Indonesia’s forestry minister Raja Juli Antoni confirmed to the DPR in December 2025 that gross deforestation in the first nine months of 2025 exceeded annual totals for any of the first three years of this decade. Deforestation in 2024 had already jumped by more than 50% to approximately 216,000 hectares – the highest level since 2019. The main driver is the Merauke Food and Energy Estate in South Papua, spanning up to 3 million hectares, which Mighty Earth has described as “the largest single deforestation project in the world”. 

In January 2026, the National Land Agency granted 328,000 hectares of cultivation rights for the rice plantation component in Merauke at “unusually rapid speed” compared with the years-long process typically required for large-scale plantation permits. Prior to this, the government had reclassified 486,939 hectares of forest estate into non-forest land (September 2025) and the South Papua provincial government issued a new spatial plan specifically accommodating the food estate (November 2025). As of January 2026, the sugarcane project had cleared 15,643 hectares of forest, while the rice project accounted for 5,934 hectares of deforestation. 

UN special rapporteurs have raised concerns about displacement of Indigenous communities, deforestation of more than 109,000 hectares, violations of FPIC, and intimidation by military forces. Civil society groups have called on the EU to consider the food estate a violation of the EUDR. 

Sources: Mongabay, January 2026 – Deforestation spike; Mongabay, 27 January 2026 – Fast-tracked permits; Mighty Earth; Yale E360; UN Human Rights / Mongabay