Indonesia has vowed to continue the fight against what it sees as an unfair global camaign against its palm-oil industry, a key economic driver that generated more than US$17 billion worth of exports in 2016.
Palm oil "faces negative campaigns and discrimination in Europe and the United States", Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi declared to an audience of foreign ambassadors on Jan 9. "Indonesia shall not stand by idly."
Indonesia, she said, was stepping up its efforts to counter anti-palm oil campaigns and to promote sustainable production with all stakeholders including the Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries (CPOPC).
President Joko Widodo raised the issue during the Asean-EU Summit in Manila in early November 2017. He later called on Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to join him in efforts to overturn discriminatory attitudes and policies toward palm oil.
An aerial view shows an oil palm plantation in South Sumatra province. BEAWIHARTA
The European Parliament last April called on the European Commission to take measures to phase out by 2020 the use of vegetable oils including palm oil, which it blames as a major cause of deforestation. Of the biofuel imported into the EU, 23% is derived from palm oil and most of it is from Indonesia, it added.
The palm oil industry in Indonesia has also been blamed for rights violations including child labour, as well as pollution from seasonal forest fires set to clear land for plantations, and rapid loss of biodiversity and natural habit of endangered species such as the orangutan and the Sumatran tiger.
Greenpeace has criticised the government for being so defensive. As a party to the 2016 Paris climate accord, Indonesia should not view EU policies as detrimental to the industry and the economy, the environmental group said.
"The government should be ashamed that deforestation, forest burning, land grabs and exploitative work systems still occur. Land expansion is also ongoing not just in Sumatra and Kalimantan but it has encroached on forests in Papua," Ade Komarudin, a forest campaigner with Greenpeace Indonesia, said in a statement.
Citing data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Mr Komarudin said palm oil plantations had expanded from 8.3 million hectares in 2010 to 12.3 million last year, encroaching on more protected forests and peatlands.
The Foreign Ministry has responded with an effort to educate outsiders about the industry and highlight the positive steps being taken. Late last year it staged a three-week course with a team from Collaborative Research Center 990 (CRC 990), which brings together academics from three Indonesian universities and the University of Göttingen in Germany.
The course participants were researchers, business consultants, environmental activists, academics and diplomats from Germany, Italy, Colombia, Malaysia and Indonesia. They visited oil palm plantations in Jambi and lived for a few days with smallholder farmers, who account for 40% out of the country's producers.
Markus Wolter, the programme officer for agricultural commodities and animal husbandry at World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Germany in Berlin, was one of the participants. He said that the course provided an opportunity to look into different aspects of palm oil production, and that it was "invaluable" to see and feel how the smallholders work and live.
"It was really good to see how palm oil is improving the livelihoods of the smallholders," Mr Wolter told Asia Focus, adding that the experience has deepened his understanding of the whole supply chain and how important palm oil is for the economy.
Indonesia is the top palm oil producer in the world with output of 35 million tonnes, 25 million of which is exported. The EU is its second largest export destination, importing 4.4 million tonnes in 2016, an increase of 3% from 2015.
The industry provides job opportunities for about 3 million people and is the main source of income for many smallholders. Helping them improve their livelihoods is a key element in the government's drive to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals, including poverty alleviation and narrowing the development gap.
Winandriyo Kun Anggianto, a civil servant at the Foreign Ministry who also took part in the programme, told Asia Focus that participants -- some of whom had never set foot in Asia let alone visited an oil palm plantation -- learned that smallholders in Jambi could earn a net monthly income of around 5 million rupiah ($375) from two hectares of land.
The amount is far higher than the local minimum wage of 2 million rupiah. "They could earn a lot more if they don't hire daily workers to help them," he said.
As well, he said, participants were able to see that child labour allegations were not always the case on the ground, where children occasionally helping their parents in the field is a local custom.
"The children are not formally employed but they lend a hand to their parents, which is normal in their existing social system. They don't even always do that, just occasionally when they are on holiday and out of school hours," Mr Winandriyo said.
Participants agreed that while there had been some progress in palm oil practices, there was still room for further improvements, such as stricter law enforcement, he added.
Mr Wolter concurred, saying the government needed strong regulation and enforcement to deter massive deforestation and to foster certification under the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), considered the global standard for the industry. Companies voluntarily apply for RSPO certification to show their commitment to promote the use of sustainable practices.
He also said that the environment and smallholders would benefit if growers adopted the "enrichment plot" strategy developed by the University of Göttingen. It involves planting six different tree species, including three fruit trees and three trees for timber in between oil palm trees to diversify the plantation and cultivation.
"Palm oil is a product that is used all over the world, so what has to be done now is to make it as sustainable as possible without producing too many greenhouse gases, without deforestation and by avoiding land conflicts," he said.
The EU Ambassador to Indonesia, Vincent Guerend, told journalists in December that as an export market, the EU was very open to Indonesian palm oil as the duties are very low.
"There is a very high level of concern in Europe among consumers about their own consumption patterns and the way they behave as citizens, so there is a very strong expectation in Europe to have a sustainable consumer goods and great respect for sustainable palm oil," he said.