The Forest Area Control Taskforce, set up under Presidential Regulation No.5/2025 specially to bring order to the palm oil industry, has confiscated an estimated 1.2 million hectares (ha) of oil palm plantations allegedly developed by almost 370 companies in forest areas in nine provinces in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi.But instead of reforesting the seized oil palm estates, the plantations were put under the management of PT Agrinas Palma Nusantara, a state-owned enterprise set up in February specially to own and operate the plantations.
It was a great wonder though that the bold law enforcement measure did not cause any uproar among the business community. Not a single lawsuit was filed to counter the government measure. Even the Indonesia Palm Oil Association (Gapki), which groups palm oil companies throughout the country, kept silent.
But it is also mindboggling to observe that Agrinas or Danantara, the superholding of all SOEs, did not give further explanations as to whether Agrinas has fully taken over both the legal ownership and the operational management of the seized plantations.
This lack of transparency is not good for restoring legal certainty to the palm oil industry. We don’t think the transfer of the management had run so smoothly and peacefully because Agrinas, which is only less than six months old, did not have any experience in managing plantations. Moreover, there were issues about the debts of the former corporate owners of the plantations.
