deforestation rates inside Sumatran PAs in the period 1990–2000 have been proved to be lower than adjacent unprotected areas or in the wider landscape, therefore providing an important contribution in preserving local forests (Brun et al. 2015 ). Other authors (Gaveau et al. 2007 ) highlighted that Sumatra PAs failed to slow down overall forest loss rates caused by agricultural encroachment, but have been effective in reducing large-scale mechanised logging and in favouring forest regrowth. Deforestation within Sulawesi PAs seems mainly caused by illegal logging of most valued tree species, and by the growing demand of some agricultural products (i.e. coffee and cocoa) with consequent agricultural encroachments by small-farmers, rather than by intensive oil palm plantations (Supriatna et al. 2020 ). In this regard, it has been proved both for Indonesia and other tropical countries, that forms of protection based on the active involvement of local rural communities, who are authorized to conduct some traditional agro-silvo-pastoral practices, are much more effective in counteracting large-scale deforestation, than PAs based on strict nature conservation (Paiva et al. 2020 ; Hernandez Marentes et al. 2022 ; Santika et al. 2017 ).

Other initiatives at the international or governmental level have been promoted in the last few years with the aim of reducing deforestation rates. The most important one at the international level is probably the REDD+ (Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries), that started in 2005 under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), with the aims of reducing GHGs and mitigating climate change through sustainable forest management and reducing deforestation. Various national agencies followed one another with regard to REDD+ issues, until 2020 with the establishment of the Environmental Fund Management Agency formed by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (Suroso et al. 2020 ). In 2012 Indonesian REDD+ Task Force released the REDD+ National Strategies to spread the aims, vision and strategies related to forest management. In this document, the sustainable forest management and an integrated planning approach involving forestry, agroforestry, agriculture, and mining are promoted to reduce the impact of deforestation and GHGs emissions (Indonesian REDD+ Task Force 2012 ). The use of specific subsidies for regional governments that fulfil the objectives of forests and peatlands sustainable management can also be important to balance the reduction of local governments revenues (Tacconi and Muttaqin 2019 ). The REDD+ initiative demonstrated that involving local communities, i.e. in mangrove forests conservation through payments for ecosystem services scheme or in strengthening the rights of indigenous people living inside or adjacent to forests, is a key factor for obtaining effective results (Fay and Denduangrudee 2018 ). Unfortunately, the active involvement of local communities is not yet widespread in Indonesia and especially when forests are directly managed by the state, local rural communities are not enough considered in forest planning and management. Despite this, virtuous examples have been reported, and initiatives as community-based forest management or ecotourism, can be a key-factor for REDD+ success at site level (Sidik et al. 2018 ). Overall, even if important results have been achieved, the REDD+ initiative seems to have only partly meet the initial expectations, and Indonesian forests continue to be threatened by several factors (Moeliono et al. 2020 ).

Considering the above, it is clear that deforestation in Indonesia continues to have major impacts both on the environment and on the social context. Many studies have been carried out in the last decades focusing on different aspects of deforestation in Indonesia. Some of them focused on a reduced time interval or only on specific islands or provinces, others were instead based on statistical data at national level, but without any spatial information or mapping of deforestation. Therefore, the study presented in this paper can contribute to fill some of the knowledge gaps, providing useful data for the understanding of the historical origin and evolution of deforestation in Indonesia at spatial level, comparing the findings outside and inside protected areas. In particular, the aims of our study are to:

Assess forest transformations occurred in the last 70 years at national and regional level, also according to the different altitude ranges.

Compare resulting spatial data inside and outside protected areas to assess their role in preserving the forest heritage from deforestation.

Identify the protected areas that actually have a higher degree of forest integrity.

Materials and methods

The study area.

Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelagic state with over 17,000 islands, the 14th largest country by area (1,904,569 km 2 ), and the 4th most populous country (over 275 million people). The climate of Indonesia is almost entirely constant, mainly thanks to the uniformly warm waters that surround the country. Temperature varies little from season to season, while the main variables are rainfall and altitude. According to the Köppen–Geiger climate classification (Kottek et al. 2006 ), most of the country is characterized by a Tropical rainforest climate (Af), followed by Tropical monsoon (Am) or Tropical savannah (Aw) climates. Few areas, corresponding to the ones located at higher altitudes, are instead characterized by oceanic climates and subtropical highland climates (Csb, Cwb, Cfb) between 1,500 and 3,500 m a.s.l., and by tundra (ET) or by Subpolar oceanic climate (Cfc) on the highest Papuan highlands and peaks above 3,500 m a.s.l.

The country is characterized by different types of forests, mainly depending on rainfall and altitude: mangrove forests along the coast, lowland tropical rainforests, and mountain forests in inland areas of Sumatra, Sulawesi, and Borneo. Peat swamp forests are instead found in the southern parts of Kalimantan and Sumatra, while the highest altitudes of Papua are occupied by subalpine and alpine vegetation (Tsujino et al. 2016 ). Soils too are very different one another, due to the morphological and climatic variability, and to the extension of the country.

Different sources have been used and compared to analyze the forest surface changes in the last 67 years.

Two different historical maps in raster format referring to the years 1950 and 1982 have been used as the basis for investigating the forest surfaces in the past. The oldest map with a sufficient level of detail about the vegetation types that is possible to find for all the country is the Vegetation Map of Indonesia published in 1950 and produced by the Planning Department of the Forest Service, under the supervision of L.W. Hannibal, with a scale 1:2,500,000; this map is available as a raster file on the website of the European Digital Archive of Soil Maps (EuDASM) ( https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/Eudasm/DVD/asia/lists/cid.htm ) (Selvaradjou et al. 2005 ). There are also some maps older than the 1950 one, but according to van Steenis ( 1958 ) they have to be considered inadequate or not precise both for the level of accuracy of the forest types’ identification and for the scale. Cornelis Gijsbert Gerrit Jan van Steenis was a Dutch botanist who substantially contributed to the knowledge of Southeast Asia vegetation. He also produced a Vegetation map of Malysia 1:5,000,000, published in 1958 for the UNESCO Humid Tropics Research Project. This map is really similar to the one of 1950, that according to van Steenis it is of a “greater precision” compared to the older ones; therefore, the 1950 Vegetation Map of Indonesia produced by the Planning Department of the Forest Service can be considered the more accurate and, at the same time, the older historical document mapping the different types of vegetation in Indonesia at national level.

The second map that has been used is the Land Use (Map 10) and 1982 Forest Classification, compiled in 1990 using different data sources, through a collaboration between Land Resources Department, Overseas Development Natural Resources Institute, United Kingdom and Bina Programme Directorate, Directorate General for Settlement Preparation, Department of Transmigration, Republic of Indonesia; this map has been downloaded in raster format from FAO online Map Catalogue.

Concerning the most recent spatial data of forest types in Indonesia, we used the forest types of 2017 provided by the Indonesian Kementerian Lingkungan Hidup dan Kehutanan (Ministry of Environment and Forestry) and downloaded as separate shapefiles from https://mapforenvironment.org/group/IndonesiaLandCover .

Regarding the forest type classification, each of the aforementioned maps have a different legend, that is based on different features (Table 2 ). I.e. the map of 1982 differentiate among the forest types on an altitudinal basis, while the 1950 map is based on general forest types. In addition, the 1950 Vegetation Map of Indonesia uses some symbols to characterize the forest type according to the main species, but since this data is not available for 1982 and 2017, it has been decided not to consider this additional level of detail. To avoid excessive simplification regarding the description of the forest types for each year, it has been decided not to carry out a reclassification of the legend; for the overlapping of the different years, instead, only the forest presence/absence has been considered, and “plantations” have been included among non-forest areas, as they mainly correspond to oil palm plantations and other tree plantations.

Regarding the presence of Protected Areas (PAs), the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) has been downloaded as shapefiles from ProtectedPlanet website for Indonesia, updated in November 2022 (UNEP-WCMC and IUCN 2022 ).

Country boundaries have been downloaded from GADM.org (Database of Global Administrative Areas) in November 2022. Islands less than 500 ha has been deleted from this shapefile, as no info about the forest type in historical maps was available for these territories. In addition, to present and analyze the results more clearly it has been decided to divide the national territory into 7 geographical zones, instead of presenting the results according to the 38 provinces (Fig.  1 ).

A Digital Terrain Model (DTM) with a resolution equal to about 230 m has been used for statistical elaborations of the results according to the altimetry. The DTM used is the Global Multi-resolution Terrain Elevation Data 2010 (GMTED2010), downloaded from EarthExplorer.usgs.gov and developed by the US Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). Each tile contains different geotiff files, including minimum elevation, maximum elevation, mean elevation, median elevation, and standard deviation of elevation. All the elaborations according to the altimetry have been performed using the mean elevation raster file.

The division in seven geographical zones used to present the results of the study

Methodology

The applied methodology is depicted in Fig.  2 .

The first step has been the georeferencing of the 1950 and 1982 maps into a GIS software; georeferencing has been manually made with the software QGIS 3.22.8. After this step, the two historical maps of 1950 and 1982 have been manually digitalized to obtain two vector files of the forest types. Not all the land uses have been digitalized, but only the ones related to forests and plantations, listed in Table  2 .

All the following spatial analyses have been performed with QGIS 3.22.3 and GRASS GIS 7. The three different layers referring to the three years (1950, 1982, 2017) have then been overlapped with the geographical division of Indonesia. To evaluate forest changes, the 1950, 1982, and 2017 forest surface layers have been intersected, allowing to identify the unchanged surface, the forest gain and the forest loss. The resulting shapefiles have then been clipped with the boundaries of the PAs to evaluate the differences regarding forest surface changes inside and outside them; the original PAs database has previously been modified, deleting the 196 features (on a total of 688) that were classified as maritime protected areas, and, since the aim of this study focuses on the presence of any kind of nature protection, all the remaining features have been merged in order to avoid overlapping among different types of PAs with similar boundaries in the same place.

Concerning the elaborations of the results according to the altimetry, the original DTM has been reclassified into elevation classes. Instead of dividing the territory in homogeneous classes with the same altitude, it has been decided to apply variable classes to facilitate the analysis of the results; in fact, after some attempts, it has been decided that the following variable altitude classes are the most suitable for representing the complex morphology and altimetry of the territory. The class altitudes are the following: 0–25 m a.s.l., 25–50 m a.s.l., 50–100 m a.s.l., 100–200 m a.s.l., 200–500 m a.s.l., 500–1000 m a.s.l., 1000–2000 m a.s.l., above 2000 m a.s.l. After that, the classified raster file has been transformed into a vector layer to perform spatial analyses with the forest types and the forest changes layers.

Scheme of the methodological approach

Some limitations related to the materials used during this research have been identified. Data resulting from GIS elaborations of historical maps must be used and understood considering possible causes of inaccuracy (Stäuble et al. 2008 ). The first cause is related to the historical maps themselves and to the fact that these maps have been created in different years and by different people. This means that maps were produced using different methodologies, level of detail, classification, spatial accuracy, tools and scientific knowledge; even the basic definition of forest may vary between different years. The period of the year in which field survey were performed can also be important, especially for tidal and mangrove forests or for places with distinct dry and wet seasons. A second problem can be related to georeferencing historical maps, as the perfect overlay is almost impossible, even using a high number of control points. To partly avoid this last problem, the original maps, in some cases, have been divided in smaller parts and georeferenced separately to obtain a more accurate georeferencing. Finally, also the manual digitalization of historical maps can represent another cause of inaccuracy if not performed at a suitable scale. Despite these limitations the use of historical maps is already largely assessed in studies dealing with changes of landscape and environment, representing crucial databases to investigate and understand the main trends through the centuries and the decades (Vellend et al. 2013 ). For the current research all the manually performed GIS elaborations have been carried out with the highest possible level of accuracy and precision.

Forests in 1950

In 1950, about 78.3% of the total national surface was covered by different types of forests. Most of the national territory was covered by primary rain forests (Table  3 ), that accounted for 45.3% of the national surface or 57.8% of the total forest surface. Swamp forests, that included mangrove areas, occupied 12.8% of the total surface, followed by forest reservation other than teak (9.9%) and by secondary forests (8.2%). Other forest surfaces were composed by teak forest reservations (0.5%) and tidal forests (1.6%), while plantations were at that time still limited to 1.2% of the national surface.

The distribution of the different forest types was not uniform within the country (Fig.  3 ). Primary rain forests were concentrated in Papua, Maluku islands, Sulawesi, Kalimantan and part of Sumatra, while they were really rare in Java and Bali. Secondary forests were mainly found in western Kalimantan, Nusa Tenggara and Sumatra, while swamp and tidal forests occupied smaller areas in the north-eastern part of Sumatra, and big portions of coastal Kalimantan and Papua. Areas classified as non-forest, corresponding to cultivations and grasslands, were mainly concentrated in Java and Bali (65.3%), in Nusa Tenggara (59.9%), and in the south-western part of Sulawesi. Plantations were mainly located in Sumatra, Java and Bali.

Map of the forest types for 1950

Forests in 1982

In 1982 about 63.8% of the total national surface was covered by different types of forests, most of them classified as lowland aseasonal forests (Table  4 ), that occupied 39.3% of the national surface, representing 61.7% of the total forest surface. According to the 1982 map, peat swamp forests were found on 9.6% of the national surface, followed by submontane and montane forests (7.7%) and by recently logged forests (2.5%). Other forest types were represented by mangrove and other tidal forests (2.4%) and by wetland forests (1.3%), while lowland aseasonal forests and coastal forests were limited to less than 1.1% of the total surface.

Lowland aseasonal forests were mainly located in Maluku (where they cover 70.1% of the surface), Papua (54.2%), Kalimantan (50.7%) and Sulawesi (44.2%) (Fig.  4 ). Peat swamp forests were also common, particularly in Papua (12.4%), Sumatra (13.6%) and Kalimantan (11.3%), while submontane and montane forests (above 1000 m a.s.l.) were mainly found in Papua (13.3%), Sulawesi (11.9%) and Sumatra (6.9%). Mangrove and other tidal forests were instead common along the coasts of Papua (where they cover 4.7% of the surface) and Maluku (3%). Areas classified as non-forest were mainly concentrated in Java and Bali (83%), in Nusa Tenggara (68.4%), and in the south-western part of Sulawesi and south Sumatra. Plantations were almost all concentrated in Java.

Map of the forest types for 1982

Forests in 2017

In 2017, the area with the highest percentage of forest cover was Papua (82%), followed by Maluku (64.3%) (Table  5 ). The most widespread forest types at national level corresponded to primary dry forests (20.8%) and to secondary dry forests (18.9%), both mainly located in Papua, where they represented, respectively, 47.1% and 16.4% of the total surface. Primary dry forests were also found in Kalimantan (17.7% of the surface) and Sulawesi (21% of the surface), while secondary dry forests were common in Maluku (50.6% of the surface), Sulawesi (27.1% of the surface), and Kalimantan (23.7% of the surface) (Fig.  5 ). Primary and secondary swamp forest accounted respectively for 2.7 and 3.1% of the national surface and were mainly located in Papua, where primary swamp forests occupied 4,876,615 ha, corresponding to 11.8% of the surface. Other forests were composed by primary and secondary mangrove forests, whose total surface was limited to 1.5% of the national territory. Plantations were also common, with a total surface corresponding to 8.2% of the national territory, especially in Sumatra (where they account for 18.7% of the total surface) and Kalimantan (10.5% of the total surface). Non forest areas in 2017 were found on 44.9% of the national inland territory, primarily corresponding to cultivations and grasslands, and were mainly located in Java and Bali where they reached 90.7% of the surface, in Nusa Tenggara (58.7%), in the southern part of Sulawesi and Sumatra, and in the southern, eastern, and western parts of Kalimantan.

Map of the forest types for 2017

Forest changes in the period 1950–2017 inside and outside protected areas

The intersect of the layers of 1950 and 2017 allowed to obtain spatial data about the changes that involved forests in the last 67 years, while the overlay with PAs boundaries provide data about the role of protected areas, allowing to compare the forest changes inside and outside PAs.

Data at national level highlight that 35% of the national territory (over 66 million of hectares) has been affected by deforestation in the last 67 years, at an average rate of around 985,200 ha/year. In addition, considering the two different time intervals (1950–1982, 1982–2017), deforestation rates are really similar, highlighting no big differences at national level between “old” and “recent” deforestation.

Significant discrepancies can instead be found between the different geographical zones (Fig.  6 ). In Sumatra deforestation occurred on 52.8% of the territory at an average rate of 372,300 ha/year, followed by Kalimantan (40%, 319,400 ha/year) and Sulawesi (33%, 91,500 ha/year). Papua is the zone that still preserves the highest percentage of “original forest”, as 78.9% of its territory was classified as forest both in 1950 and in 2017, but even if the percentage of the total surface affected by deforestation is the lowest among the different geographical zones, it anyhow corresponds to 16.3% of the total surface, equal to 6.7 million of hectares, with an average rate of 100,450 ha/year (Figs.  6 and 7 ). The situation is quite different in Java and Bali, as in 1950 most of the surface was already devoted to agriculture, but the study demonstrated that deforestation continued even in the last 67 years also in this part of the country; in fact, only 4.8% of the surface was classified as forest both in 1950 and in 2017. The only part of the country where the comparison highlighted an overall increase in the forest surface is Nusa Tenggara, since 22.2% of its territory falls under the classification “forest gain”; despite this data can partly be explained with the use of different historical sources produced with different methodologies, it is necessary to consider that 21% of the surface of this area is anyhow affected by deforestation.

Forest surface changes for the period 1950–1982–2017 in the different geographical zones

Map of the forest changes for the period 1950–2017

Considering the altimetry, results highlight a clear trend at national level, with most of deforestation concentrated at lower altitudes and greater conservation of forest resources at higher altitudes, especially above 500 m a.s.l. In particular, only 19.5% of the national surface below 25 m a.s.l. preserves the forest surface of 1950, while 54.3% has been affected by deforestation. Going up in altitude, this percentage decrease to 45.1% in the range 25–50 m a.s.l., to 45.5% in the range 50–100 m a.s.l., to 34.1 in the range 100–200 m a.s.l., and to 19.6% in the range 200–500 m a.s.l. Above 500 m a.s.l. the percentage of the territory affected by deforestation is comprised between 14.1% and 15.4%, while the percentage of territory that is classified as forest both in 1950 and 2017 is between 61.7 and 72.6%. Moreover, it is interesting to notice that the in the altitude range 500–2000 m a.s.l. around 5% of the surface is occupied by new forest surfaces, while in the class above 2000 m a.s.l. this percentage rise up to 14.1%. The only area that do not follows this trend is the one of Java and Bali (and partly of Nusa Tenggara too), as deforestation is mainly located in the range 200–1000 m as.l., due to the fact that in 1950 the areas at lower altitudes were already deforested and turned into agricultural surface to support a particularly significant population growth (Fig. 8 ).

Graph of the forest changes for the period 1950–2017 according to altimetry classes

According to the November 2022 update of the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA), Indonesian terrestrial PAs occupy a total surface of 21,665,522 ha, corresponding to 11.5% of the national terrestrial surface (Fig.  9 ). The percentage of total protected territory affected by deforestation in the period 1950–2017 is equal to 18.8% (with an average rate of 60,684 ha/year), that is a significantly lower value respect to the ones measured for the areas outside PAs (37.1%, average rate equal to 924,544 ha/year). However, this data does not seem to respect the evident differences at local level regarding the percentage of territory affected by deforestation inside and outside PAs. In most cases, the percentage of territory affected by deforestation is significantly lower inside PAs compared to what happened outside PAs, especially in Sumatra (21.5% in PAs and 56.5% outside PAs), Sulawesi (14.1% in PAs and 35% outside PAs), Maluku (8.3% in PAs and 27.8% outside PAs) and Kalimantan (22.1% in PAs and 41.8% outside PAs) (Table  6 ). In Papua and Nusa Tenggara these percentages are instead similar, while in Java and Bali the percentage of territory affected by deforestation inside PAs is higher than the one measured outside PAs (25.4% inside PAs and 24.4% outside PAs), probably due to the fact that the territory outside PAs was largely classified as non-forests already in 1950.

Comparing deforestation rates in PAs of the two different periods (1950–2017), it is interesting to notice that for all the geographical zones, this rate is always higher in the last 35 years, with an average value at national level equal to 84,216 ha/year.

Results of the forest changes assessment in the period 1982–2017 also allowed to identify the PAs with a high level of forest integrity (all the PAs has been established after 1980), as well as those where deforestation occurred with high intensity (Fig.  9 ). Considering only the National Parks, the ones presenting lower deforestation rates in the last 35 years are the following: Kayan Mentarang NP, Betung Kerihun NP, Bukit Baka - Bukit Raya NP (Kalimantan); Bogani Nani Wartabone NP, Lore Lindu NP, Ganda Dewata NP (Sulawesi); Aketajawe Lolobata NP, Manusela NP (Maluku); Alas Purwo NP (Java); Kelimutu NP (Nusa Tenggara); Kerinci Seblat NP, Bukit Tiga Puluh NP, Bukit Dua Belas NP, Siberut NP (Sumatra). On the contrary, the National Parks with highest deforestation rates in the period 1982–2017, are: Danau Sentarum NP, Sebangau NP, Tanjung Puting NP, Kutai NP (Kalimantan); Rawa Aopa Watumohai NP (Sulawesi); Gunung Merapi NP, Gunung Merbabu NP, Gunung Halimun - Salak NP (Java); Gunung Rinjani NP (Nusa Tenggara); Tesso Nilo NP, Berbak NP, Gunung Maras NP, Way Kambas NP (Sumatra). It is also interesting to notice that deforestation in various National Parks follows a regular pattern, clearly starting from the borders.

Map of the forest changes for the period 1950–2017 within Protected Areas

The present research provided reliable spatial data regarding forest surface transformations in Indonesia in the last 67 years, demonstrating that deforestation is still the main threat for Indonesian forests. Indonesia, as other Southeast Asian countries is experiencing fast land cover changes, therefore, it is crucial to monitor these changes at various scale through spatial analysis for more accurate environmental planning and conservation (Miettinen et al. 2016 ).

According to Mackinnon ( 1997 ) almost all the total terrestrial area was originally forested, and local population started to cut the forest to enlarge the cultivable area in different periods in the different parts of the country. According to the present study, in 1950 forests occupied 78.3% of the total terrestrial surface, a percentage close to the one reported by Tsujino et al. ( 2016 ) for the same year (83.5% of total land area), considering that in our case plantations have not been included among forests. Since in 1982 the total forest cover has been found to be equal to 63.8%, it is evident that large scale deforestation started immediately after WWII in most of the country and not in the last three decades, but with significant differences among different areas. Until the ‘50s most of the lowland rainforests were still managed through manually selective cutting practices that probably had reduced impact on forest regeneration (Kartawinata et al. 2001 ), even if this management form can modify the species composition in the long term.

An exception is represented by Java and Bali, as this study demonstrated that already in 1950 forest occupied only 29.2% of their total surface. Around 1930, population density in Java was already high (313 person/km 2 ) compared to the other big Indonesian islands, where it was less than 25 person/km 2 , and, therefore, there was the need to increase rice production to feed the population, cutting large areas of primary forests (Nawiyanto 2015 ; Darmayanti 2023 ). In fact, according to Boomgaard ( 1999 ), deforestation of mountain slopes in Java started to be perceived as a problem already around 1850, leading to the establishment of a colonial Forest Service and to the creation of protected forests. Java, at that time, represented an isolated but significant case due to its population density, while large-scale deforestation has a more recent origin in the rest of the country (Smiet 1990 ). Despite most of the surface was already devoted to agriculture, after 1950 deforestation in Java continued with high intensity, representing one of the main environmental problems at local level, especially due to the consequences on erosion, landslides and soil loss (Haryadi and Andarwati 2019 ). Forests in Java are largely fragmented and lower-altitude forests already disappeared decades ago as demonstrated by our study, but according to Higginbottom et al. ( 2019 ) deforestation within Javan protected areas greatly decreased in the last 20 years, almost ceasing after 2007.

It is also necessary to consider that, in the past, deforestation, as in most tropical and subtropical countries, was related to the demand of local population for agricultural land, firewood, charcoal, timbers and housing materials (Dagnachew et al. 2020 ), while in the last two decades a big portion of deforestation has been caused by the spread of industrial oil palm plantations, and partly also by mining activities. In addition, in the period 2014 and 2016 small-scale farming was responsible of more than one-quarter of all deforestation, a trend common to all Southeast Asia, where deforestation caused by smallholder agriculture is accelerating due to the rapid population growth (Seymour and Harris 2019 ).

At national level, as part of the REDD+ initiative, Indonesia launched a forest moratorium in 2011 to suspend the granting of new concession for logging, oil palm and wood fibre concessions within designated areas with the aim of reducing deforestation and CO 2 emissions. The moratorium, initially planned for two years, was renovated until it became permanent in 2019. The percentage of the total national terrestrial surface affected by the moratorium was initially around 34–35%, and mainly focused on conservation and protection of peatlands and primary forests, as designated by the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry (Murdiyarso et al. 2011 ). Even if the moratorium increased the pressure on forests excluded from this type of initiative, good results have been achieved, that could be further improved considering the recent ban on new licenses for oil palm plantations imposed by the Indonesian government for a period of three years (Leijten et al. 2021 ). In the period 2001–2016 oil palm plantations had been responsible of 23% of total large-scale deforestation in Indonesia (Austin et al. 2019 ), but with significant differences from one region to another (Meijaard et al. 2020 ), as demonstrated by this study, without considering that industrial oil palm plantations rarely bring direct benefits to rural communities, especially to the ones living near or adjacent primary forests (Santika et al. 2019 ). Since 2017, the combination of the moratorium, of the decrease in oil palm price and of the increased awareness among consumers, caused a slowing down of deforestation associated to industrial plantations (Gaveau et al. 2019 , 2022 ). Despite this positive trend, oil palm price has doubled since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and its demand is expected to increase (Shigetomi et al. 2020 ; Leijten et al. 2021 ).

According to the findings of our study, the areas where deforestation is proceeding at higher rates are Sumatra island (356,100 ha/year) and Kalimantan (303,360 ha/year) as also confirmed by Nikonovas et al. ( 2020 ), who reported that the Sumatra and Kalimantan islands, home to the majority of Indonesia’s carbon-rich peatlands, have been particularly affected by loss and degradation of primary forests. A large part of deforestation has been due to the spread of plantations, occurring at an average rate of 197,079 ha/year (+ 563%).

Despite these particularly high rates of deforestation, our study demonstrated that deforestation rates are significantly lower within PAs, especially in some parts of the country (Sumatra, Sulawesi, Maluku, Kalimantan), as the percentage of surface affected by deforestation within PAs is often the half comparted to the percentage outside PAs. This is also confirmed by other studies; in 1990–2000 deforestation rates inside Sumatran PAs have found to be lower compared to adjacent unprotected areas or to the wider landscape, even if deforestation and logging have not ceased within Sumatran PAs (Gaveau et al. 2009 ). Previous studies also reported that protection measures partly contributed to reducing large-scale mechanized logging and to stabilize agricultural encroachments enabling forest re-growth in Sumatra (Gaveau et al. 2007 ). Reducing forest fragmentation at the landscape level is also crucial to (re)connect different habitats and to preserve ecological corridors for local fauna (Poor et al. 2019 ).

Conclusions

The first group of Indonesian National Parks was established in 1980, just before the intermediate reference year that has been considered in this study, and at least 20–25 years after the beginning of large-scale deforestation in most of the country. Our research confirmed the important role of PAs in slowing down deforestation rates compared to the situation outside PAs, especially in some parts of the country where plantations, mainly of oil palms, have spread extensively in the last three decades. Results also proved that PAs are not exempt from deforestation, even in the last 30 years, especially due to the deforestation starting from the margins eroding the forests located along the border with the area outside PAs. Therefore, along with the strengthening of PAs, there is a need to apply an effective sustainable forest management also to the forests not included in the PAs system and to those located along their borders. The recent trend of promoting at national level both social forestry and community-based forest management, seems to have positive effects in improving community well-being, promoting sustainable forest management, and reducing overexploitation of natural resources (Erbaugh 2019 ; Putraditama et al. 2019 ). In addition, particular attention should be paid to the areas at lower altitudes, where deforestation occurs with higher intensity, especially along the coasts, where mangrove and other tidal forests have a key role also in protecting coastlines from erosion, as well as representing unique ecosystems.

The applied methodology, despite the limitations already highlighted due to comparing different sources produced with different procedures, allowed to provide reliable spatial data on forest surface transformations in Indonesia in the last 67 years and regarding the role of Protected Areas. The big amount of produced data at regional level have led to the identification of the most vulnerable areas and of the ones that are still rich in forest integrity and associated biodiversity. Further studies at local level or focusing on specific PAs, could help in linking different forest management strategies with deforestation, contributing to the identification of possible solutions that can be replicated for a sustainable management of national forest resources and for their preservation towards future generations. This research can be considered as a starting point for such studies, and, at the same time, can help in the identification of those management approaches that have been most successful in protecting forest areas, those that most contributed to forest loss mitigation.

Abood SA, Lee JSH, Burivalova Z, Garcia-Ulloa J, Koh LP (2015) Relative contributions of the logging, fiber, oil palm, and mining industries to forest loss in Indonesia. Conserv Lett 8(1):58–67. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12103

Article   Google Scholar  

Adrianto HA, Spracklen DV, Arnold SR, Sitanggang IS, Syaufina L (2019) Forest and land fires are mainly associated with deforestation in Riau province, Indonesia. Remote Sens 12(1):3. https://doi.org/10.3390/RS12010003

Austin KG, Schwantes A, Gu Y, Kasibhatla PS (2019) What causes deforestation in Indonesia? Environ Res Lett 14(2):024007. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaf6db

Boomgaard P (1999) Oriental nature, its friends and its enemies: conservation of nature in late-colonial Indonesia, 1889–1949. Environ Hist 5(3):257–292. https://doi.org/10.3197/096734099779568245

Article   CAS   Google Scholar  

Brown D, Schreckenberg K (1998) Shifting cultivators as agents of deforestation: assessing the evidence. Overseas Development Institute, London

Google Scholar  

Brun C, Cook AR, Lee JSH, Wich SA, Koh LP, Carrasco LR (2015) Analysis of deforestation and protected area effectiveness in Indonesia: a comparison of bayesian spatial models. Glob Environ Change 31:285–295. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2015.02.004

Carlson KM, Curran LM, Asner GP, Pittman AM, Trigg SN, Marion Adeney J (2013) Carbon emissions from forest conversion by kalimantan oil palm plantations. Nat Clim Change 3(3):283–287. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1702

Chakrabarti A (2021) Deforestation and infant mortality: evidence from Indonesia. Econ Hum Biol 40:100943. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ehb.2020.100943

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Curran LM, Trigg SN, McDonald AK, Astiani D, Hardiono YM, Siregar P, Kasischke E (2004) Lowland forest loss in protected areas of Indonesian Borneo. Science 303(5660):1000–1003. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1091714

Article   CAS   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Dagnachew M, Kebede A, Moges A, Abebe A (2020) Land use land cover changes and its drivers in Gojeb river catchment, Omo Gibe basin, Ethiopia. J Agric Environ Int Dev (JAEID) 114(1):33–56. https://doi.org/10.12895/jaeid.20201.842

Darmayanti AF (2023) The impact of deforestation on community lives in Mojowarno, Jombang 1854–1930. Embracing new perspectives in history, social sciences, and education. Routledge, London, UK, pp 69–73

Ellwanger JH, Kulmann-Leal B, Kaminski VL, Valverde-Villegas JM, Veiga ABG, Spilki FR, Chies JAB (2020) Beyond diversity loss and climate change: impacts of amazon deforestation on infectious diseases and public health. Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências. https://doi.org/10.1590/0001-3765202020191375

Enuoh OO, Ogogo AU (2018) Assessing tropical deforestation and biodiversity loss in the cross river rainforest of Nigeria. Open J For 8(3):393–408. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojf.2018.83025

Erbaugh JT (2019) Responsibilization and social forestry in Indonesia. For Policy Econ 109:102019. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2019.102019

Fay C, Denduangrudee HMS (2018) An uneven path toward rights and REDD+ in Indonesia. background paper. Center for Global Development, Washington DC

Franco AL, Sobral BW, Silva AL, Wall DH (2019) Amazonian deforestation and soil biodiversity. Conserv Biol 33(3):590–600. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.13234

Garg T (2019) Ecosystems and human health: the local benefits of forest cover in Indonesia. J Environ Econ Manag 98:102271. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2019.102271

Gaveau DL, Wandono H, Setiabudi F (2007) Three decades of deforestation in southwest Sumatra: have protected areas halted forest loss and logging, and promoted re-growth? Biol Conserv 134(4):495–504. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2006.08.035

Gaveau DL, Epting J, Lyne O, Linkie M, Kumara I, Kanninen M, Leader-Williams N (2009) Evaluating whether protected areas reduce tropical deforestation in Sumatra. J Biogeogr 36(11):2165–2175. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2009.02147.x

Gaveau DL, Locatelli B, Salim MA, Yaen H, Pacheco P, Sheil D (2019) Rise and fall of forest loss and industrial plantations in Borneo (2000–2017). Conserv Lett 12(3):e12622. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12622

Gaveau DL, Locatelli B, Salim MA, Manurung T, Descals A, Angelsen A, Sheil D (2022) Slowing deforestation in Indonesia follows declining oil palm expansion and lower oil prices. PLoS ONE 17(3):e0266178. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266178

Article   CAS   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Giljum S, Maus V, Kuschnig N, Luckeneder S, Tost M, Sonter LJ, Bebbington AJ (2022) A pantropical assessment of deforestation caused by industrial mining. Proc Natl Acad Sci. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.211827311

Article   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Haryadi FT, Andarwati S (2019) The roles of religion in participatory development communication in the environmental issues in Indonesia. J Agric Environ Int Dev (JAEID) 113(2):171–180. https://doi.org/10.12895/jaeid.20192.887

Hernandez Marentes MA, Venturi M, Scaramuzzi S, Focacci M, Santoro A (2022) Traditional forest-related knowledge and agrobiodiversity preservation: the case of the chagras in the indigenous reserve of Monochoa (Colombia). Biodivers Conserv 31(10):2243–2258. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-021-02263-y

Higginbottom TP, Collar NJ, Symeonakis E, Marsden SJ (2019) Deforestation dynamics in an endemic-rich mountain system: conservation successes and challenges in west Java 1990–2015. Biol Conserv 229:152–159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2018.11.017

Houghton RA (2005) Tropical deforestation as a source of greenhouse gas emissions. Trop deforestation Clim change, 13

Indonesian REDD+ task force, (2012) REDD+ national strategy. Indonesia REDD+ task force, Jakarta, Indonesia

Jinggut T, Yule CM, Boyero L (2012) Stream ecosystem integrity is impaired by logging and shifting agriculture in a global megadiversity center (Sarawak, Borneo). Sci Total Environ 437:83–90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2012.07.062

Karamage F, Shao H, Chen X, Ndayisaba F, Nahayo L, Kayiranga A, Zhang C (2016) Deforestation effects on soil erosion in the Lake Kivu Basin, DR Congo-Rwanda. Forests 7(11):281. https://doi.org/10.3390/f7110281

Kartawinata K, Riswan S, Gintings AN, Puspitojati T (2001) An overview of post-extraction secondary forests in Indonesia. J Trop For Sci 13:621–638

Kottek M, Grieser J, Beck C, Rudolf B, Rubel F (2006) World map of the Köppen-Geiger climate classification updated. Meteorol Z 15:259–263. https://doi.org/10.1127/0941-2948/2006/0130

Lawrence D, Radel C, Tully K, Schmook B, Schneider L (2010) Untangling a decline in tropical forest resilience: constraints on the sustainability of shifting cultivation across the globe. Biotropica 42(1):21–30. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-7429.2009.00599.x

Leijten F, Sim S, King H, Verburg PH (2021) Local deforestation spillovers induced by forest moratoria: evidence from Indonesia. Land Use Policy 109:105690. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2021.105690

Mackinnon J (1997) Protected areas systems review of the Indo-Malayan realm. Asian Bureau for Conservation, Canterbury

Margono BA, Potapov PV, Turubanova S, Stolle F, Hansen MC (2014) Primary forest cover loss in Indonesia over 2000–2012. Nat Clim Change 4(8):730–735. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2277

Masuda YJ, Garg T, Anggraeni I, Wolff NH, Ebi K, Game ET, …, Spector JT (2020) Heat exposure from tropical deforestation decreases cognitive performance of rural workers: an experimental study. Environ Res Lett 15(12):124015. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abb96c

Meijaard E, Brooks TM, Carlson KM, Slade EM, Garcia-Ulloa J, Gaveau DL, Sheil D (2020) The environmental impacts of palm oil in context. Nat plants 6(12):1418–1426. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-020-00813-w

Miettinen J, Shi C, Liew SC (2016) 2015 land cover map of southeast Asia in 250 m spatial resolution. Remote Sens Lett 7:701–710. https://doi.org/10.1080/2150704X.2016.1182659

Moeliono M, Brockhaus M, Gallemore C, Dwisatrio B, Maharani CD, Muharrom E, Pham TT (2020) REDD+ in Indonesia: a new mode of governance or just another project? For Policy Econ 121:102316. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2020.102316

Mohammad AG, Adam MA (2010) The impact of vegetative cover type on runoff and soil erosion under different land uses. CATENA 81(2):97–103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2010.01.008

Moisa MB, Dejene IN, Hirko O, Gemeda DO (2022) Impact of deforestation on soil erosion in the highland areas of western Ethiopia using geospatial techniques: a case study of the upper anger watershed. Asia Pac J Reg Sci. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41685-022-00238-7

Murdiyarso D, Dewi S, Lawrence D, Seymour F (2011) Indonesia’s forest moratorium: a stepping stone to better forest governance? CIFOR, Bogor

Myers N (1992) Tropical forests: the policy challenge. Environmentalist 12(1):15–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01267592

Nawiyanto N (2015) Forest resources exploitation and its impact in the extreme salient of java, 1870–1970. Tawarikh, 6(2)

Nikonovas T, Spessa A, Doerr SH, Clay GD, Mezbahuddin S (2020) Near-complete loss of fire-resistant primary tropical forest cover in Sumatra and Kalimantan. Commun Earth Environ 1(1):65. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-020-00069-4

Olsson L, Barbosa H, Bhadwal S, Cowie A, Delusca K, Flores-Renteria D, Stringer L (2019) Land degradation: IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land 5 degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and 6 greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems. IPCC Special report on climate change, Desertification, Land 5 degradation, sustainable land management, Food security, and 6 Greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems. Intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC), Geneva, p 1

Paiva PFPR, de Lourdes Pinheiro Ruivo M, da Silva Júnior OM, de Nazaré Martins Maciel M, Braga TGM, de Andrade MMN, Ferreira BM (2020) Deforestation in protect areas in the amazon: a threat to biodiversity. Biodivers Conserv 29(1):19–38. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-019-01867-9

Pendrill F, Gardner TA, Meyfroidt P, Persson UM, Adams J, Azevedo T, West C (2022) Disentangling the numbers behind agriculture-driven tropical deforestation. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abm9267

Petersen R, Goldman ED, Harris N, Sargent S, Aksenov D, Manisha A, Kurakina I (2016) Mapping tree plantations with multispectral imagery: preliminary results for seven tropical countries. World Resources Institute, Washington DC, p 525

Poor EE, Frimpong E, Imron MA, Kelly MJ (2019) Protected area effectiveness in a sea of palm oil: a Sumatran case study. Biol Conserv 234:123–130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2019.03.018

Putraditama A, Kim YS, Meador AJS (2019) Community forest management and forest cover change in Lampung, Indonesia. For Policy Econ 106:101976. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2019.101976

Santika T, Meijaard E, Budiharta S, Law EA, Kusworo A, Hutabarat JA, Wilson KA (2017) Community forest management in Indonesia: avoided deforestation in the context of anthropogenic and climate complexities. Glob Environ Change 46:60–71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2017.08.002

Santika T, Wilson KA, Budiharta S, Law EA, Poh TM, Ancrenaz M, Meijaard E (2019) Does oil palm agriculture help alleviate poverty? a multidimensional counterfactual assessment of oil palm development in Indonesia. World Dev 120:105–117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2019.04.012

Selvaradjou S-K, Montanarella L, Spaargaren O, Dent D (2005) European digital archive of soil maps (EuDASM)-soil maps of asia. Office of the Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg

Seymour F, Harris NL (2019) Reducing tropical deforestation. Science 365(6455):756–757. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aax8546

Shigetomi Y, Ishimura Y, Yamamoto Y (2020) Trends in global dependency on the indonesian palm oil and resultant environmental impacts. Sci Rep 10(1):1–11. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-77458-4

Shimrah T, Rao KS, Saxena KG (2015) The shifting agricultural system (Jhum) and strategies for sustainable agroecosystems in northeast India. Agroecol Sustain Food Syst 39(10):1154–1171. https://doi.org/10.1080/21683565.2015.1089350

Shukla J, Nobre C, Sellers P (1990) Amazon deforestation and climate change. Science 247(4948):1322–1325. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.247.4948.1322

Sidik F, Supriyanto B, Krisnawati H, Muttaqin MZ (2018) Mangrove conservation for climate change mitigation in Indonesia. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Clim Change 9(5):e529. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.529

Singh M, Yan S (2021) Spatial–temporal variations in deforestation hotspots in Sumatra and Kalimantan from 2001–2018. Ecol Evol 11(12):7302–7314. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7562

Smiet AC (1990) Forest ecology on java: conversion and usage in a historical perspective. J Trop For Sci 2:286–302

Stäuble S, Martin S, Reynard E (2008) Historical mapping for landscape reconstruction. Examples from the Canton of Valais (Switzerland). In Mountain mapping and visualisation: 6th ICA mountain cartography workshop, 11–15 feb. 2008, Lenk (pp. 211–217)

Supriatna J, Shekelle M, Fuad HA, Winarni NL, Dwiyahreni AA, Farid M, Zakaria Z (2020) Deforestation on the indonesian island of Sulawesi and the loss of primate habitat. Global Ecol Conserv 24:e01205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2020.e01205

Suroso DS, Setiawan B, Pradono SP, Fitriyanto MS (2020) Cross-country study of Indonesia green sukuk and REDD. Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia

Symes WS, Edwards DP, Miettinen J, Rheindt FE, Carrasco LR (2018) Combined impacts of deforestation and wildlife trade on tropical biodiversity are severely underestimated. Nat Commun 9(1):1–9. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-06579-2

Tacconi L, Muttaqin MZ (2019) Reducing emissions from land use change in Indonesia: an overview. For Policy Econ 108:101979. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2019.101979

Thomson MC, Stanberry LR (2022) Climate change and vectorborne diseases. N Engl J Med 387(21):1969–1978. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMra2200092

Tsujino R, Yumoto T, Kitamura S, Djamaluddin I, Darnaedi D (2016) History of forest loss and degradation in Indonesia. Land Use Policy 57:335–347. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.05.034

Turubanova S, Potapov PV, Tyukavina A, Hansen MC (2018) Ongoing primary forest loss in Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Indonesia. Environ Res Lett 13(7):074028. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aacd1c

UNEP-WCMC and IUCN (2022) Protected planet: The world database on protected areas (WDPA) and world database on other effective area-based conservation measures (WD-OECM). UNEP-WCMC and IUCN, Cambridge. Available at: www.protectedplanet.net

van Steenis CGG (1958) Concise outline of Malaysian vegetation mapping and literature. In Humid tropics research—study of tropical vegetation. Proc. of the kandy Symposium. UNESCO (pp. 68–73)

Vellend M, Brown CD, Kharouba HM, McCune JL, Myer-Smith IH (2013) Historical ecology: using unconventional data sources to test for effects of global environmental change. Am J Bot 100(7):1294–1305. https://doi.org/10.3732/ajb.1200503

Vijay V, Pimm SL, Jenkins CN, Smith SJ (2016) The impacts of oil palm on recent deforestation and biodiversity loss. PLoS ONE 11(7):e0159668. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0159668

Wade CM, Austin KG, Cajka J, Lapidus D, Everett KH, Galperin D, Sobel A (2020) What is threatening forests in protected areas? a global assessment of deforestation in protected areas, 2001–2018. Forests 11(5):539. https://doi.org/10.3390/f11050539

Wolff NH, Zeppetello LRV, Parsons LA, Aggraeni I, Battisti DS, Ebi KL, Spector JT (2021) The effect of deforestation and climate change on all-cause mortality and unsafe work conditions due to heat exposure in Berau, Indonesia: a modelling study. Lancet Planet Health 5(12):e882–e892. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(21)00279-5

Download references

Acknowledgements

Authors want to thank Dr. Jukka Miettinen and Dr. Soo Chin Liew for having shared their 2015 land cover map of Southeast Asia in 250 m spatial resolution.

Open access funding provided by Università degli Studi di Firenze within the CRUI-CARE Agreement. The authors have not disclosed any funding.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry (DAGRI), University of Florence, via San Bonaventura 13, 50145, Florence, Italy

Antonio Santoro & Francesco Piras

Department of Landscape Architecture, Huazhong Agricultural University, No.1 Shizishan Street, Hongshan District, Wuhan, 430070, China

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

Conceptualization AS and FP; methodology AS, FP and QY; software QY and FP; writing AS, FP and QY; supervision AS.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Antonio Santoro .

Ethics declarations

Competing interest.

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Communicated by Mauro Agnoletti.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Santoro, A., Piras, F. & Yu, Q. Spatial analysis of deforestation in Indonesia in the period 1950–2017 and the role of protected areas. Biodivers Conserv (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-023-02679-8

Download citation

Received : 05 June 2023

Revised : 28 June 2023

Accepted : 02 July 2023

Published : 17 July 2023

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-023-02679-8

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Deforestation
• Protected areas
• Primary forests
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

• DOI: 10.29259/jep.v19i2.15530
• Corpus ID: 246855478

Does Trade Openness Cause Deforestation? A Case Study from Indonesia

• A. Kustanto
• Published in Jurnal Ekonomi Pembangunan 14 February 2022
• Environmental Science, Economics

Tables from this paper

4 Citations

Deforestation-induced the ekc framework: the role of corruption control and trade openness in southeast asia, corruption, development, and deforestation: an evidence from southeast asian countries, the effect of governance on industrial wastewater pollution in china, contributions to the flora of tropical east africa, 97 references, trade policies, economic growth, and the direct causes of deforestation, relationship between openness to trade and deforestation: : empirical evidence from the brazilian amazon.

• Highly Influential

Migration and deforestation in Indonesia

Oil curse, economic growth and trade openness, the effect of trade openness on deforestation: empirical analysis for 142 countries, economic models of tropical deforestation: a review., does free trade increase deforestation the effects of regional trade agreements, trade openness, economic growth and competitiveness. the case of the central and eastern european countries, poverty reduction saves forests sustainably: lessons for deforestation policies, environmental kuznets curve for deforestation: evidence using gmm estimation for oecd and non-oecd regions, related papers.

Showing 1 through 3 of 0 Related Papers

• https://theoejwilson.com/
• https://kemahasiswaan.gentiaras.ac.id/gslot/
• http://ept-fkip.unpak.ac.id/course/play77/
• garuda slot
• https://edujournals.net/
• https://rsudpurihusada.inhilkab.go.id/sthai/
• https://moodlesisschools.academiaerp.com/
• https://sidata.baketrans.kemenhub.go.id/script/scor/
• https://mitrasehatjurnal.com/
• https://tbio.ftk.uinjambi.ac.id/sbonanza/index.php

JOURNAL MENU

We are proudly.

COOPERATION WITH

• Other Journals

SUBMIT PAPER

JEP VISITORS

VISITORS STATISTIC

View My Visitors Stats

• Announcements

The PDF file you selected should load here if your Web browser has a PDF reader plug-in installed (for example, a recent version of Adobe Acrobat Reader ).

If you would like more information about how to print, save, and work with PDFs, Highwire Press provides a helpful Frequently Asked Questions about PDFs .

Alternatively, you can download the PDF file directly to your computer, from where it can be opened using a PDF reader. To download the PDF, click the Download link above.

Fullscreen Fullscreen Off

• There are currently no refbacks.

Jurnal Ekonomi Pembangunan Jalan Raya Palembang-Prabumulih Km. 32 Jurusan Ekonomi Pembangunan, Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Sriwijaya Indralaya, Sumatera Selatan, Indonesia Email: [email protected], Tel/Fax : (0711)580231

p-ISSN: 1829-5843 , e-ISSN  2685-0788

Jurnal Ekonomi Pembangunan by  http://ejournal.unsri.ac.id/index.php/jep  

is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.   

Jurnal Ekonomi Pembangunan  is Indexed by:

We apologize for the inconvenience...

To ensure we keep this website safe, please can you confirm you are a human by ticking the box below.

If you are unable to complete the above request please contact us using the below link, providing a screenshot of your experience.

https://ioppublishing.org/contacts/

• Email This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
• Climate Change
• Policy & Economics
• Biodiversity
• Conservation

Get focused newsletters especially designed to be concise and easy to digest

• ESSENTIAL BRIEFING 3 times weekly
• TOP STORY ROUNDUP Once a week
• MONTHLY OVERVIEW Once a month
• Enter your email *
• Name This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Vanishing Act: Deforestation in Indonesia

Reconfigured by chaotic geologic processes over millions of years, Indonesia’s verdant landscape has come to exist as a universe of its own. Its tens of thousands of species find a home above, below, and within the canopy of the forests that span 921 thousand square kilometres , or 49% of the total land area. The forests transcend the archipelago’s cultural and geographic boundaries, assuming identities that range from mangroves that serve as a buffer against coastal erosion to peat swamps with the capacity to store 30% more carbon than the country’s entire forest biomass, making them a stabilising anchor for climate dynamics. They are also the lifeline for Indonesia’s communities and industries. But rampant deforestation in Indonesia, brought on by a complicated web of elements, threatens to throw the delicate balance of the world’s ecosystems off-kilter.

Deforestation in Indonesia

One tree at the time.

While the extent of Indonesia’s original forest cover eludes precise quantification, the country was still almost entirely enveloped in a sea of green at the start of the last century . A mapping exercise conducted by the Indonesian Forest Service in 1950 established that forest cover (counting primary and secondary forests, as well as plantations) then totalled 84% of land area, or over 162 million hectares. In 1999, a second effort at taking stock of the forest inventory, a joint venture between the Indonesian government and the World Bank, catalogued forested area at 100 million hectares. 

The inclusion of plantations in these numbers warrants a discussion of Indonesia’s conceptualisation of its forests. The Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF) disaggregates the national forest estate by function into conservation, protection, and production forests . These categories are “legal distinctions” of land use, not necessarily a measure of land cover. Land designated for other purposes, outside of the forest estate, can have forest cover, and the forest estate itself can be without trees. Out of 23 land cover types in MoEF’s classification system, seven fall under the forest umbrella. Six are natural (primary and secondary) forests while the last is the plantation, mainly involved in paper and pulp production.

What follows then is an interpretation of deforestation that considers losses across all seven forest classes. This is at odds with the consensus of organisations that hesitate to combine industrial plantations with natural forests due to the obvious discrepancy in their biodiversity and the ecological services they provide. This ambiguity can allow for the conversion of natural forest systems for production purposes to not always read as deforestation, which is a convenient guise for governments to blur the exact contours of their particular situation. 

2020 officially registered as an optimistic year for Indonesia’s forests. The country, which had lost nearly 10 million hectares of primary forest in the past two decades, lost 115,459 hectares of forest cover, a 75% decrease from 2019, and the lowest rate since record-keeping began in 1990. However, Indonesia’s understanding of deforestation invites the need for a pause here. A host of variables, including the economic fallout from the pandemic, render the year somewhat of an outlier. Then there is the fact that 2020 not being a harvesting year resulted in a marked decrease in industrial plantation tree harvesting. With fluctuations in plantation tree cover factoring into the equation, the reported decline therefore emerges as exaggerated, as MoEF analysis reveals that the deforestation rate only declined by 38% in natural forests . Nevertheless, opportunities remain for the Indonesian government to welcome positive shifts in the health of its forests. 

Figure 1: Indonesia Primary Forest Loss, 2002-2021

Playing with Fire

Deforestation in Indonesia found a steady initial footing in its colonial past , but only really accelerated with the government’s provision of logging concessions in the 1970s. This timeline implicates the timber industry, but it is a single node, albeit one of exceptional weight, in a network of culpable processes.

A 2019 study identified palm oil plantations as responsible for 23% (the single largest proportion) of the deforestation in Indonesia between 2001 and 2016. This is unsurprising given that palm oil is one of the country’s most lucrative exports , contributing billions of dollars to its annual export revenue. In 2019, over 3 million hectares of the forest estate were allocated to palm oil production, in strict violation of national forestry law. While plantations can legally operate in production forests, they also traverse conservation and protection forests, which explicitly bar such economic activities. Lax enforcement emboldens the industry’s stakeholders, many of whom have vested interests in other businesses, like the extractives sector , whose tandem operations exacerbate the degradation of Indonesia’s forests.

Timber doesn’t trail too far behind palm oil in accounting for a significant share of the burden. The real danger stems from illegal logging, which provided 219 million cubic metres of timber between 1991 and 2014, and comprised 80% of timber exports in the 2000s, costing the nation over $4 billion in annual revenue. 

The forests are again at the mercy of powerful forces that undercut established safeguards. The government mandated compliance with the Timber Legality Assurance System (known as the SVLK), a scheme to audit the timber supply chain “from forest to point of export,” in 2013. Even with the SVLK, illegally sourced wood products find their way into the market. There are logistical barriers to implementation, including verification and surveillance costs, as well as general confusion regarding the SVLK and its requirements. The pandemic compounded these challenges as “mobility restrictions” and the transition to virtual work precluded effective forest monitoring, evident in a 70% increase in illegal logging on the island of Sulawesi. Illegal logging is also a game of money. The magnates in charge are able to evade the law – while those who actually wield the axes and chainsaws cannot. 

Beyond the conglomerates and multinational corporations are the local communities who also carve out a claim to the forests. Smallholder farmers , who own an average of 2.5 hectares of land, often compete with large and organised plantations, prioritising “profitability over environmental stewardship” in the process . Small-scale agriculture relies on slash-and-burn techniques to quickly prepare the land for cultivation, but this method can easily descend into chaos. Indonesia has seen outbreak after outbreak of wildfires , which converge with a maelstrom of causes to wreak further havoc on the forests. 

When the Smoke Clears

Forests are a global carbon sink , absorbing over 7 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. This capacity is compromised, however, by the continued destruction of the tropics, with rainforests poised to become a carbon source by the 2060s due to the combined effects of a warming climate and deforestation. Indonesia has the third largest expanse of rainforests, but deforestation and its related fires have enabled it to join the ranks of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters . The 2019 fires were especially damaging, releasing 708 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, twice the amount released by fires in the Amazon that year, mostly due to the burning of peatlands. 

Deforestation in Indonesia not only threatens scores of endangered species , but also the people whose existence straddles the nebulous frontier between two different worlds. Indonesian cities are already prone to flooding . For the localities tucked away in the mountains, the loss of the trees holding together soil is a key trigger for flooding and landslides. The nation’s increasingly frequent and deadly natural disasters have been linked to the “ accumulated damage ” to natural ecosystems as well. 

Despite this, forests demonstrate a duality, tempering storms just as easily as they spur them. For example, coastal forests are thought to have shielded villages from the full wrath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The groves have immense potential for promoting disaster resilience, again reiterating the need for their protection. 

In addition to impacting biodiversity and human settlements, deforestation can induce health crises. Its most visible casualties stem from the dangerous manipulation of air quality by forest fires and ensuing toxic haze. Over the course of the 2015 fire season , 500,000 Indonesians were afflicted with respiratory ailments, costing the government $16 billion and prompting the declaration of a state of emergency. Another, maybe overlooked, victim is Indonesia’s medicinal culture. Forests are teeming with bioactive compounds that make them “ rich natural pharmacies ,” and these traditional medicines are fundamental to the delivery of health care in many developing countries.  In 2015, global deforestation had jeopardised one fifth of the medicinal plants in a total cache of 50,000 species.  Through the disappearance of these flowers and herbs, irreplaceable heritage and knowledge slip through the hands of time. Finally, deforestation facilitates the spread of infectious diseases , as the close contact required between man and tree and the movement of wild animals into human settlements bridge the threshold for a variety of familiar and emerging diseases to cross into people. 

There is a social dimension to deforestation that is worth exploring. The Indonesian government’s transmigration programme moved millions of landless families from the nation’s crowded core into the less densely populated and heavily forested outer islands. These communities live in an “uneasy coexistence” with the local populations, both of whom are deeply reliant on the forests for their livelihoods. Indonesia’s poor land management and weak governance directly cultivates conflict. Those who stand to lose everything are pitted against each other and with the commercial enterprises whose spheres of operations eclipse these communities’ legal access to land, which is just one element in a litany of human rights abuses. 

You might also like: Deforestation in Southeast Asia: Causes and Solutions

Two Sides of the Same Coin

The central government based in Jakarta has adopted a myriad of roles in the management of forest resources since Indonesia’s independence in 1945. It has acted as both the architect of deforestation schemes and the enforcer of strict legislation. 

Sukarno, Indonesia’s first president, sought to assuage and unify the country’s warring factions through an “ anti-colonial, non-aligned posture .” This outlook was articulated in the 1945 Constitution, which allowed the State to “regulate, operate, classify, utilise, reserve and preserve” natural resources to meet the needs of its people. The 1960 Basic Agrarian Law, which remains a salient guiding force today, followed the Constitution’s decree by imposing measures for the redistribution of lands to support the landless and land-poor majority. 

After Sukarno’s deposition in 1967, President Suharto embarked on the implementation of his ambitious New Order agenda. A retired general, Suharto made the most of his background, running his party as a tendril of the military, rewarding “informal relationships” with “reciprocal favours.” His reign consolidated Jakarta, and the Javanese majority, as the centres of political power that pursued decision making without attention to local input. The New Order was imbued with a decidedly Western sense of development, predicated on altering the natural world to achieve wealth; forests were therefore viewed as “valuable” but “expandable.” The “elitist” and corrupt undercurrent worked to benefit the middle and upper classes, at the behest of villages which only saw inequalities, especially in regards to land ownership, grow.

The void left by Suharto’s fall in 1998 ushered in an era of decentralisation . Policymakers, beholden to maintaining Indonesia’s structural integrity, acquiesced to regional demands for greater ownership of the revenues generated by the natural resources sectors. Provinces and districts became autonomous regions, and district governments acquired administrative authorities from the central government. While higher levels of government retained discretion over matters like spatial planning, district governments had more flexibility in overseeing timber production, issuing forestry licences and permits and granting small-scale concessions. Local priorities pursued short-term profits over the protection of the “essential ecological and socio-cultural functions of forests” or even longer-term economic benefits.

However, politics is fluid, and there have been recent efforts to transform forest governance, resulting in a degree of recentralisation . Within this oscillation is the Omnibus Law on Job Creation that passed on October 5, 2020. The bill introduced amendments to 79 existing laws, with implications for forest governance . Critical changes include a revision to Law 26/2007, which authorises the central government to settle forest claims and permits, and the elimination of the Environmental Impact Analysis (Amdal) process and other environmental permits. The bill converts the central government into a “single supervisor and law enforcer,” almost going back full circle. 

Its passage has drawn criticism , with concerns about potential environmental and social repercussions of the deregulations. These reservations haven’t proved completely futile as the Constitutional Court ruled on November 25, 2021 that the law was “ legally defective ” due to eleventh-hour edits appearing in the final law and its mistakes in referencing existing regulations. The court has given the government two years to rectify the issues, but the bill will remain in effect in the interim.

In spite of the points of contention, a series of nationwide policies undergird the general management of Indonesia’s forest resources. A few of these include delineating the parameters of illegal forest activities and appropriate penalties and recognising MoEF as the premier forest authority.  

Perhaps one of the most far-reaching policies is the moratorium on issuing licences for primary forests and peatlands. The moratorium was introduced in 2011 for a period of two years, with subsequent renewals in 2013 and 2015, before being made a “permanent” policy by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in 2019. The moratorium expired this past September, but its impermanence has been disputed by President Jokowi, who claims that because it was folded into the Omnibus Law, it wouldn’t need to be “renew[ed] every time it expires.” MoEF has stated that it will not rezone forests for further palm oil development, but in the absence of a clear directive from Jakarta, some regional governments have taken action to incorporate aspects of the moratorium into their own laws, though these still “remain few and far between.” 

Looking to the Future

A not so small world .

The national government cannot limit the consequences of its deforestation to its borders. Since the impacts reverberate across country lines and oceans, the international community features prominently in concerted efforts to curb deforestation in Indonesia.

Indonesia was one of 196 parties to adopt the Paris Agreement in 2015. Countries submitted tailored action plans (Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs) that relayed their efforts to achieve the treaty’s goal of limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, and preferably 1.5 degrees Celsius, of pre-industrial levels. Indonesia pledged a 29-41% reduction in emissions by 2030 through an approach that leverages better land use, clean energy, and improved waste management. Its updated NDC for 2021 expressed a commitment to intensifying these efforts, noting that the forest and energy sectors produced 97.2% of emissions. One of the forest-related targets is the restoration of 2 million hectares of peatland and the rehabilitation of 12 million hectares of degraded land. The country’s long-term low carbon and climate resilience strategy , submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2021, also underscored how seismic shifts in the energy and land-use systems are needed to realise such ambitious objectives. 

From October 31 to November 13 of 2021, the Scottish city of Glasgow was the preeminent hub of global cooperation and innovation as the host of the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The summit addressed a range of topics including deforestation. The leaders of over 100 countries agreed to “commit to working collectively to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030 while delivering sustainable development and promoting an inclusive rural transformation.” While President Jokowi had signed on to the deal, Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya Bakar didn’t hold back her disapproval , tweeting: “Forcing Indonesia to zero deforestation in 2030 is clearly inappropriate and unfair.” She added that halting deforestation should not take precedence over Indonesia’s economic development. The government’s stance was further obfuscated by Vice Foreign Minister Mahendra Siregar’s comments questioning what the pledge really entailed, saying that it was construed as promoting “sustainable forest management,” and not bringing deforestation to a complete standstill. 

This highlights the challenges in navigating the nuances of the international policy space. The deforestation pledge is arguably vague in its aspirations and terminology. Indonesia’s conflicting attitude hints at the East-West and North-South disconnect, which raises a few questions. How universal can, or should, these agreements be? How effective are these forums in accelerating solutions to global problems? And to what extent can progress be painted as an illusion? 

The Way Forward

Indonesia’s vision for sustainable forest management can be supported by a resolute political will and strong regulations, and ensuring that local communities continue to stay at the heart of the conversation. The latter idea is gaining momentum and has been integrated into some reforestation efforts. President Jokowi initiated the social forestry programme in 2015 to provide communities with legal access to 12.7 million hectares of forests. The programme entails land rezoning, capacity building, and improving the sustainable livelihood value chain. The emphasis is not on granting basic access to the forests. Rather, as a MoEF official explains, it is on empowering these communities to materialise the “honourable purpose” of social forestry, which is to secure the comprehensive wellbeing of the land and its people. 

Even with its economic and geographic idiosyncrasies, Indonesia can glean insight from other countries’ experiences. India’s version of ecological fiscal transfer was introduced in 2015 to allocate its $6 billion in annual tax revenue across states based on forest cover, in addition to existing indicators like population, area, and income. China, which recently unveiled a project to plant 36 thousand square kilometres of trees a year to reach 24.1% forest coverage by 2025, is also at the forefront of reforestation. It has spent decades greening itself, and is now exporting its trove of knowledge. A notable project is one that ran in Shandong province from 2010 to 2016. The project transformed over 66 thousand hectares of barren mountains and coastal areas, and demonstrated a feasible model that could generate additional wealth for farming communities. Since it illuminated some of the same principles forming Indonesia’s social forestry programme, there are takeaways that translate well. One is the merit in moving away from monoculture production to mixed planting for maximising ecological restoration and resilience. There is also the case for increased investment in research, training, and technical support. However, these blueprints are just that – blueprints. Indonesia needs to acknowledge and contend with its reality before it can fully embrace a tonic for its forests.  

Featured image by: CIFOR / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

You might also like: 10 Deforestation Facts You Should Know About

15 Biggest Environmental Problems of 2024

4 Biggest Environmental Issues in the Philippines in 2024

Water Shortage: Causes and Effects

Hand-picked stories weekly or monthly. We promise, no spam!

Boost this article By donating us $100, $50 or subscribe to Boosting $10/month – we can get this article and others in front of tens of thousands of specially targeted readers. This targeted Boosting – helps us to reach wider audiences – aiming to convince the unconvinced, to inform the uninformed, to enlighten the dogmatic.

• Ways to Give
• Contact an Expert
• Explore WRI Perspectives

Filter Your Site Experience by Topic

Applying the filters below will filter all articles, data, insights and projects by the topic area you select.

• All Topics Remove filter
• Climate filter site by Climate
• Cities filter site by Cities
• Energy filter site by Energy
• Food filter site by Food
• Forests filter site by Forests
• Freshwater filter site by Freshwater
• Ocean filter site by Ocean
• Business filter site by Business
• Economics filter site by Economics
• Finance filter site by Finance
• Equity & Governance filter site by Equity & Governance

Search WRI.org

Not sure where to find something? Search all of the site's content.

Drivers of Deforestation in Indonesia, Inside and Outside Concessions Areas

• deforestation
• commodities

See a version of this blog in Indonesian here .

Forest Loss Inside Concessions

Our analysis of tree cover loss within Indonesia's primary forests and legal boundaries for oil palm, fiber, mining and selective logging concessions from 2000 to 2015 showed that approximately 55 percent of forest loss (more than 4.5 million hectares or more than 11 million acres) occurred inside concessions.

We also found that oil palm and wood fiber plantations, mainly for pulp and paper industries, were the two largest contributors to forest loss in Indonesia. Nearly 1.6 million hectares (4 million acres) and 1.5 million hectares (3.7 million acres) of primary forests—an area larger than Switzerland -- were converted to oil palm and wood fiber plantations respectively.

An interesting trend could be observed in 2012-2013 when forest loss inside oil palm plantations decreased significantly and stayed at the same rate until 2015. By contrast, forest loss inside logging concessions increased steadily from 2000-2015 and for the first time in 2015, loss  inside selective logging concessions  surpassed loss inside oil palm concessions, and this mostly occurred in Kalimantan and Papua. By regulations, forest clearing should not occur inside selective logging concessions where only trees with diameter at breast height (4.5 feet above the ground) of at least 50cm (19.7 inches) and has commercial value (such as Meranti) are allowed to be harvested.

Forest Loss Outside Concessions

While one can argue that forest loss inside concessions areas is legal to some extent, forest loss outside concessions boundaries also took place at an alarming rate—3.6 million hectares or 8.9 million acres or roughly three times the size of New York City – since 2000.

Much of this loss might come from those licensed concession holders who  cultivate more area than the permit allows , or from excessive timber harvesting that leads to deforestation. The forest loss may also be driven by the vast network of small oil palm plantations operated by smallholder farmers who produce nearly 40 percent of Indonesia's stock. Lack of data or official records about these farmers suggests that they operate outside of established concessions.  Recent analysis  also shows that forest loss outside the concessions was largely due to conversion of forested land to oil palm plantations.

Our analysis suggests that in recent years, forest loss inside oil palm and fiber plantations concessions decreased, but mostly because expansion occurred outside concessions. Determining where deforestation took place outside the concessions area is beyond the scope of this blogpost, but several policies should be strengthened to prevent forest loss especially outside the legal concessions.

Enforcing moratorium and expanding the scope of the moratorium to include secondary natural forests that are still high in carbon stocks and biodiversity would be critical not only to prevent forest loss outside concessions but also to prevent substantial carbon emissions from being released.

Given the significant forest loss outside the concessions that is presumably driven by unregistered palm oil operations, updated data is essential, particularly on smallholder plantation concessions whose data is limited. Making the data more comprehensive is the first critical step to understand where forest loss took place and to ensure better monitoring of forest loss outside concessions.  Efforts to map smallholder  palm oil plantations have been made by national and local government, private sectors and other organizations. However, those efforts are scattered, so the government should take the lead in synchronizing the efforts to achieve more meaningful impact.

With regard to concession data, we conducted analysis based on concession data issued in 2011 available on Global Forest Watch. To generate a more precise analysis in the future, we need an updated concessions data and hence data transparency is critical.

Finally, given  previous studies  that suggest that companies often cultivate more area than they should have, strengthened law enforcement to prevent or drastically reduce illegal logging and trade as well as improved monitoring of companies’ annual implementation plan (RKT) are critical to tackle forest loss and reduce carbon emissions. 

Relevant Work

Indonesia's moratorium on new forest concessions, how you can help.

WRI relies on the generosity of donors like you to turn research into action. You can support our work by making a gift today or exploring other ways to give.

Stay Informed

World Resources Institute 10 G Street NE Suite 800 Washington DC 20002 +1 (202) 729-7600

© 2024 World Resources Institute

Envision a world where everyone can enjoy clean air, walkable cities, vibrant landscapes, nutritious food and affordable energy.

• Election 2024
• Entertainment
• Newsletters
• Photography
• AP Buyline Personal Finance
• AP Buyline Shopping
• Press Releases
• Israel-Hamas War
• Russia-Ukraine War
• Global elections
• Asia Pacific
• Latin America
• Middle East
• Election results
• Google trends
• AP & Elections
• U.S. Open Tennis
• Paralympic Games
• College football
• Auto Racing
• Movie reviews
• Book reviews
• Financial Markets
• Business Highlights
• Financial wellness
• Artificial Intelligence
• Social Media

In Indonesia, deforestation is intensifying disasters from severe weather and climate change

A woman walks near logs swept into a neighborhood affected by a flash flood in Pesisir Selatan, West Sumatra, Indonesia, Wednesday, March 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mavendra JR)

A deforested hill is visible near an area affected by a flash flood in Pesisir Selatan, West Sumatra, Indonesia, Thursday, March 14, 2024. In Indonesia, environmental groups continue to point to deforestation and environmental degradation worsening the effects of natural disasters such as floods, landslides, drought and forest fires. (AP Photo/Sutan Malik Kayo)

A boy crawls on logs swept into a neighborhood affected by a flash flood in Pesisir Selatan, West Sumatra, Indonesia, Wednesday, March 13, 2024. In Indonesia, environmental groups continue to point to deforestation and environmental degradation worsening the effects of natural disasters such as floods, landslides, drought and forest fires. (AP Photo/Mavendra JR)

Logs that were swept into a village after a flash flood are visible in Pesisir Selatan, West Sumatra, Indonesia, Wednesday, March 13, 2024. In Indonesia, environmental groups continue to point to deforestation and environmental degradation worsening the effects of natural disasters such as floods, landslides, drought and forest fires. (AP Photo/Sutan Malik Kayo)

A man walks past a log swept into a neighborhood affected by a flash flood in Pesisir Selatan, West Sumatra, Indonesia, Sunday, March 10, 2024. In Indonesia, environmental groups continue to point to deforestation and environmental degradation worsening the effects of natural disasters such as floods, landslides, drought and forest fires. (AP Photo/Mavendra JR)

Homes damaged by a flash flood sit in Pesisir Selatan, West Sumatra, Indonesia, Wednesday, March 13, 2024. In Indonesia, environmental groups continue to point to deforestation and environmental degradation worsening the effects of natural disasters such as floods, landslides, drought and forest fires. (AP Photo/Sutan Malik Kayo)

A woman walks near logs swept into a neighborhood affected by a flash flood in Pesisir Selatan, West Sumatra, Indonesia, Wednesday, March 13, 2024. In Indonesia, environmental groups continue to point to deforestation and environmental degradation worsening the effects of natural disasters such as floods, landslides, drought and forest fires. (AP Photo/Mavendra JR)

• Copy Link copied

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Roads turned to murky brown rivers, homes were swept away by strong currents and bodies were pulled from mud during deadly flash floods and landslides after torrential rains hit West Sumatra in early March, marking one of the latest deadly natural disasters in Indonesia.

Government officials blamed the floods on heavy rainfall, but environmental groups have cited the disaster as the latest example of deforestation and environmental degradation intensifying the effects of severe weather across Indonesia.

“This disaster occurred not only because of extreme weather factors, but because of the ecological crisis,” Indonesian environmental rights group Indonesian Forum for the Environment wrote in a statement. “If the environment continues to be ignored, then we will continue to reap ecological disasters.”

A deforested hill is visible near an area affected by a flash flood in Pesisir Selatan, West Sumatra, Indonesia, Thursday, March 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Sutan Malik Kayo)

A vast tropical archipelago stretching across the equator, Indonesia is home to the world’s third-largest rainforest, with a variety of endangered wildlife and plants, including orangutans, elephants, giant and blooming forest flowers. Some live nowhere else.

For generations the forests have also provided livelihoods, food, and medicine while playing a central role in cultural practices for millions of Indigenous residents in Indonesia.

Since 1950, more than 74 million hectares (285,715 square miles) of Indonesian rainforest — an area twice the size of Germany — have been logged, burned or degraded for development of palm oil, paper and rubber plantations, mining and other commodities according to Global Forest Watch.

Indonesia is the biggest producer of palm oil, one of the largest exporters of coal and a top producer of pulp for paper. It also exports oil and gas, rubber, tin and other resources. And it also has the world’s largest reserves of nickel — a critical material for electric vehicles, solar panels and other goods needed for the green energy transition.

Indonesia has consistently ranked as one of the largest global emitters of plant-warming greenhouse gases, with its emissions stemming from the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and peatland fires, according to the Global Carbon Project.

A boy crawls on logs swept into a neighborhood affected by a flash flood in Pesisir Selatan, West Sumatra, Indonesia, Wednesday, March 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mavendra JR)

It’s also highly vulnerable to climate change impacts, including extreme events such as floods and droughts, long-term changes from sea level rise, shifts in rainfall patterns and increasing temperatures, according to the World Bank. In recent decades the country has already seen the effects of climate change: More intense rains, landslides and floods during rainy season, and more fires during a longer dry season.

But forests can help play a vital role in reducing the impact of some extreme weather events, said Aida Greenbury, a sustainability expert focusing on Indonesia.

Flooding can be slowed by trees and vegetation soaking up rainwater and reducing erosion. In dry season, forests release moisture that helps mitigate the effects of droughts, including fires.

But when forests diminish, those benefits do as well.

Logs that were swept into a village after a flash flood are visible in Pesisir Selatan, West Sumatra, Indonesia, Wednesday, March 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Sutan Malik Kayo)

A 2017 study reported that forest conversion and deforestation expose bare soil to rainfall, causing soil erosion. Frequent harvesting activities — such as done on palm oil plantations — and the removal of ground vegetation leads to further soil compaction, causing rain to run off the surface instead of entering groundwater reservoirs. Downstream erosion also increases sediment in rivers, making rivers shallower and increasing flood risks, according to the research.

After the deadly floods in Sumatra in early March, West Sumatra Gov. Mahyeldi Ansharullah said there were strong indications of illegal logging around locations affected by floods and landslides. That, coupled with extreme rainfall, inadequate drainage systems and improper housing development contributed to the disaster, he said.

Experts and environmental activists have pointed to deforestation worsening disasters in other regions of Indonesia as well: In 2021 environmental activists partially blamed deadly floods in Kalimantan on environmental degradation caused by large-scale mining and palm oil operations. In Papua, deforestation was partially blamed for floods and landslides that killed over a hundred people in 2019.

A man walks past a log swept into a neighborhood affected by a flash flood in Pesisir Selatan, West Sumatra, Indonesia, Sunday, March 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Mavendra JR)

There have been some signs of progress: In 2018 Indonesian President Joko Widodo put a three-year freeze on new permits for palm oil plantations. And the rate of deforestation slowed between 2021-2022, according to government data.

But experts warn that it’s unlikely deforestation in Indonesia will stop anytime soon as the government continues to move forward with new mining and infrastructure projects such as new nickel smelters and cement factories.

“A lot of land use and land-based investment permits have already been given to businesses, and a lot of these areas are already prone to disasters,” said Arie Rompas, an Indonesia-based forestry expert at Greenpeace.

President-elect Prabowo Subianto , who is scheduled to take office in October, has promised to continue Widodo’s policy of development, include large-scale food estates, mining and other infrastructure development that are all linked to deforestation.

Environmental watchdogs also warn that environmental protections in Indonesia are weakening, including the passing of the controversial Omnibus Law, which eliminated an article of the Forestry Law regarding the minimum area of forest that must be maintained at development projects.

“The removal of that article makes us very worried (about deforestation) for the years to come,” said Rompas.

Homes damaged by a flash flood sit in Pesisir Selatan, West Sumatra, Indonesia, Wednesday, March 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Sutan Malik Kayo)

While experts and activists recognize that development is essential for Indonesia’s economy to continue to go, they argue that it should be done in a way that considers the environment and incorporates better land planning.

“We can’t continue down the same path we’ve been on,” said sustainability expert Greenbury. “We need to make sure that the soil, the land in the forest doesn’t become extinct.”

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here . The AP is solely responsible for all content.

• Español (Spanish)
• Français (French)
• Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
• Brasil (Portuguese)
• India (English)
• हिंदी (Hindi)
• Feature Stories
• Explore All
• Subscribe page
• Submissions
• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Use
• Advertising
• Wild Madagascar
• Selva tropicales
• Mongabay.org
• Tropical Forest Network

Protected areas in SE Asia could do better with more resources, study finds

Share this article.

If you liked this story, share it with other people.

• As countries expand their protected areas to meet the ambitious goal of protecting 30% of land and sea by 2030, many newly established protected areas are failing to stop deforestation, leading to biodiversity loss and carbon emissions.
• A new study assessing how effectively 80 protected areas across Southeast Asia are managed has found more than half were ineffective in preventing deforestation.
• Thirty-six well-managed protected areas prevented 78,910 hectares (194,991 acres) of deforestation between 2000 and 2020, while the 44 ineffectively managed protected areas lost nearly the same area of forest cover.
• Researchers and conservationists say lack of funds and understaffing are leading factors contributing to the problem, with ineffectively managed protected areas needing an estimated $17 million to prevent deforestation and provide conservation and climate benefits.

For the last two decades, countries around the world have been in a frenzy to earmark large swaths of their lands and waters as protected areas to meet the ambitious “30 by 30” target that calls for 30% of Earth’s land and seas to be legally protected by 2030. Governments are expanding existing protected areas and setting up new ones to prevent deforestation, conserve biodiversity and reduce planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

But how well are these protected areas working? That’s a question an international team of researchers explored in the context of 80 protected areas established between 2007 and 2014 across Southeast Asia. In a new study published in the journal Current Biology, they report that more than half of these protected areas failed to stop deforestation, resulting in a loss of 72,497 hectares (179,144 acres) of forests — an area twice as large as the U.S. city of Detroit.

“In the last 15 years, protected areas expansion was the key conservation mechanism in Southeast Asia and elsewhere in the world, but not all Southeast Asian countries have the financial abilities to build protected areas so fast,” says lead author Sreekar Rachakonda, now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Queensland, Australia, who was at the National University of Singapore during the study. “We wanted to see how these protected areas are faring after they were established.”

Effective and ineffective protected areas

Using satellite images captured between 2000 and 2020, the researchers used a computational model to compare the 80 protected areas with neighboring patches of unprotected forests. They then determined whether the “protected area” designation had reduced deforestation in these areas compared to the rates in neighboring unprotected tracts of forests.

The study found that only 36 of the 80 protected areas were effective in reducing deforestation rates. Collectively, these areas averted a loss of 78,910 hectares (194,991 acres) across Southeast Asia, which translated to preventing 8,821 hectares (21,797 acres) of forest loss annually. While deforestation rates were not zero in these areas, they were less than what they would have been had these forests not been protected.

The averted forest loss benefited 91 species of threatened birds and 98 species of threatened mammals, including the Mindanao spiny rat ( Tarsomys echinatus ), a vulnerable species endemic to Mount Kitanglad Range National Park in the Philippines. It also resulted in significant climate benefits by reducing emissions by 2.10 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, comparable to the total emissions of the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan  in 2021.

The remaining 44 protected areas experienced similar or higher rates of deforestation than they did before their designation, and were thus deemed to be ineffectively managed. These 44 protected areas failed to prevent 72,497 hectares of forest loss and emissions of 2.07 metric tons of CO 2 equivalent per year. The researchers say that had these protected areas been effective, the climate benefits from protected areas in the region would have doubled.

These 44 protected areas are home to 121 species of threatened birds and 105 threatened mammal species. These include the forest-dependent white-browed nuthatch ( Sitta victoriae ) , an endangered bird endemic to Nat Ma Taung National Park in western Myanmar that has lost almost 18% of its forest cover since its establishment in 2010; the Seram masked owl ( Tyto almae ), endangered Seram bandicoot ( Rhynchomeles prattorum ) and dusky mosaic-tailed rat ( Melomys aerosus ), all endemic to Manusela National Park on Seram Island, Indonesia.

“We agree with their findings that ineffective protected areas management leads to deforestation and biodiversity loss,” says James Bampton, WWF’s regional forest lead for Asia Pacific, who wasn’t involved in the study but is familiar with protected areas management in the Greater Mekong region. “Good habitats are necessary for conservation, but it’s not sufficient on its own.”

Why new protected areas become ineffective

While protected areas are critical for conservation, effectively managing them requires both money and trained staff, neither of which are always readily available. Protected areas need funding to not only set up but continue day-to-day operations. They must pay guards, train staff, procure equipment such as GPS trackers for monitoring, patrol areas, buy food and fuel, and install boards and signage. The study found that the 44 ineffective protected areas, spanning a combined 1.5 million hectares (3.7 million acres), need at least $17 million to improve their management.

“A lot of tech costs money, and government budgets are quite tight for protected areas management,” says Malaysia-based conservation scientist Gopalasamy Reuben Clements, citing his own experience of helping authorities set up Kenyir State Park in Malaysia through his NGO, Rimba . “Federally managed protected areas or national parks seem to get more funding, but when we go to the state government parks, the funding gap is wider.”

It’s a reality reflected in the study’s findings, too. The effectiveness of PAs increased with an increase in funding. The correlation between per capita GDP and the effectiveness of protected areas was quite strong, suggesting that richer countries tend to have more effective protected areas.

Given the lack of funding for protected areas, the study’s authors say their findings can help countries decide whether to continue expanding ineffective PAs or redirect funding to improve the effectiveness of existing ones. The latter is easier because the paperwork is in place and establishment costs are already paid.

“It is not just important to expand protected areas,” says study co-author Zeng Yiwen from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, adding that it’s critical “to make sure they work, to continue to manage them and provide them sufficient funding and support so they can continue to function well for biodiversity and for the climate.”

However, setting up new protected areas can be easier than sustaining existing ones because many grants and philanthropic funds are available for the former. “Once you set up a protected area, that’s when the money pot shrinks,” Clements says, explaining that funders assume the onus is now on the governments to take up the funding to manage these areas. “But in reality, there’s still some transition funding needed and I don’t see any examples of transition funding for newly formed protected areas.”

As a sustainable finance specialist at the Zoological Society of London, Clements now helps organizations in Southeast Asia develop projects harnessing nature-based solutions.

Iding Achmad Haidir, a forester who until recently worked with the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry that manages the country’s forests, says funding and staffing challenges are severe in protected areas that aren’t national parks. “In Indonesia, national parks have more funding and human resources intervention compared to nature reserves and other [types of] protected areas,” he says, noting that, unlike national parks, reserves are managed at the provincial level.

While the current study didn’t find any differences between effective and ineffective protected areas based on their IUCN protected areas categories, it found that those that reported their management objectives to the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, performed better than those who did not. This suggests that non-reporting parks were more likely to be “paper parks” — protected areas that exist on paper but have no conservation impact.

Can carbon markets address funding gaps?

The researchers say Southeast Asian countries could explore carbon markets and nature-based carbon credits to generate income through projects that incentivize conservation. Per their estimates, the potentially for offsetting emissions in currently ineffective protected areas in Southeast Asia translates to $12 million in the current carbon market — an amount that could cover a significant portion of the $17 million needed to fund ineffective protected areas.

However, relying purely on such market-based mechanisms has its drawbacks. “With any market-based approach, there is a risk of market crashes,” Zeng says. “It brings risks within the lifetime of a project.” Instead, he says, blended finance, with its mix of public and private funding to manage protected areas, can alleviate the risk.

Carbon credits and related mechanisms also demand “additionality,” or proof that emissions reductions occurred because of the project. This, Clements says, can be a challenge. “The criteria for qualifying for additionality is getting more stringent, and they are not empathetic to the plight of newly created protected areas where you need a transition time of five to 10 years to make them work.” Besides, well-managed protected areas would need more time to qualify for additionality because their emissions are already low.

“Budgeting that combines multiple financing streams — that’s the Holy Grail for protected areas managers — and it requires co-funding from the public, private and civil society sources,” WWF’s Bampton says, adding that countries could explore biodiversity credits, selling forest products, eco-tax breaks and ecotourism.

Ultimately, though, there must be political will to fund protected areas, he says: “Conservation is an ongoing thing — it always needs support and adapting to the situation.”

Banner image: A white-browed nuthatch (Sitta victoriae), an endangered bird endemic to Nat Ma Taung National Park in western Myanmar, one of the protected areas found to be ineffectively managed. Image by Pieter Verheij via Flickr ( CC BY-SA 2.0 ).

Correction: This article was amended Sept. 4, 2024 to correct James Bampton’s name, which was misspelled in one reference.

Asia’s troubled trees need better conservation to reach restoration goals: Study

Sreekar, R., Koh, L. P., Lamba, A., Mammides, C., Teo, H. C., Dwiputra, A., & Zeng, Y. (2024). Conservation opportunities through improved management of recently established protected areas in Southeast Asia.  Current Biology ,  34 (16), 3830-3835.e3. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.07.031

FEEDBACK: Use this form to send a message to the author of this post. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.

To wipe or to wash? That is the question

Toilet paper: Environmentally impactful, but alternatives are rolling out

Rolling towards circularity? Tracking the trace of tires

Getting the bread: What’s the environmental impact of wheat?

Consumed traces the life cycle of a variety of common consumer products from their origins, across supply chains, and waste streams. The circular economy is an attempt to lessen the pace and impact of consumption through efforts to reduce demand for raw materials by recycling wastes, improve the reusability/durability of products to limit pollution, and […]

Free and open access to credible information

Latest articles.

Action at Scale: Elizabeth Yee on The Rockefeller Foundation’s Climate Strategy

Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation at 60: A look back and forward

Resilient and resourceful, Brazil’s illegal gold capital resists government crackdown

Sumatra citizen lawsuit seeks accountability for haze-causing fires

Record number of Indigenous land titles granted in Peru via innovative process (commentary)

Scientists find unexpected biodiversity in an African river, thanks to eDNA

The future of extractive industries in the Pan Amazon

In Nepal, a humble edible fern is at heart of human-tiger conflict

you're currently offline

The Straits Times

• International
• Print Edition
• news with benefits
• SPH Rewards
• STClassifieds
• Berita Harian
• Hardwarezone
• Shin Min Daily News
• Tamil Murasu
• The Business Times
• The New Paper
• Lianhe Zaobao
• Advertise with us

Under a cloud: Doubts linger over Indonesia’s deforestation data

In 2023, indonesia lost an area of primary forest cover four times the size of singapore, says a leading monitoring outfit. the indonesian government says it is half that. accurate data is vital to saving the nation’s rich biodiversity and preventing fires. who is right climate change editor david fogarty and indonesia correspondent linda yulisman investigate. .

SINGAPORE/JAKARTA – If there is one thing that worries Indonesia’s neighbours, it is choking haze. The felling of forests and slash-and-burn agriculture are often associated with fires and the toxic clouds of smoke that envelop swathes of Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei.

Deforestation has fallen in recent years due to greater efforts to curb fires and impose limits on plantation expansion.

A closely watched benchmark of progress is Indonesia’s annual deforestation figures. And for some groups, doubts remain over the accuracy of the numbers.

Conservation groups say Indonesia’s methods of calculating deforestation are not capturing the full picture and that the real deforestation numbers are higher.

They point to annual figures from Global Forest Watch (GFW), an online forest monitoring programme that analyses global tree cover loss, that are typically higher.

And while only a small amount of agricultural expansion causes fires, in the minds of people the two are inextricably linked.

Why does this matter?

Accurate figures are needed to understand what is driving deforestation in Indonesia and curbing the risk of fires as farmers and companies sometimes burn the land to clear it.

And the figures are needed to track the land use policies of the incoming administration of President-elect Prabowo Subianto, who takes office on Oct 20.

While deforestation might have slowed owing to domestic and international pressure, millions of hectares are still at risk of being cleared within existing legal concessions, says Greenpeace Indonesia. It is calling for much greater transparency in land use data and the methodologies used by the Indonesian government – for good reason.

Indonesia has the third-largest expanse of tropical rainforests, large tracts of mangroves and millions of hectares of peatlands, which can burn for months when cleared and drained. These treasure troves of biodiversity also store billions of tonnes of carbon and are vital in fighting climate change.

In recent decades, millions of hectares of the country’s forests have been cleared for agriculture, especially oil palm and pulpwood plantations. Sumatra has lost 80 per cent of its forest cover and Kalimantan about 50 per cent. Indonesia has about 17 million hectares of land planted with oil palm.

That is where satellite imagery comes in. It can quickly identify forest loss – and fires – and help identify the culprits.

Seeing the forest for the trees

GFW’s analyses have become a global benchmark for tree cover loss. It uses satellite imagery data analysis from the University of Maryland in the United States to capture the annual loss of all trees taller than 5m. The data goes back to 2001.

GFW was created and is managed by the World Resources Institute (WRI), a Washington-based think-tank.

A key measure of global deforestation – the majority of which occurs in the tropics – is the clearance of mature, largely undisturbed primary forests. These forests have important climate, nature and water regulation benefits. 

For 2023, GFW’s annual analysis showed Indonesia’s primary forest loss at a total of 292,374ha, up 27 per cent from 2022. A major reason for the jump was a significant expansion of industrial oil palm plantations, which involved the conversion of 30,000 ha of forests, according to The Tree Map, a geospatial company that investigates tropical forest loss.

Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF), in a joint analysis with WRI, came up with different figures.

It said deforestation of primary forest totalled 144,000ha in 2023. This covered deforestation in forest areas, or patches, larger than 2ha. For 2022, the government’s figure was 106,878ha, less than half of GFW’s estimate.

To explain the differences between MoEF’s and GFW’s figures, a deeper look is needed at the methods used by each of them and what exactly constitutes a forest – and deforestation.

“Many countries have different methods and definitions for monitoring deforestation,” said Mr Rod Taylor, WRI’s global director of forests. Indonesia is not unique, he said.

Different shades of green

Forests differ greatly across the globe, even within countries, in size, density and species make-up. Boreal forests in the Northern Hemisphere are densely packed with a few species. Tropical rainforests are much more complex, with many more species.

Mr Hanif Faisol Nurofiq, MoEF’s director-general for forestry planning and environmental management, said: “In our forest, there are thousands of species, and they have their own characteristics, colours and so forth. When they are captured by satellite images, they also produce different colours, which are not easy to interpret.”

Indonesia has six classes of natural forest, including primary and secondary forests on dry land, mangroves, and peat swamps.

MoEF defines deforestation as any loss that leads to permanent change in land use, such as clearing for agriculture, within these classes.

Controversially, MoEF also regards industrial-scale pulpwood plantations of eucalyptus and acacia as forest. These plantations are regularly chopped down and replanted, with the wood pulp used to make anything from toilet rolls and printer paper to viscose, a fibre used in clothing. MoEF classifies the clearing of forest for plantations as harvesting.

GFW focuses more broadly on global tree cover loss or gain and does not focus on land use. Its focus, being broader than the ministry’s, can lead to higher figures.

“I don’t think Indonesia is underestimating deforestation,” said Dr Belinda Margono, a geospatial scientist who was responsible for developing and establishing Indonesia’s National Forest Monitoring System.

She told The Straits Times that what people see from above as forested, using remote sensing, might not be forest from Indonesia’s point of view. “Especially when the method of detecting the existence of forest is an automatic approach and done by people who have never been to, or understand, Indonesia’s forests.”

Another key difference, she said, is that MoEF defines forest as trees with canopy cover of at least 30 per cent, versus 10 per cent for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.

And Indonesia calculates deforestation only within its classes of forest. “Indonesia detects its forests more thoroughly and not excessively, while global programmes detect our area of forest too aggressively, mostly including shrub and bush and some mixed plantations,” said Dr Margono, who did her PhD at the University of Maryland and is now the executive secretary of Indonesia’s geospatial agency.

Despite their different approaches, the ministry and the University of Maryland cooperate closely, she said.

Nonetheless, the differences that arise are not merely numerical but can speak to what different groups think of as significant.

For instance, the University of Maryland and GFW use a different primary forest definition than the Indonesian government. GFW includes intact, or largely pristine, and non-intact primary forests, the latter being areas of mature forest disturbed by human activity, such as road-building or logging. These areas still have vital climate and other environmental benefits.

The Indonesian government categorises only intact natural forests as primary forests. This means GFW’s primary forest loss figures for Indonesia are always going to be higher than MoEF’s. 

A question of scale

Perhaps the largest difference is what is called the minimum mapping unit (MMU). Each unit represents an area on the ground that can be analysed to detect tree cover loss and equates to the size of one pixel in the satellite image.

Think of a digital image expanded until you see the individual pixels – the smaller the pixel, the greater the resolution.

Experienced geospatial analysts can detect land and forest cover changes from differences in the colours of the pixels.

Indonesia’s MMU is 250m by 250m, a pixel size equal to an area of 6.25ha on the ground. GFW uses 30m by 30m, or 0.09ha. This means GFW’s finer resolution can capture more tree cover loss, though it is not foolproof.

“When monitoring our forest, the minimum expanse used is 6.25ha. This is the most accessible data at an affordable cost for a country as big as Indonesia,” said Mr Hanif, adding that higher-resolution imagery would be too costly.

But how to accurately check literally thousands of images?

GFW uses fully automatic algorithms developed by the University of Maryland to detect tree loss globally. Indonesia uses manual visual interpretation of Landsat satellite imagery to create land cover maps showing deforestation.

Indonesia is not the only one. Brazil, which has the world’s largest area of tropical rainforest, also uses an MMU of 6.25ha and manual visual analysis.

MoEF also checks the results of its image analysis with the reality on the ground. Full analysis of the results from ground checks, as well as analysis of satellite imagery, can take six months, Mr Hanif said.

“We know our forests well. We have staff in 22 provinces who work in the forests,” he said, adding that the ministry did a joint data analysis with WRI to double-check some areas GFW identified as primary forest. One spot in Riau province turned out to be a banana plantation. Another area in Lombok, in West Nusa Tenggara province, was a corn plantation.

How does Indonesia’s monitoring system stack up?

“The Indonesian government is well within the ‘normal’ range for national forest monitoring systems,” said Mr Taylor, of WRI.

“Because its methods and definitions are generally more restrictive than those used by GFW, Indonesia’s official data tends to show a smaller area of forest loss than GFW data. Neither data set is perfect, and neither is necessarily more ‘right’ than the other,” he told ST.

Transparency

Conservation groups, though, say Indonesia is undercounting areas of deforestation and is not being fully transparent.

Mr Timer Manurung, director of Indonesian conservation non-profit organisation Auriga Nusantara, said analysis by his group determined that Indonesia lost nearly 260,000ha of primary forest in 2023, including more than 12,000ha in conservation areas.

“We are not saying the government data is wrong. But it is the methodology the ministry is using – it is not capturing many cases of deforestation. That’s the worry,” he told ST.

He pointed to the Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve in the south of Sumatra’s Aceh province. Auriga detected deforestation larger than the ministry’s 6.25ha minimum mapping unit – and other conservation groups have reported illegal oil palm planting in the reserve.

An analysis using data on the GFW online site showed that Rawa Singkil lost 763ha of primary forest in 2023, with forest clearing in the reserve’s northern section clearly visible in satellite imagery. Mr Hanif, however, told ST that forest cover has been increasing in Rawa Singkil. “This year (2024), it is higher than the previous year.”

Auriga found many other examples of deforestation not included in the government’s data, Mr Timer said.

Mr Timer also criticised the ministry for classifying pulpwood plantations as forest. These plantations cover millions of hectares, mainly in Sumatra and Kalimantan, and are chopped down every six or seven years and replanted.

The ministry does not count the clearance of natural forest for a pulpwood plantation as deforestation. And it has earned the ire of green groups by counting the planting of these plantations as net forest gain, using this to reduce the nation’s annual deforestation figure.

“The loss of natural forests is deforestation. It’s that simple for us,” Mr Timer said, adding that monoculture plantations were not forests and should not be included as a net gain.

Mr Hanif said: “We count timber plantations at the time of initial planting. We don’t call it deforestation because they have licences. We call it harvesting. But we only count it as reforestation only once during the initial planting.”

Greenpeace also disagreed. “Industrial plantations that are destined to be regularly harvested should not be included in calculations of reforestation, but this is what MoEF does,” said Mr Sapta Ananda Proklamasi, senior data and geographic information system specialist for Greenpeace Indonesia.

He said the ministry’s methods also miss deforestation outside areas it defines as primary forest and called for greater transparency.

“MoEF does not provide its yearly data for download in standard spatial analysis format but only in their own view-only online map. Therefore, it cannot be easily analysed and compared with other data sources,” he said, calling for the government’s methodologies to be published and reviewed by independent experts, a view shared by Mr Timer.

Spike in deforestation?

Mr Sapta also expressed concern that large-scale deforestation will occur in existing concessions. “Unless the incoming administration acts to excise natural forest cover from within areas already zoned as production forest or granted to companies for industrial use, it remains at risk. We calculate that there is at least 30 million hectares of this ‘planned deforestation’.”

There are concerns that President-elect Prabowo and Vice-President Gibran Rakabuming Raka will continue government support for the expansion of nickel mining and large-scale food estates, which could increase deforestation. The plan to increase the percentage of palm oil in biodiesel could also lead to an expansion of oil palm planting.

All these underlie the need for accurate forest monitoring data, say monitoring groups.

“Regarding methodology, actually, no country, including Indonesia, tries to manipulate its data,” Mr Hanif said.

For now, Mr Hanif said a 2023 cooperation agreement between WRI and MoEF is proving beneficial in better understanding the different methods to monitor forests and calculate deforestation.

And he said the ministry will keep improving its methods and technology. “It’s our duty to do so. As technology advances, we certainly adjust with the latest.”

Dr Margono said: “Global data sets might be a good indicator. But site-specific monitoring systems are considerably better in capturing what’s happening on the ground. Combining both would be super.”

Satellite sleuths

Satellites have become indispensable tools helping governments, conservation groups and agriculture companies track forest loss and the reasons behind it. Here is a look at how these eyes in the sky work.

Tools of the trade

A. satellites.

There are hundreds of Earth-observing satellites in orbit, continually monitoring and mapping the changing planet. US imaging company Planet Labs has more than 200 satellites that capture the Earth’s land mass every day. US space agency Nasa has Landsat satellites and the European Space Agency has Sentinel probes.

b. Resolution

The smaller the pixel, the greater the detail in images captured. The World Resources Institute’s Global Forest Watch monitoring programme uses a 30m by 30m resolution (about the size of two basketball courts) from Landsat 8. This means each pixel in the satellite image is 30m by 30m in size (Think of zooming in on an image on your phone until you can see individual pixels). Sentinel-2 uses 10m by 10m per pixel resolution, while Planet Labs uses 5m by 5m per pixel resolution for tropical regions. Some satellites are now capable of providing images as fine as less than 1m by 1m per pixel.

The greater the frequency of images being captured over the same spot, the quicker the detection of tree cover change and the more accurate the calculations of such change. Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 satellites image the entire Earth every 16 days each. For the Sentinel-2 satellites, it is five days combined, while Planet Lab’s 5m by 5m higher-resolution maps are generated monthly. Satellites, as they orbit the globe, take images in bands, called swaths. Sentinel-2’s swath is 290km wide, for example.

d. Spectrum

Satellites take images in the light spectrum that human eyes can see, plus a series of other bands, including infrared. Forests show up with greater clarity in the infrared band.

Decoding deforestation

A. deforestation alerts.

Tree loss can be detected automatically by algorithms that continually analyse images for signs of change. For instance, a patch of forest being cleared for agriculture, mining or a road will show up in a lighter colour.

Analysis of historical imagery databases is essential to detect trends.

For example, when an alert to change is raised, analysts can look at the latest high-resolution image of the site and compare it with past images. The clearing of forests for plantations, such as oil palm or pulpwood, occurs in regular patterns, such as rectangles, but the clearing for cattle ranching is often irregular. Fires leave burn scars.

The Global Forest Watch online monitoring platform has several alert systems, including one that uses radar imagery, which can see through clouds. A “highest-confidence” alert combines data from several of these systems.

b. AI vs man

Algorithms can provide faster analysis, especially at finer resolutions. These artificial intelligence methods are continually updated as more data and better satellites are available.

Manual visual analysis of satellite images is used by some countries, such as Indonesia and Brazil. Changes in forest cover show up as colour changes in the pixels of the images. Geospatial experts compare these images with recent ones over the same area to spot changes. Investigations on the ground can confirm the cause.

c. Ground-truthing

This term refers to visits to sites of suspected deforestation detected from space to collect ground data and determine the causes. Indonesia does this every year across many of its provinces. This can take months before the final annual deforestation figures are released.

• Sources: Dr Hao Tang of the National University of Singapore, Global Forest Watch, Nasa, Indonesia Ministry of Environment and Forestry

Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.

• Forest fires
• Deforestation
• Climate change

Read 3 articles and stand to win rewards

Spin the wheel now

• Work & Careers
• Life & Arts

Indonesia warns of ‘chaos’ from EU deforestation law

Limited time offer, save 50% on standard digital, explore more offers..

Then $75 per month. Complete digital access to quality FT journalism. Cancel anytime during your trial.

Premium Digital

Complete digital access to quality FT journalism with expert analysis from industry leaders. Pay a year upfront and save 20%.

• Global news & analysis
• Expert opinion
• FT App on Android & iOS
• FT Edit app
• FirstFT: the day's biggest stories
• 20+ curated newsletters
• Follow topics & set alerts with myFT
• FT Videos & Podcasts
• 20 monthly gift articles to share
• Lex: FT's flagship investment column
• 15+ Premium newsletters by leading experts
• FT Digital Edition: our digitised print edition

FT Digital Edition

10% off your first year. The new FT Digital Edition: today’s FT, cover to cover on any device. This subscription does not include access to ft.com or the FT App.

Terms & Conditions apply

Explore our full range of subscriptions.

Why the ft.

See why over a million readers pay to read the Financial Times.