Palm oil industry leaves Indonesian village struggling with loss and regret

Just like his father and grandfather, Alfian has spent his whole life working as a fisherman on the banks of the Batang Hari river in Rukam, Indonesia.

In the village of 1,200 residents, rows of houses sit low to the ground beside the water, buttressed on the other side by swampy peatlands. 

Read more: Peatlands: Neglected piece of the climate puzzle 

The natural environment has long sustained the life of this village on the island of Sumatra. But now 48-year-old Alfian is struggling. “The fish are gone from the river,” he says. “It’s barely enough for daily survival.”

Rukam residents say a decline in water quality and draining of peatlands has impacted fishing

Alfian remembers when many fish species lived in the peatlands. He could feed his family for a week with the money from one day’s catch.

The fate of both Alfian’s daily catch and Rukam itself is intertwined with that of an estimated US $60 billion-dollar industry. 

Indonesia sits at the heart of the global palm oil trade. In 2002, it arrived on the banks of Rukam when the Indonesian company PT Erasakti Wira Forestama (EWF) offered the villagers a one-time payment for their land.Watch video00:36

Alfian, fisherman in Rukam, Indonesia

Some villagers resisted. Syafei, a 68-year-old who was chief of Rukam at the time, advocated for joint ownership and management of the lands between villagers and the company. But he says some residents pressured him to accept the terms. 

Read more: Palm oil: Too much of a good thing?

They were offered roughly €55,000 (700 million Rupiah, $62,333 according to conversation rates at the time) for approximately 2,300 hectares (5684 acres) in total.

“At that time, that amount of money was really huge,” says Syafei. The villagers were “yearning for the compensation.”

In the end the community sold the land. Valuable peatlands were converted to plantations — and the repercussions of the decision are still felt today.Watch video00:33

Syafei, former village leader in Rukam, Indonesia

The environmental cost of palm oil

Touted as a wonder commodity, palm oil is found in a vast array of products and has been an undeniable driver of economic growth in the country.

But the environment has paid the price — namely through deforestation, loss of biodiversity, soil degradation, and polluted water and air.

Slash-and-burn techniques, used to clear large swathes of land for plantations, are particularly devastating in peatlands like those found in Rukam. Peatlands are made up of thick layers of decomposed organic material and burning them releases huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

Rukam’s residents have witnessed their landscape transform since they sold their land.

The peatlands were drained to make them usable for palm oil. A water pump brought in for irrigation disrupted the natural flow of water, redirecting it from the river to the plantation — which made it difficult for Rukam’s residents’  to access water for their own fields.

The situation worsened when a flood dam, used to protect the oil palm plantation from flooding, was built in 2009.

“As a consequence, villagers experience more damaging floods in the rainy season and don’t have enough water in the dry season,” says Rudiansyah, from WALHI, Indonesia’s largest environmental organization. Farming has become difficult.

The profits from the sale of land, which were split evenly among residents, were not long-lasting. In fact, Rudiansyah claims Rukam’s economy shrank significantly after the land conversion. While there is no data from before EWF came to the village, a study from WALHI and the University of Jambi found 366 of 494 families in Rukam were considered “poor” or “very poor” in 2018.

A 2018 study showed high rates of poverty in Rukam

WALHI and many villagers put this down primarily to the loss of fishing ground due to the palm oil expansion.

Residents say the lakes they used to fish in disappeared after the land conversion and that they’ve seen fish stocks dramatically decline. When peatlands were drained many valuable species lost their breeding grounds. Now, there are only 53 fishermen, making around €8 ($8.70) per day.

With few alternatives left, many residents have turned to working on the palm oil plantations to earn a living.

Roughly 150 people, or about 16% of the village, work on the EWF plantation, which covers more than 4,000 hectares of land between the Batang Hari and the Kumpeh rivers.