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Indonesian omnibus law’s ‘whitewash’ of illegal palm oil shocks its architects
Hans Nicholas Jong – MongaBay – Creative Commons
- Indonesian lawmakers appear outraged at a scheme from a law they already passed that grants amnesty to oil palm plantations operating illegally inside forest areas.
- The amnesty scheme gives the operators a grace period of three years to apply for the proper paperwork, including a redesignation of the forest they’re illegally occupying to a non-forest designation.
- The lawmakers, who overwhelmingly approved the law last November despite near-universal criticism, have called the scheme “whitewashing” and “eco-tourism.”
- One even expressed his own regret at not being a “forest thief” had he only known how lucrative it would be.
(MongaBay) – JAKARTA — Lawmakers in Indonesia have expressed shock — shock! — that a controversial bill they passed into law last year amid near-universal criticism legitimizes illegal deforestation for oil palm plantations.
The so-called omnibus law on job creation ushered in a wave of deregulation across a range of industries, including rolling back environmental protections and incentivizing extractive industries such as mining and plantations.