Arya News - Studies have found fires burning inside company concessions since 2006, highlighting persistent negligence and raising concerns over potential wrongdoing by local and foreign investors in Indonesian plantations.
JAKARTA – Local conglomerates and multinational corporations from Singapore and Japan allegedly control business concessions with the largest burn scars from this year’s wildfire in Kalimantan, according to an independent analysis, with some seeing repeated blazes first recorded 20 years ago.
According to data from forest monitoring platform Nusantara Atlas, six oil palm, three pulpwood companies and a mining holding were the top ten businesses whose concessions across Kalimantan have been ravaged by fires the most between January and July.
All of these concessions are located in West Kalimantan, the region with the highest level of hotspots recorded by Nusantara Atlas. The province also saw the highest area burned according to the Forestry Ministry’s SiPongi wildfire monitoring system, with 38,310 hectares burned through late July.
Oil palm company PT Arrtu Energie Resources operates the largest burned concession with at least 978 ha scorched inside its holding in Ketapang regency in West Kalimantan. The company is a subsidiary of local agricultural giant Nova Plantation Group.
The next largest burned concessions were recorded inside oil palm plantations owned by local companies PT Mitra Andalan Sejahtera and PT Lestari Alam Raya, with 802 ha and 710 ha of areas burned, respectively.
At least 640 ha of burn scar were also detected inside the bauxite mining concession of PT Laman mining.
Some subsidiaries of well-known global agricultural corporations also appear on the list.
Pulpwood supplier PT Hutan Ketapang Industri, which is controlled by Singapore-based Sampoerna Agri Resources Pte. Ltd., saw 629 ha of its concession ravaged by fires.
An area sized 556 ha within a pulpwood plantation belonging to PT Mayangkara Tanaman Industri, a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Sumitomo Forestry, had also been burned in Ketapang.
The two pulpwood companies were among firms slapped with administrative sanctions over forest fires by the Forestry Ministry in August 2025. This year, PT Hutan Ketapang Industry remained under the ministry’s oversight following fires affecting 670 ha of its land.
According to Nusantara Atlas, around 546 ha of land was also burned inside a pulpwood plantation owned by PT Buana Megatama Jaya, a supplier for giant paper producer APP Group, which is a subsidiary of diversified conglomerate Sinar Mas.
The rest of top ten concessions with largest burn scars in Kalimantan included palm oil companies PT Sumatera Unggul Makmur II, PT Sebukit Inter Nusa and PT Limpah Sejahtera, with 573 ha, 526 ha and 519 ha of burned lands, respectively.
PT Limpah Sejahtera is a subsidiary of Singapore-based agricultural giant First Resources.
Indonesia, the world’s biggest palm oil producer, has been the planting ground for both local and global agricultural giants, including those headquartered in Malaysia and Singapore. But the recent transboundary haze from Indonesia’s wildfires reaching as far as the Philippines is triggering accountability calls from regional watchdogs.
“Corporations, capital owners and the countries serving as investment hubs must all be held accountable,” Meenakshi Raman, president of Friends of the Earth Malaysia, said last week.
Fire fighters battle peatland fires on Sept. 5 in Sintang, West Kalimantan.
According to Nusantara Atlas, at least 124 concession holders saw more than 100 ha of their land burned between January and July, with a total of more than 66,000 ha of land engulfed by fire. At least 280,000 ha of peatland and forest were burned during the same period.
A separate analysis by NGO Kaoem Telapak showed fires were also detected inside concessions of at least seven out of these ten companies across three separate years in 2006, 2015 and 2023, highlighting gaps in curbing recurring fires.
PT Lamang Mining spokesperson Prayudi Valentinus defended the company, claiming on Tuesday the mining business permit (IUP) earmarked for the company is located outside the mining area monitored by Nusantara Atlas.
“We reported in March there had been fires, but those were not situated inside our IUP,” Prayudi said. “Instead, the fires came from nearby community plantations and other concessions.”
Separately, First Resources attributed fires around the perimeter of PT Limpah Sejahtera to the rapid and intense fires “spreading from surrounding unmanaged areas”.
“Guided by our sustainability policy, we enforce a strict ‘zero burning policy’ across all planting activities and regularly remind our employees and contractors of this requirement,” the company said in an email on Monday.
A local representative of Sumitomo Forestry could not immediately confirm the size of the burned area inside the concession of PT Mayangkara Tanaman Industri. The Japanese firm said it “has complied with obligations imposed on the company” by the Forestry Ministry last August.
Other companies mentioned in this story have not responded to The Jakarta Post’s requests for comments at the time of publication.
Forestry Ministry spokesperson Ristianto Pribadi noted allegations of fire inside concessions belonging to these companies would still require further verification, including field inspection. He also reasserted the ministry’s commitment to holding businesses accountable for wildfires.