Kalimantan Deforestation Accelerating, Walhi Reports 35 Active Tenure Disputes Across Four Provinces

Indonesian environmental advocacy network Walhi (Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia) has warned that Kalimantan is nearing an ecological breaking point, according to Mongabay Indonesia. The group’s regional coalition estimates that roughly 33.59% of the island’s total ecological landscape has been degraded over the past decade, with tropical forest disappearing at an average of approximately 412,790 hectares per year. Walhi attributes this trajectory directly to state-issued commercial licences: 4,110 land-use rights permits (HGU) concentrated mainly in palm oil, 1,717 mining licences, and 330 forest-utilisation business permits (PBPH) for timber and related activities.

Deforestation is accelerating across all four provinces. In East Kalimantan, where 84.36% of 12.7 million hectares is already encumbered by concession permits, annual forest loss jumped from 28,633 hectares in 2023 to 44,483 hectares in 2024 — a roughly 55% rise in a single year — while cumulative loss from 2001 to 2025 reached an estimated 5.2 million hectares, led by Kutai Timur district at roughly 1.4 million hectares, according to Walhi Kaltim Deputy Executive Yudi Saputra. Central Kalimantan lost 56,900 hectares in 2025 alone, per Executive Director Janang Firman, in a province where around 60% of its 15.4 million hectares is under large corporate concession control. South Kalimantan Executive Director Raden Rafiq estimated that approximately 2,200 hectares of 2025 forest loss released roughly 1.7 million tonnes of carbon emissions, with over half the province burdened by active industrial licences. In West Kalimantan, Executive Director Sri Hartini warned that 135 palm oil companies, 25 industrial timber plantation (HTI) permit holders, and 123 mining operations are active within peatland hydrological zones, where drainage and headwater disturbance are intensifying floods and wildfires.

At least 35 tenure disputes are being actively accompanied by Walhi across the four provinces — eight in East Kalimantan and nine each in West, Central, and South Kalimantan — most arising from overlaps between customary community territories and concessions held by plantation, mining, and forestry operators, or national strategic project developers. In Central Kalimantan alone, 401 social conflicts logged between 2004 and 2025 remain unresolved. In East Kalimantan, an estimated 65% of 1,038 villages and sub-districts fall within large-scale extractive-industry concession boundaries. Walhi warns that weak state protection of community land rights — including episodes of criminalisation of local residents rather than concession holders — falls disproportionately on indigenous women, smallholder farmers, and fishing communities who depend on forests and customary territories for food, medicine, and livelihoods.