Indonesia plans to fine palm oil growers, miners $8.5 billion for forest encroachment

Indonesia has identified potential fines amounting to $8.5 billion that the government could collect in 2026 from palm oil companies and miners operating illegally in forest areas, the country’s attorney general said on Wednesday. President Prabowo Subianto’s forestry task force, made up of military personnel, police, prosecutors and government officials, has this year cracked down on an unprecedented scale on plantations and mines in what authorities say were supposed to be forest areas. The military-backed campaign has unnerved the palm oil industry, with analysts predicting that in combination with Indonesia’s ambitious biodiesel plans, the seizures could put even more upward pressure on global prices by disrupting production. Attorney General Sanitiar Burhanuddin, speaking at a ceremony in front of tall stacks of red rupiah banknotes, said the task force has already taken over 4.1 million hectares (9.8 million acres) of illegal plantations and mines, a total area about the ...