Thousands protest against state takeover of palm oil plantations in Indonesia’s Riau

Thousands of residents in Indonesia’s Riau province palm oil belt protested on Thursday against the takeover of their plantations by the government’s forestry task force, an organiser told Reuters. President Prabowo Subianto’s forestry task force, which includes military personnel and state prosecutors, has this year launched a crackdown on palm oil plantations they say have been running illegally in forest areas, an operation that the palm oil industry says could disrupt global supplies. Make sense of the latest ESG trends affecting companies and governments with the Reuters Sustainable Switch newsletter. Sign up here. Around 3.7 million hectares (9.1 million acres) of plantations have been seized, with nearly half transferred to the nascent state-run firm Agrinas Palma Nusantara, transforming it into the world’s largest palm oil company by land size. At a rally near the local prosecutor’s office in the provincial capital of Pekanbaru, around 2,800 protesters called on the task ...