NORTH KALIMANTAN, Indonesia — Indonesia is trying to kick its coal habit, which currently powers nearly half of the country. As part of this energy transition, the Southeast Asian nation is turning to biomass energy, generated mainly from wood chips produced by fast-growing tree plantations. These wood chips are burned alongside coal as a renewable alternative. While the government and biomass companies have downplayed suggestions rainforests will be cleared for new plantations, a tip from North Kalimantan led Mongabay to investigate these claims.
We traveled to one of the most remote corners of Indonesia, where three villages have signed over at least 5,000 hectares of their land to a biomass company. Much of this area, residents say, is covered in rainforest that would presumably be cleared for the project. Villagers expressed concerns over inadequate compensation and land grabbing, fearing that the deforestation would strip them of a vital resource for both their daily survival and their cultural and spiritual connection.
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Banner image: Rainforest in North Kalimantan. Image by Nanang Sujana.
Revealed: Biomass firm poised to clear Bornean rainforest for dubious ‘green’ energy
Transcript
Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.1
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What does this forest
in the middle of Borneo
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have to do with Indonesia’s
energy future?
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The answer may lie in the controversial
rise of biomass energy,
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a solution touted as part of a
push towards sustainability.
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But as we dug deeper into these plans,
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we discovered a far darker story emerging
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and a looming threat to both the forests
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and the people
who rely on them.
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In Indonesia today, coal is king,
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but the Southeast Asian nation
has pledged to replace fossil fuels
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with renewable alternatives.
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And they are betting big on a
resource known as biomass.
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Starting from the Paris Agreement at the COP,
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every country promised to contribute
to reducing the climate crisis.
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This is Amalia Reza,
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a researcher at the NGO Trend Asia.
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She’s been researching the impacts
of bioenergy across Indonesia.
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Now there is a push for another form of energy
from bioenergy, namely biomass,
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which is solid organic material that,
once burned, produces energy.
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The most readily available form of biomass
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is often wood pellets made from
timber grown on large plantations.
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Indonesia wants to create these plantations,
make the pellets
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and then burn them to produce bioenergy.
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The use of biomass leads to deforestation, land grabbing,
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and results in emissions that are much higher than
the emissions they initially planned to reduce.
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Companies are lining up to develop new areas of land
to meet Indonesia’s targets for biomass energy production.
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Indonesian officials have downplayed
concerns about deforestation,
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saying there’s ample non-forested land
available for new plantations.
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Recently, however, Mongabay received
a tip from the island of Borneo
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that told a different story.
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So we traveled to one of the
most remote corners of Indonesia
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to investigate.
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This is Ipu Angit, an Indigenous Dayak man
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who knows the forest
like the back of his hand.
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He can use the leaves, branches,
stems and roots to make anything
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from an evening meal to a makeshift umbrella.
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We grew up with the forest,
with nutritious food from the forest.
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We know, it’s all from the forest.
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His community, Laban Nyarit, is one of at
least four villages in the area
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that has negotiated with a
company called MHL,
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over the rights to use their land.
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Ipu says his land, including rich primary rainforest,
was signed over to the company without his consent,
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a common issue in rural Indonesia,
where residents often lack formal land title.
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The company, MHL, came to the village.
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They [wanted to] plant timber to replace
the coal. That’s what they said.
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MHL is a subsidiary of billionaire-owned
coal firm PT Mitrabara Adiperdana.
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They have mined coal in this part of Borneo for years
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but with the mine nearing retirement,
the company says it wants to pivot to biomass energy.
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They say it plans to make use of
previously cleared land for its plantations
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but villagers we spoke to said
much of the land signed over to the company
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is covered in rainforest.
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Ipu and his family say they haven’t
signed anything with the company
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but MHL signboards have appeared and surveyors have
begun mapping around their home.
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I said, “Child, don’t you survey in this area.”
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“If you insist on surveying, there will be a problem.”
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“To the last drop of my blood, child,
I will not give this land to the company.”
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Three villages we visited, local
residents and village officials told us,
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have already entered into agreements with MHL,
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leasing a total of
5,000 hectares to the company.
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We found that much of that area
is covered in rainforest.
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A fourth village, Long Loreh, has so far
rejected the company’s advances.
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but they too said MHL had approached
them about acquiring their forestland.
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That land is still forested.
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In terms of percentages, its about 50:50.
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Fifty percent is under cultivation,
fifty percent is still standing rainforest.
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<b>We obtained maps of MHL’s concession </b>
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<b> from villagers who had received </b>
<b>them directly from the company.</b>
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While it’s not clear if these maps are absolutely final,
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analysis shows that around three-quarters
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of the company’s concession
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is covered in rich primary forest.
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and potentially at risk of being cleared by MHL.
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Yes, it will be clear-cut.
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There’s still so many valuable trees, like ironwood —
lots of valuable trees in this forest.
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Indonesia has pushed biomass in the name
of meeting its renewable energy targets.
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But the wood pellets to be produced by MHL aren’t even intended for domestic consumption.
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A company executive said at a shareholder
meeting in May
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they intend to export them overseas.
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Regarding our target market,
of course we’re targeting the overseas market.
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We haven’t settled on a specific country.
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Countries like the EU, U.K., South Korea, Japan,
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you can’t say you use “renewable” energy from biomass
while you harm the rainforests of Indonesia,
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and then expect that everything will be
alright amid the climate crisis.
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That should not happen.
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“Belatung otah ayok”.
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That’s what the Dayak people say nowadays.
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What that means is, the forest is like milk from our mother.