InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA – Deputy Minister of Forestry Rohmat Marzuki revealed that the area of established oil palm plantations inside designated forest zones has reached 3.32 million hectares. The figure was delivered during a working meeting with Indonesia’s House of Representatives Commission IV in Jakarta on Monday.
“Established oil palm plantations inside forest zones cover 3.32 million hectares,” Rohmat said.
However, he stressed that the data remains dynamic as field verification continues. Based on the latest developments, the total area identified within forest zones is now said to be approaching four million hectares, spread across various regions in Indonesia.
Rohmat detailed that of the total 3.32 million hectares, around 0.68 million hectares were found in conservation forest areas and about 0.15 million hectares in protected forests.
Oil palm plantations were also recorded in permanent production forests covering 1.48 million hectares, as well as limited production forests reaching 0.5 million hectares.
Meanwhile, oil palm development within convertible production forests was estimated at 1.09 million hectares, based on mapping and field verification conducted by the Ministry of Forestry.
In the same session, Rohmat reported that the Forest Area Enforcement Task Force (Satgas PKH) has managed to regain control over 1.5 million hectares of forest areas from illegal occupation across multiple regions.
From that total, a conservation area of 688,427 hectares has been handed back to the Ministry of Forestry for phased and sustainable ecosystem restoration efforts.
As reported by InfoSAWIT from Antara on Wednesday (Jan 21, 2026), Rohmat said the Ministry and Satgas PKH will continue to strengthen efforts to curb illegal land occupation inside forest zones.
To improve forest governance and oversight, the Ministry is also integrating national geospatial data through the Jaga Rimba platform, designed to support decision-making.
The system is equipped with an AI-based early warning system aimed at detecting potential deforestation and forest fires earlier nationwide. The Ministry is also planning to collaborate with communication service providers to implement WhatsApp blasting for technical units in areas flagged for possible deforestation or fire.
Beyond monitoring systems, Rohmat said the Ministry proposed establishing 35 regional forestry coordination centers to strengthen coordination and integration on the ground.
Law enforcement capacity is also proposed to be increased by expanding the number of Law Enforcement and Forest Fire Control technical units (UPT) from 10 units to 24 units.
Rohmat said the proposals have been submitted to President Prabowo Subianto and received a positive response, although further discussions will consider national budget capacity and coordination with the Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform (PANRB).
“We were instructed to coordinate with the Minister of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Rini Widyantini, and it is currently being discussed between the Forestry Ministry team and the Minister,” Rohmat said.
The Ministry also proposed increasing the number of forest rangers, currently at around 4,800 personnel, consisting of 3,100 within the Ministry and 1,700 at provincial environmental and forestry agencies across Indonesia.
With the current workforce, the security ratio is far from ideal, with one ranger overseeing roughly 26,000 hectares of forest. Rohmat said the Ministry proposed adding around 21,000 more forest rangers to reach a ratio of 1 ranger per 5,000 hectares, supported by drones to enhance field monitoring. (T2)
