- Major brands including Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever have launched the Aceh Sustainable Palm Oil Working Group to align with a new road map for deforestation-free palm oil in the Indonesian province.
- Aceh, on the island of Sumatra, is home to the Leuser Ecosystem and other critical habitats, but has lost nearly 42,000 hectares (104,000 acres) of forest since 2020, much of it driven by expansion of oil palm plantations.
- The initiative aims to boost the livelihoods of smallholder farmers, protect high conservation value forests, and help producers comply with new global rules like the EU Deforestation Regulation.
- While the plan has drawn international backing, civil society groups stress its success depends on ensuring accountability, transparency and sustained pressure to halt illegal deforestation.
JAKARTA — Some of the world’s biggest consumer brands are banding together to tackle deforestation in one of Earth’s richest biodiversity hotspots in Indonesia.
The companies, including Nestlé, PepsiCo and Unilever, on Aug. 13 launched the Aceh Sustainable Palm Oil Working Group, which brings together major palm oil buyers, producers and refineries to align with a newly established road map for sustainable palm oil in the province of Aceh, on the island of Sumatra.
The working group, the first province-level initiative of its kind in Indonesia, is “a much-needed, long-overdue step towards halting the devastating effects of palm oil expansion in this vital region,” U.S.-based campaign group Rainforest Action Network (RAN) forest policy director Gemma Tillack said in a statement.
Forest loss pressures
Despite its ecological importance, Aceh continues to face pressure from palm oil-driven deforestation. The province is home to Southeast Asia’s largest and most carbon-rich peatlands, as well as the Leuser Ecosystem — the last place on Earth where critically endangered Sumatran elephants, tigers, orangutans and rhinoceroses coexist in the wild.
The Leuser landscape is part of the UNESCO-listed Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra World Heritage Site and is also designated as a Biosphere Reserve.
Deforestation in Aceh fell after a peak in 2009, but has been on the rise again since 2021. Between 2020 and 2024, the province lost 41,834 hectares (103,374 acres) of forest, more than half of it inside the Leuser Ecosystem, according to data from the monitoring platform Nusantara Atlas, run by technology consultancy TheTreeMap.
Aceh Sustainable Palm Oil Working Group, coordinated by Dutch-based nonprofit IDH, was launched in response to this worrying trend. The initiative is described as a voluntary, nonbinding platform to support deforestation-free palm oil production while improving smallholder livelihoods.
The founding members include Apical, Mars Wrigley, Mondelēz, Musim Mas, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Permata Group, PT SMART Tbk (Golden Agri-Resources), and Unilever.
Many of these brands have previously faced criticism for sourcing so-called conflict palm oil from Aceh, particularly from the Leuser region. But they have also piloted district-level sustainability projects in recent years, such as PepsiCo’s smallholder program in Aceh Tamiang district, and Nestlé’s partnership in Subulussalam municipality with Musim Mas and AAK.
These projects support certification and training for independent smallholders, including preparation for compliance with the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which is set to ban imports into the EU of commodities linked to deforestation or illegality, including palm oil.
From pilot projects to provincewide
Until now, however, such initiatives have been limited to just a handful of districts. That’s left other areas across Aceh, particularly Leuser and the Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve within it, still under grave threat, RAN’s Tillack said.
RAN and TheTreeMap recently documented the clearing of peat swamp and the digging of canals to dry out the carbon rich soil inside the Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve — a legally protected zone — continuing after December 2020, which RAN says is a violation of the EUDR’s cutoff date.
That’s why a province-level commitment for sustainable palm oil production is needed, said Nassat Idris, IDH’s country director for Indonesia.
“As a forest landscape, Aceh runs the risk of being excluded from the global deforestation-free palm oil market without a clear commitment to deforestation-free palm oil,” he told Mongabay. “With 52% of production run by smallholders, exclusion of Aceh from the green market will give adverse impact, not only to income but also to forest protection.”
The working group is designed to accelerate implementation of a 2024 regulation issued by the Aceh provincial government, which set out a long-term road map for sustainable palm oil in the province.
The road map calls for improving smallholder productivity, reducing deforestation risks, protecting high conservation value and high carbon stock forests through designated “no-go areas,” restoring degraded lands, facilitating conflict resolution, and safeguarding community rights.
Members of the working group have agreed to support and accelerate the implementation of the road map and contribute to an action plan. Crucially, they’ll be able to do so without having to share sensitive or confidential information, including any commercially sensitive or confidential information, which has often been cited as an obstacle in previous efforts to boost transparency and sustainability in the sector.
This sends “a positive market signal which can unlock the premium markets for Aceh’s palm oil,” Nassat said.
It also reflects a growing industry understanding that true transformation of the palm oil sector requires collective accountability, long-term investment, and landscape-level collaboration, Tillack said.
“This initiative offers new hope for the Leuser Ecosystem and the communities that depend on it,” she said.
Forest monitoring
Aceh’s vice governor, Fadhlullah, said the provincial government will back the roadmap by establishing deforestation monitoring protocols, forming a multistakeholder monitoring team, and accelerating land certification for smallholders.
To help deliver on this, Palmoil.io — a supply chain monitoring platform developed by technology firm MapHubs — will provide jurisdictional dashboards, case-management tools and training, said CEO Leo Bottrill.
“Our jurisdictional dashboards will deliver monthly forest alerts for every jurisdiction in Aceh, as well as key landscapes including Rawa Singkil,” he said.
For high-priority cases, Palmoil.io will also establish a case-tracking system.
In Rawa Singkil, for example, the platform has already set up buffer zones around canals flagged by RAN and TheTreeMap, which will be scanned monthly for new clearing so that provincial authorities and stakeholders can be notified quickly, Bottrill said.
“This is an enormous opportunity not only to demonstrate that palm oil can be produced sustainably in a globally significant conservation landscape, but also to prove that jurisdictional approaches in Indonesia can deliver tangible results,” he added.
International backing and civil society caution
The working group has also drawn support from international partners.
Marc Gerritsen, the Dutch ambassador to Indonesia, called the initiative “an impressive commitment by Aceh to lead responsibly, strengthen multistakeholder engagement, and ensure that Aceh’s palm oil is managed in a way that benefits both people and planet.”
The Norwegian Embassy’s climate and forest envoy, Nils Hermann Ranum, said both the road map and working group “put Aceh in a very good place to benefit from the increasing global demand for deforestation-free commodities.”
But civil society groups caution that the work is far from over and that the initiative will only succeed if there’s strong accountability behind it.
“Real progress will depend on transparency, accountability, and continued pressure from civil society, Indigenous communities, and consumers around the world,” RAN said. “The window for change is open. What happens next is still up to all of us.”
Banner image: Sumatran orangutan in the Leuser Ecosystem, Aceh, Indonesia. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.
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