GORONTALO, Indonesia — A palm oil industry body and a state-owned company are proposing a vast new palm oil plan encompassing around 1 million hectares (nearly 2.5 million acres) of new plantations across the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. “This growth will not only increase income for companies, but also for smallholder farmers who depend on oil palm cultivation for their livelihoods,” said Machmud Achmad, acting head of PT Sulsel Citra Indonesia (SCI). SCI is a form of municipal state-owned company, known in Indonesia as a Perseroda, which is owned by the South Sulawesi provincial government. SCI has proposed the new plantation area together with the Indonesian Plantation Companies Association (GPPI), an industry body. On May 21, SCI and GPPI signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate toward initiating the project, dubbed the Sulawesi Palm Oil Belt. The new palm oil belt plan includes areas in South Sulawesi province covering 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres), 290,000 hectares (717,000 acres) in Southeast Sulawesi, 120,000 hectares (297,000 acres) in West Sulawesi and 300,000 hectares (741,000 acres) in Central Sulawesi, with Gorontalo at 95,000 hectares (235,000 acres) and North Sulawesi at 70,000 hectares (173,000 acres). Palm oil companies in Indonesia, the world’s leading producer of the ubiquitous edible oil, cleared 30,000 hectares (74,100 acres) of rainforest for plantations in 2023, an increase from 22,000 hectares (54,400 acres) in 2022. Rainforest in Sulawesi, where the palm oil industry is pushing a 1 million-hectare expansion plan. Image by Sapariah Saturi/Mongabay Indonesia. Estimates vary, but the total area used for…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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