A mangrove forest in South Papua, Indonesia. Jurnasyanto Sukarno / Greenpeace
Indonesia is obstructing access to government data on the state of its forests. The new restrictions come as the country witnesses a surge in deforestation.
Users of an online mapping tool maintained by the Ministry of Forestry were previously able to download the latest data on tree cover, fires, groundwater levels, and other factors in protected and unprotected forests. But for the last several weeks, an onscreen pop-up has warned that anyone who downloads data without written permission from the ministry “will be prosecuted,” Mongabay reports. Violations, the website says, could be penalized with up to nine years in prison.
In September, the Ministry of Forestry outlined a new process for accessing data, which requires users to disclose their research aims. Experts told Mongabay that they fear they will lose the ability to track the illicit clearing of forests, incursions on Indigenous lands, and other threats.
“It’s a typical Indonesian approach,” Andreas Harsono, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, told Mongabay. “It does not say that you cannot download the data, but you need to get a permit to download a government data. These permits are usually very long to get, taking so much time, if approved at all.” Legal experts, meanwhile, told Mongabay that the new restrictions run afoul of Indonesian law, which protects access to public information.
The moves fit a long pattern of government crackdowns on environmental research that casts Indonesia in an unfavorable light. In 2022, for instance, officials blacklisted foreign researchers who challenged government claims that endangered orangutans were on the rebound. They barred those researchers from accessing government data and withdrew their permission for field research.
The latest restrictions on data come amid a surge in deforestation in Indonesia, where the loss of forest hit an eight-year high last year. The increase represents a sharp reversal for the country, which had been a bright spot in the global fight to halt deforestation. Over the last decade, Indonesia cut the loss of forest by nearly two-thirds, but under President Prabowo Subianto, who came to office in 2024, forest-clearing has been on the rise.
The loss of forest has been driven in part by a massive project, known as the Food and Energy Estate, that is turning 7 million acres of tropical forest in New Guinea into rice and sugarcane farms. Critics say the undertaking is the largest deforestation project in the world.
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