PALMOILMAGAZINE, JAKARTA – The Consortium for Agrarian Reform (Konsorsium Pembaruan Agraria or KPA) reported a 12% increase in agrarian conflicts in Indonesia in 2023, equating to approximately 241 additional conflicts compared to the preceding year.
The year-end report for 2023, released in South Jakarta on Monday (15/1), emphasized that plantations, particularly within the palm oil sector, emerged as the primary catalyst for these conflicts.
Dewi Kartika, the General Secretary of KPA, highlighted that while conflicts occurred across various sectors, plantations, and notably those in the palm oil business, remained predominant in the statistical landscape. In 2023, there were 108 conflicts in plantation sectors, encompassing approximately 124,545 hectares and impacting 37,553 families. This represented a substantial increase from the previous year’s tally of 99 conflicts in plantation sectors.
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Dewi Kartika further underscored that the palm oil industry played a pivotal role in escalating agrarian conflicts. KPA observed that 88 out of the 108 conflicts in plantation sectors were directly related to the palm oil industry, constituting about 82% of the total agrarian conflicts in these sectors. Dewi expressed regret over palm oil policies that expanded area allocations for plantations without due consideration for the social and environmental consequences.
“Palm oil business policies should not ignore that there are duties and obligation which are difficult to publish policies about area allocation in palm oil plantations that get larger and larger every year but the policies get loosen,” Dewi said.
Besides becoming the cause of increasing agrarian conflicts, plantation companies in many regions in Indonesia have something to do with violence and human rights violation. In 2023, KPA noted, repressive case and violence in plantation operational delivered crime action for 252 men. 52 of them were tortured; 2 were shot, and three should come to an end from the tension in plantation sectors.
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“Data from the cases reflected how agrarian conflicts keep happening in plantation industries particularly in palm oil business. There were victims of violence and the losses of life,” Dewi said, as Palmoilmagazine.com quoted from Kontan.
The condition showed that behind the famous palm oi industries in Indonesia as the biggest producer in the world, there are serious consequences to the local and environment. It needs comprehensive and sustainable solution that should involve the governments, industries, the local to solve agrarian conflicts which get more complex.
To face these challenges, it is significant to get synergy among the sustainability of industries, the rights of people, and environment sustainability. It needs to consider every policy – to be published to balance environmental, social, and economical advantages, minimize agrarian conflicts but welfare the local people. (T2)
