A study finds Indonesia’s deforested land is often left idle. But some see potential in that

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Years after being felled, vast swathes of Indonesia’s old-growth forests are left sitting idle. And when the land is finally put to use, it’s most often for new palm oil plantations, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

But some experts — including the study’s authors — are hoping for a silver lining: The opportunity for Indonesia to expand its agricultural, palm, pulp and other commodities without having to cut down more trees, thus meeting increasing demand from companies and governments for products that didn’t depend on deforestation.

“There’s maybe some hope that if the country can focus on these idle, non-forest lands… it could potentially drop deforestation to zero, and still have a lot of opportunities for economic development,” said Diana Parker, a postdoctoral associate in the University of Maryland’s Department of Geographical Sciences and the lead author of the study.

A vast tropical archipelago stretching across the equator, Indonesia is home to the world’s third-largest rainforest, with a variety of endangered wildlife and plants, including orangutans, elephants and giant forest flowers. Some live nowhere else.

Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of palm oil, a vegetable oil that is used for cooking and as an ingredient in many foods and in hundreds of everyday products. Indonesia also has the world’s largest reserves of nickel — a critical material for electric vehicles, solar panels and other goods needed for the green energy transition.

Since 1950, more than 74 million hectares (285,715 square miles) of Indonesian rainforest — an area twice the size of Germany — have been logged, burned or degraded for development of palm