GEOG3690 Assignment: Tropical Forests and Sustainable Development

This report examines the dramatic expansion of oil palm plantations in Indonesia, focusing on the roles of the government, companies, and small farmers. It addresses the environmental concerns associated with deforestation and the impact of shifting cultivation practices, particularly the haze problem caused by forest fires. The report explores government initiatives like the SPO (Sustainable Palm Oil) and various five-year programs aimed at promoting sustainable palm oil production, including strategies to support smallholder farmers and reduce deforestation. It also analyzes the challenges faced by the Indonesian oil palm industry, including the need to balance production objectives with environmental protection and the importance of shifting towards sustainable practices. The study highlights the importance of intensifying oil palm yields, improving land tenure systems, and adopting sustainable agricultural practices to protect the environment while supporting the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

Running Head: TROPICAL FORESTS AND DEVELOPMENT
Tropical Forests and Sustainable Development
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Abstract
This report discussed the recent oil palm plantation Indonesia has been mainly concentrated
in the west province region. The report highlighted the conservation practice of the rich
forests of Indonesia and the conservation practice of the other types of land from the
landscape scenario. The report has studied the conservation practice through the spatial
analysis method with focus on the concession areas along with data s from the household
surveys that were conducted among the different Indonesian tribes like Mandobo, Marind and
the Auyu communities.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
Indonesia accounts for almost 6 million hectares of land that is covered under the oil
palm plantations. Indonesia is the world’s largest producer and the consumer of palm oil.
Palm oil in Indonesia provides the most essential ingredient for the production of the cooking
oil as well as used for the production of other sort of food and cosmetic products. Indonesia
through its biggest oil palm production also aims to become the largest palm based center for
the biofuel production. However, in the recent time there are growing environmental
concerns because of the poor process of cultivation and sharing the least environmental
responsibility that has led to the massive form of haze problem on an annual basis (Varkkey,
Tyson and Choiruzzad 2018)
It is since the year 1997 that Indonesia has been struggling for the last years to deal
with the ongoing problem of forest fires. Indonesian palm plantation has also been dealing
with the problem of severe haze due to the unethical practices of cultivation followed by most
of the communities. The problem of forest fires and haze is mainly evident on the islands of
Kalimantan and Sumatra (Shahputra and Zen 2018). The main cause of the forest fires and
haze are mainly owing to the slash and burn practices that is followed by some of the tribal
communities in the country. Indonesia was worst hit by haze in the year 2015 which killed
thousands of Indonesians because of the severe respiratory illnesses or the higher frequency
of road accidents that occurred as a result of poor visibility due to haze caused from the forest
fires.
Discussion
It is mainly because of their weak economic base for which they adopt this process of
shifting cultivation. The resettlement programs for reducing the problem of shifting

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cultivation can lead to the intensification of the other allied problems like the rise of the
conflicting claims on the forested lands of a particular region. Indonesia has been facing the
problem of shifting cultivation with its ongoing debate. The policy makers of Indonesia have
however considered those people involving in the edhifting cultivation technique as “villains”
of the countries’ natural environment (Li 2017).It is considered as that practice by the policy
makers which directly refers to the “primitive remnants” in the otherwise civilized sections of
the society who are responsible for creating the havoc on the valuable forest resources. This
situation raises an obvious form of appeal in the “marauder” view of all the policy makers,
who must seek rather simple solutions for all the complex sort of problems.
The other side of the debate asserts that most of the people who are involved in the
shifting cultivation practices are mainly the poor rural dwellers who are devoid of any form
of political or financial source or strength in the context of the outer and wider political world
where the mining sector, the plantation agriculture practices and the other agricultural
concerns play a very significant role. Indonesia has launched its long standing
Transmigration Program that has also encouraged the adherence to this particular view. The
program has also appealed to the different policy makers for addressing the concerns of Java
and Bali that are Indonesia’s most populated islands. The sparsely populated regions are more
dependent on the shifting cultivation practices rather than the densely populated regions.
The current policies that are implemented by the policy makers of Indonesia are not
always sustainable in nature. Mainly the natural resources of the East Kalimantan region. The
shifting cultivation practices followed by some of the Indonesians are different in the separate
and the other unique contexts. In fact, some of the researchers are of the view that shifting
cultivation if done in a proper manner can also prove to be sustainable in certain respects. In
fact, the researchers are of the view that shifting cultivation can also provide for a model base
for the modern scientific agroforestry technologies (Susanti and Maryudi 2016 ). The analysis

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of the shifting cultivation processes was supplemented by the rise in involvement in the
agriculture mainly in the humid tropical rainforests region, which has led to the various
observations regarding the effect of the continuous and often the unsuccessful struggles to
encourage the practice of permanent agriculture in this context.
The palm oil falls under the world has most traded vegetable oil category. The east
coast of Sumatra in Indonesia is the most important site of the intensive and the other
successful pursuits of the foreign agricultural enterprise .Sumatra provides a quite suitable
area for the production of the oil palm because of the high rainfall pattern and the pattern of
tropical climate prevailing in that particular region. Indonesian government has taken various
initiative for initiating the extension of the oil palm plantation in the country (Casson
2016).One of the most important examples of the government’s initiative for the expansion of
the palm oil plantation is the SPO (The Sustainable Palm Oil initiative).

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The SPO is a major form of public private initiative that tends to provide a support system
to ensure the sustainable production of palm oil by reducing the adverse forms of
environmental and social impacts. SPO also aims at reducing the level sof deforestation and
providing an impactful change in the different structural factors associated with a particular
sector (McCarthy and Cramb 2019). The government has devised several five-year programs
from 2013 to 2018. The baseline assessment and the exclusive consultations by the executive
stakeholders through the platform of the business for the national oil. The main aims of the
five-year program of the SPO are:

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 To facilitate the coordination levels of all the stakeholders for palm oil in Indonesia
through the active involvement of the Government and the associated bodies in order
to drive the processes of institutionalization and the sustainability initiatives coupled
with the private sector engagement.
 The participation of the local NGOs, the other local communities and the
organizations of the smallholders.
 The programs should provide an access for the various government policies for
making certain recommendations and the underlying regulations.
 To strengthen the smallholders in order to improve the sustainable patterns of
livelihood which is possible by providing the required training to the smallholders on
the various fields of their productivity practices for providing a fair pricing strategy
with proper and efficient management and to obtain the ISPO certification.
 The aim of the five-year program is also to reduce the deforestation levels by
accelerating the land swaps and use of the degraded land for the production of palm
oil through the development of sustainability and the other scaling measures for
providing the successful solutions.
 The proper and efficient management of the greenhouse emissions.
 Improvement of the land tenure system and the other mediation mechanisms. This
objective is achieved by providing the required support system to the smallholder of
palm oil through certain legal and the other policy measures to provide the small
holders the legal land status.
 The operationalization initiatives of the national certification scheme to foster the
sustainable production of palm oil, to support the ISPO operationalization initiatives

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and the optimizing measures of the guidelines so that ISPO functions in an efficient
manner for addressing the various socio economic and environmental issues.
The DAC &FW (Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmer’s
Welfare) had taken up the emission for technological innovation for the different
oilseeds and pulses in most of the potential states. The farmers have taken up the
initiatives for the area expansion that will cover the assistance of the different planting
materials, its maintenance strategies and the intercropping measures. The component
for the production initiatives (Ramdani and Hino 2015 ). The farmers have adopted
the production strategies that covers the various drip irrigation measures, the water
harvesting mechanisms.
The cultivation processes have also adopted for the transfer of the different
technologies component that is used to cover the assistance measures for the training
of farmers and the different officers for the demonstrations of oil palm at the fields of
the farmers. The training and the demonstration initiatives for the farmers are based
on the different research and development projects on the oil palm cultivation. The
local initiatives along with the different evaluation and the operational costs pattern
that also includes the consultancy services.
The farmer shave been provided with an additional 1.05 lakh hectares of land
for the cultivation of the oil palm. The farmers are expected to take an area expansion
approach in the country for the period of next two years that is from 2019 to 2020 and
2017 to 2018. The implementing agency for these initiatives is the Oilseeds Division
of the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation of the Welfare of the Farmers. Several
programs like that of MM II NMOOP, financial assistance has been provided to the
farmers by providing them 85% cost of the total planting material.

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The Indonesian oil palm plantations have been highly scrutinized by the global
markets all over and have been criticized by certain agricultural practices, which are
unsustainable in its approach. In this response, the Indonesian government has
formulated policies for bringing a shift to the existing model of the country’s business
and in order to make rest 70% of palm oil to make it sustainable by the year 2020.
There will be certain policies that will be soon enacted by the Indonesian government
to achieve a specific target that includes the various zero deforestation initiatives and
the permit for the oil palm. However, such actions by the government can effectively
reduce the production of palm oil.
The basic gap between the production objectives and the measures for the
environmental production by Indonesia can be used for the pursuing of the new
course on palm oil, which is possible by optimizing the production process and the
standards of productivity without the inclusion of additional land areas for the
cultivation purposes (Obidzinski et. al 2017). The Indonesian government has started

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the initiative by emphasizing more on the smallholder’s farmers considering the
pivotal roles that they have played in the oil palm sector of Indonesia. In the year
2015. The smallholders’ farmers have managed up to 40% of the total production in
oil palm .Indonesia’s Agriculture Ministry has however argued that the companies
dealing with the production of palm oil have the potential for increasing the palm oil
production to almost 8.4 tonnes of CPO per hectare to prepare the farmers for
intensifying their yields.
The Indonesian government has led to the institutionalized and a more
systematic form of transformation along with the national governance system that is
strongly needed in the current situational context. The transformation comprises of the
regulatory framework for the different improvement strategies along with the multi
stakeholder collaborative strategies along with the supply of the palm oil and its
supply chain that will lead to the enhancement of the capacity of the smallholders.A
successful shift is required to intensify the role of achieving the victories that include
first by increasing the production level of palm oil to a quadruple amount by the small
holder’s income and can eventually prevent the rate of deforestation and the peat
degradation practices from the expansion of the expansion of the palm oil. Investing
in the intensification measures will have the potential to protect the environment
from the degradation measures and will lead to an expansion of the palm oil
cultivation by 8.2 million hectares.
Conclusion
Since the Asian Economic Crisis, there have been various plans for the
development of infrastructure and to enhance the widespread connectivity among the
various islands that covers almost 17000 islands. Indonesia has depended on its

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natural resources to add to its GDP and to lead the overall economic growth. Owing to
the financial fragility of Indonesia, Indonesia’s high dependence on it palm oil
production has been the highest in the year 2014. The externalities of Indonesia have
also provided it with the ability to surpass Malaysia (Li 2017). With the ability of
surpassing Malaysia in 2007. However, there is always lack of government
regulations. The different law enforcements of the existing regulations that will lead
to a high consumption level.
Globally, Indonesia’s tropical deforestation rate has been recorded as the
second largest all over the world that estimates that around 498,000 hectares per year
as per the density of the tropical rain forest that are cut down on an annual basis.
Indonesia’s high reliance level of oil palm expansion to lead to further growth to
contribute to the profit maximization initiatives. The growth of the palm oil is further
expanded to increase by 32 percent by 2020.