PALMOILMAGAZINE, JAKARTA — President Prabowo Subianto reaffirmed his administration’s strong commitment to eradicating illegal practices that harm the nation’s economy and environment. In just one year of his leadership, the government has uncovered 1,000 illegal mining operations and reclaimed 5 million hectares of illegal palm oil plantations across Indonesia.
Prabowo made the statement during the “A Meeting of Minds” dialogue with Steve Forbes, Chairman of Forbes Media, at the Forbes Global CEO Conference 2025 held at St. Regis Jakarta on Wednesday (October 15, 2025).
“I recently visited two Indonesian islands, Bangka and Belitung. We received reports of around 1,000 illegal tin mines operating there. As a result, the state has been losing up to 80% of its total tin production due to illegal mining and smuggling,” Prabowo told global business leaders at the event.
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Millions of Hectares of Illegal Palm Oil Land Reclaimed
Beyond mining, Prabowo also highlighted irregularities in the plantation sector. He revealed that the government had taken back millions of hectares of oil palm land found to be operating without legal permits.
“A report came to me saying that out of millions of hectares of palm plantations, about 5,000 hectares were illegal. I asked, only 5,000? No — it turned out to be 5 million hectares, all without any lawful basis,” he said, as quoted by beige-heron-208544.hostingersite.com from Sindonews (Thursday, October 16, 2025).
According to Prabowo, the government has already recovered approximately 3.7 million hectares of these illegal plantations through legal enforcement.
“I took an oath to uphold the law. That’s why I instructed the Attorney General and the National Audit Agency to investigate. If proven illegal, revoke the concessions — and that’s exactly what we did,” he asserted firmly. (P2)
