Published by
Mongabay
Mongabay
JAKARTA — Indonesia has no effective mechanism for resolving its epidemic of land conflicts between rural communities and palm oil companies, according to a new study. Indonesia is the world’s top producer of palm oil, but the industry’s rapid expansion has fueled deforestation and allegations of land grabbing throughout the archipelago nation. The study, produced by Dutch and Indonesian academics in collaboration with six Indonesian NGOs, is billed as the first-ever systematic documentation of a large number of land conflicts in the Southeast Asian country. Researchers analyzed 150 cases in f…