The Loss of Our Forest and Peatland

Our latest joint report with the Independent Forest Monitoring Network in Indonesia (aka JPIK) reveals systematic and extensive encroachment into forests as well as illegal logging in Sebangau National Park.

JPIK’s repeated monitoring from the end of 2016 to early 2018 found forest and peatland have been converted and burnt to make way for oil palm plantations in Tangkiling and Marang, Bukit Batu sub-district in Palangkaraya municipality, one of the management units of Sebangau National Park. It further found illegal logging inside the park, with the timber allegedly used to supply local timber industries in Central Kalimantan.

Satellite image analysis shows 19,000 hectares in Sebangau National Park were burnt in 2015, the same location where more than half of the hotspots in all national parks in Indonesia in the same year were found. The cause is believed to be land clearing for oil palm plantations and farmland.

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