InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA — Throughout 2025, land-based and natural resource industries in Indonesia have remained under intense scrutiny from both the government and the public. Law enforcement operations targeting plantations and mining activities inside forest areas, environmental disaster responses, and the involvement of the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI) have marked a year of aggressive state intervention.
The Forest Area Enforcement Task Force (Satgas PKH), established under Presidential Regulation No. 5/2025, has led crackdowns on oil palm and mining operations deemed illegal. The government has framed these actions as an effort to correct past policy failures, restore ecosystems, prevent recurring floods, and recover state losses from unlawful business activities.
President Prabowo Subianto reiterated this commitment on December 24, 2025, when Rp6.6 trillion in recovered state losses from forest area violations was formally handed over at the Attorney General’s Office.
However, critics argue that these actions reveal a policy contradiction. While enforcement tightens in Sumatra and Kalimantan, the government is simultaneously expanding extractive development through the National Strategic Projects (PSN) scheme. Under Presidential Instruction No. 14/2025, Indonesia has launched a one-million-hectare food and energy estate program in South Papua.
Following the directive, the Ministry of Forestry re-designated 486,939 hectares of forest into non-forest land (APL) to support sugarcane and oil palm expansion. Civil society groups view this as a clear double standard: strict enforcement in western Indonesia, but large-scale forest conversion in Papua.
The policy has also sparked resistance from indigenous and local communities whose lands have been seized under forest claims. Many argue that these territories are ancestral lands predating Indonesian independence.
Observers warn that unless indigenous land rights are formally recognized through a long-delayed Indigenous Peoples Law, enforcement efforts risk deepening social conflict. As Indonesia heads into 2026, critics urge the government to align investment, conservation, and human rights under a single, consistent legal framework. (*)
By Ahmad Zazali, Chairman of the Center for Law and Conflict Resolution (PURAKA).
Disclaimer: This is the author’s personal opinion.
