In the province of Palawan, indigenous communities and civil society have denounced illegal clearing of pristine forests and indigenous rights violations by oil palm companies.

A palm oil company in Central Kalimantan is being sued by the Indonesian government for allegedly causing illegal forest fires. PT Arjuna Utama Sawit, a Musim Mas supplier, has also been connected to land conflicts and the illegal clearing of peatland.

More than a year after a request for information was submitted, authorities in Aceh still have not released data about a plantation concession, ignoring a court decision and raising questions about its motives. The case follows similar behaviour by the Ministry of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning, which continues to defy a Supreme Court order for more transparency.

Indonesia’s anti-corruption body has asked the country’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry to review its decision to authorise the conversion of 10,000 hectares of forest in Buol district, Central Sulawesi, into oil palm plantations.

Police has named Dodi Shah, younger brother of Deputy Governor of North Sumatra Musa Rajekshah, as a suspect in a case of illegal deforestation of protected areas for oil palm cultivation.

Malaysian palm oil giant FGV Holdings Berhad, formerly FELDA Global Ventures, has been sanctioned by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) for forced labour, possible trafficking in migrant workers, and numerous other violations of Malaysian labour laws.

Three executives from one of Indonesia’s biggest palm oil firms were arrested over the weekend by the nation’s anti-graft agency, the KPK, after an employee was caught bribing politicians to kill an inquiry into water pollution and plantation licenses in Borneo, the agency said on Sunday.

Fires have broken out inside palm oil concessions in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, belonging to suppliers to some of the biggest household brands in the world, according to analysis by Greenpeace Indonesia.

Four concessions owned in West Kalimantan’s Kubu Raya district have been sealed by the Indonesian Environment and Forest Ministry in law enforcement operations due to ongoing peat fires.

More than 1,000 hectares of one of Indonesia’s most important national parks has been encroached upon by illegal palm oil plantations, according to an investigation.

There is a growing realization that the corrupt allocation of land to plantation firms is a main underlying cause of Indonesia’s deforestation and land-rights crisis. Backroom deals with politicians allow companies to clear rainforests and peat swamps that might otherwise be protected, and to seize land from indigenous and other rural communities, while also channeling dark money into elections. With the stakes so high, then, why has the KPK prosecuted so few of these cases?

An investigation by Mongabay has unearthed new evidence indicating that companies the pulp and paper giant Asia Pulp and Paper has sought to distance itself from are in fact controlled by the plantation giant.

The annual debate over blame for the cause of the fires has re-emerged with the smoke in recent weeks, following relatively mild years in 2016 and 2017.

An investigation in Sumatra has exposed, again, that major palm oil traders are sourcing palm oil produced illegally in the island’s heavily threatened and biologically valuable protected areas.

Almost 7,000 hectares of forest were destroyed in the Leuser Ecosystem, in the western Indonesian province of Aceh, in 2017.