INDONESIA’S LEUSER ECOSYSTEM, A TREASURE TROVE OF BIODIVERSITY THREATENED BY PALM OIL

Iep Diah still misses the forests that used to cover the gentle hills near her home in the district of Aceh Tamiang, in the north of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. “There used to be hundreds of different trees here,” recalls this 40-year-old woman. Today, however, only one can be seen on those very same hills: the oil palm tree.

Biologist Rudi Putra is one of the main environmental activists in the region. Saw in hand, Putra and another eight “loggers” began dismantling illegal plantations in 2007. He and his team have recovered over 3,000 hectares, but their target is 100,000. (Laura Villediego)

The forest that has been lost is not just another forest. Aceh Tamiang is located on the edge of the Leuser Ecosystem, one of most bio-diverse areas in the world, home to unique species such as the orangutan, rhinoceros or the Sumatran elephant.

The three have been placed on the list of endangered species drawn up by the International Union for Conservation of Nature(IUCN), owing to the threat posed to their habitats by palm oil plantations, above all, but also those producing pulp for paper and mining operations.

Indonesian legislation protects – at least on paper – this tropical forest, defining it as a “National Strategic Area for its Environmental Protection Function”, but palm plantations continue to take over large swathes of land in the region, to feed the powerful palm oil industry. Indonesia produces almost 45 per cent of the world’s palm oil, used massively by the food industry, but also cosmetics and, increasingly, for fuel.