Indonesia’s militarized crackdown on illegal forest use sparks human rights concerns

JAKARTA — Indonesia’s president has drafted the military to lead the reclamation of illegally occupied forest areas throughout the country, while the Ministry of Forestry has partnered with it to protect and rehabilitate forest areas.

These have prompted warnings of a backslide to heavy-handed evictions targeting largely powerless Indigenous and local communities.

Under a regulation issued in January, President Prabowo Subianto says he aims to crack down on illegal activities inside forest areas, such as oil palm cultivation and mining. Illegal oil palm plantations alone occupy a combined forest area of 3.37 million hectares (8.33 million acres), larger than Belgium, and account for a significant portion of oil palm output in Indonesia, the world’s top producer of the commodity.

But activists say this new presidential regulation only adds to the woes of Indigenous and forest communities, with plantation companies having little to fear from it. Uli Arta Siagian, forests and plantations lead at the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), the country’s biggest green NGO, pointed to the long history of authorities cracking down on small farmers and Indigenous communities farming a handful of hectares, instead of corporations running industrial-scale plantations.

She said the regulation appears to make no distinction between large-scale corporate activities with those of local communities, including Indigenous peoples who have historically faced tenure conflicts due to unilateral forest area designations.

This approach further risks criminalizing communities engaged in subsistence activities within forest areas, she said.

“Judging from the long history of this country, it is easier to regulate, evict and seize people’s land than to reclaim forests and lands that have been illegally or legally but illegitimately controlled by corporations,” Uli said.

The risks are worsened by the lack of legal recognition for Indigenous land rights, despite communities having lived on these lands long before Indonesia’s independence in 1945, activists say. They also often lack the resources needed to legalize their land claims, unlike companies, making them even more vulnerable to forced displacement, said Adam Putra Firdaus, a researcher at the Indonesia Center for Environmental Law (ICEL).

“Companies have lots of resources and money to hire lawyers, but not locals who live in forest areas,” Adam said.

Companies in Indonesia also often have political connections, unlike communities, giving them ways to escape penalties through backdoor deals.

One of the most notorious corruption cases in the palm oil industry involved tycoon Surya Darmadi, who was convicted in 2023 for illegally clearing forest areas. Surya was able to do so by colluding with government officials to secure permits and avoid penalties.

Despite regulations prohibiting plantations in areas zoned as forest, Surya Darmadi’s companies operated for years without repercussions, thanks to his collusion with and bribery of government officials.

The case is emblematic of broader systemic issues where large corporations often evade accountability, while smaller actors, such as Indigenous communities, face harsher consequences, activists say.

The Attorney General’s Office last year launched an investigation into alleged corruption in the Ministry of Forestry, related to the ministry’s handling of illegal plantations in forest areas. The investigation suggests that ministry officials might have colluded with businesses to reduce fines for their illegal activities, said Ahmad Zazali, head of the Center for Law and Conflict Resolution (PURAKA).

Militarized forest governance

Prabowo’s presidential regulation establishes a task force to oversee the military’s role in fighting illegal forest activity. The task force is dominated by military, police and intelligence officers, and led by the defense minister, Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, a former military general.

This suggests Prabowo, also a former military general, intends to militarize forest governance, activists say. They warn that a shift from a forest governance framework administered by civilian agencies, to a militaristic approach could give rise to human rights violations if military or police actions are used to remove communities perceived as encroachers.

That’s because the new regulation explicitly allows for the state to seize forest land deemed unlawfully occupied. But the risk of conflict between the military and local and Indigenous communities in forest areas are especially great given that the military has a history of violent land conflicts in forested regions like Papua.

And since the government has various agricultural and infrastructure projects that need vast areas of land, it’s likely the military will be used to evict settlements and farms run by communities within forest areas through the new regulation, Uli said.

Corruption vs. transparency

The flip side of authorities’ tendency to crack down on powerless groups is that they’ve been largely lenient toward powerful corporations and individuals — something that’s unlikely to change under the new regulation, said Made Ali, a legal expert with the NGO Senarai.

Given the endemic corruption in Indonesia, these companies are likely to bribe their way out of any kind of prosecution, he added.

“We know that the task force consists of political elites like the minister of defense, who’s close to Prabowo, as well as the national police chief, who’s close to Jokowi [former president Joko Widodo],” he said. “They will go face to face with rich people [who own illegal plantations]. How do we know there’s not going to be corruption?”

Made said the palm oil industry is also a major source of election campaign funds, making it even less likely that powerful corporations will be held accountable. That’s why it’s crucial for the government to be transparent in how it tackles illegal activities inside forest areas to minimize corruption risk, he said.

“If the task force publishes the list of companies [that they’re going after], it’s easier for us to track them,” Made said.

Forestry Minister Raja Juli Antoni, who’s also a member of the task force, said separately that the government will be transparent about prosecuting violators.

“We will publish [all information] transparently under the task force,” he said at a parliamentary hearing in January.

Without such transparency, Made said, the presidential regulation risks becoming another tool for repression and corporate impunity, instead of tackling illegal activities as it’s intended to.

Revival of the ‘dual function’

The new regulation is the latest in a series of similar measures from Prabowo favoring a more prominent role for the military in civilian affairs — a revival of the “dual function” role of the armed forces that had ended with Indonesia’s military rule more than two decades ago.

In December 2024, Prabowo instructed officials, including the military and police, to “protect oil palm plantations everywhere” because these plantations are “national assets.”

A month earlier, Forestry Minister Raja asked the military and the police to help his ministry in protecting the country’s forests.

“This is a message that says we will use the hands of the military and the police to make sure that our forests are protected, or that projects in forest areas can proceed,” Uli of Walhi said.

The ministry and the military formally signed their agreement on Feb. 12. Under the agreement, the military will be involved in protecting and rehabilitating forests — something it doesn’t have much experience in, Uli said.

Instead, communities living in and around forests for decades are the true protectors of Indonesia’s forests, she said.

According to data from the Indigenous Territory Registration Agency (BRWA) and Forest Watch Indonesia (FWI), 70% of forest cover in Indigenous territories remains intact and in good condition. Meanwhile, Walhi data from West Java, Bengkulu and South Sulawesi provinces show that when communities are granted access to forest areas, they’ve successfully restored previously deforested lands.

Uli said the Ministry of Forestry should empower communities who have long been engaged in forest protection and restoration by first recognizing people’s rights to their forests and prioritizing the knowledge and experience of Indigenous peoples and local communities in and around forest areas.

“Instead of learning from the military, the Ministry of Forestry should learn from the people on how to protect forests. If the ministry continues to involve the military in forest affairs, then it might as well be dissolved,” she added.

Teo Reffelsen, legal and advocacy manager at Walhi, said the agreement opens the door for the military to be involved in land tenure conflicts between communities, on the one hand, and the state and private sector on the other. This will further raise the risk of human rights violations, he said.

“With the military officially involved in forest enforcement, the risk of the military clashing with local communities — and committing human rights abuses — becomes a valid concern,” Teo said.

The military is enjoying greater involvement in economic and political affairs, including food security and natural resource management, under Prabowo. Earlier this month the president appointed an active-duty military general, Novi Helmy Prasetya, to head up Bulog, the government agency that manages the national food stockpile.

Under Indonesia’s 2004 Military Law, this is illegal; the law states that “a soldier may only hold a civilian position after resigning or retiring from active military service.”

The military’s involvement in food security is also apparent in the government’s plan to develop 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of rice fields in Merauke, a district in Indonesia’s Papua region that borders Papua New Guinea. The so-called food estate project is being led by the Ministry of Defense.

The military’s role in agriculture is expected to increase as the government plans to enlist 100 battalions in “territorial development,” deploying them to rural areas to work in various sectors, including agriculture and fisheries.

Observers and historians say all these moves mark a severe regression toward the past militaristic tendencies of the late authoritarian president Suharto, who ruled from 1966 to 1998. Under Suharto’s New Order regime — which included Prabowo, through his marriage to one of Suharto’s daughters — the military flexed its “dual function” powers across the spectrum of civilian and economic affairs, including in the forestry sector. Specifically, it wielded direct and indirect control over vast forested areas during this time.

The appointment of the military to lead the task force on illegal activities inside forest areas reinforces this backsliding trend, one where forests are treated as national security assets rather than environmental or community resources, said Boy Jerry Even Sembiring, director of the Walhi chapter in Riau province, Indonesia’s palm oil heartland.

“The [new] presidential regulation has a spirit of ‘dual function’ as the military is once again involved in law enforcement,” he said. “Don’t drag the military into civic space because it’s very dangerous for our democracy and it adds a burden onto the military.”

Banner image: Military personnel during the celebration of the 78th anniversary of the Indonesian National Armed Forces in 2023. Image courtesy of the Ministry of Defense. 

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