JAKARTA, Indonesia: Enormous swathes of pristine forest are being cut down across Indonesia to supply the rapidly rising international demand for biomass material seen as critical to many countries’ transitions to cleaner forms of energy.
Nearly all of the biomass from forests destroyed for wood pellet production since 2021 has been shipped to South Korea and Japan, The Associated Press found in an examination of satellite images, company records and Indonesian export data. Both countries have provided millions of dollars to support the development of biomass production and use in Indonesia.
Indonesia’s state-run utility also has plans to dramatically increase the amount of biomass it burns to make electricity.
Experts and environmentalists fear the rising international and domestic demand, coupled with weak domestic regulation, will accelerate deforestation at the same time it prolongs the use of highly polluting fossil fuels. Biomass is organic material like plants, wood and waste, and many coal-fired power plants can be easily modified to burn it alongside coal to make energy.
“Biomass production — which is only recently starting to be seen on an industrial scale in Indonesia — is a dire new threat to the country’s forests,” said Timer Manurung, director of Auriga Nusantara, an environmental and conservation organization in Indonesia.
As countries accelerate their energy transitions, demand for biomass is growing: The use of bioenergy has increased an average of about 3 percent per year between 2010 and 2022, the International Energy Agency said.
Experts including the IEA say it’s important for that demand to happen in a sustainable way, such as using waste and crop residue rather than converting forest land to grow bioenergy crops. Deforestation contributes to erosion, damages biodiverse areas, threatens wildlife and humans who rely on the forest and intensifies disasters from extreme weather.
And many scientists and environmentalists have rejected the use of biomass altogether. They say burning wood-based biomass can emit more carbon than coal and tree-cutting greatly reduces forests’ ability to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Critics also say that using biomass to co-fire, instead of transitioning directly to clean energy, simply prolongs the use of coal.
In Indonesia, biomass production is causing deforestation across the archipelago.
Auriga Nusantara reports that more than 9,740 hectares (24,070 acres) of forest have been cleared in areas where biomass production is permitted since 2020. Permits have been issued for over 1.4 million hectares (3,459,475 acres) of energy plantation forests in Indonesia, with over one-third of that land being undisturbed forest. Over half of these concession areas are the habitat of flagship species such as sumatran rhino, elephants, orangutans and tigers, said Manurung.
In the carbon-rich forests of Gorontalo, Sulawesi, the felling, shredding and shipping of old trees to make energy-dense wood pellets has been streamlined. Over 3,000 hectares (7,410 acres) of forest have been razed in a concession owned by Banyan Tumbuh Lestari, from 2021 to 2024, according to satellite analysis shared with AP by international environmental organization Mighty Earth. An additional 2,850 hectares (7,040 acres) were cleared for logging roads.
After trees are cut down, they’re turned into wood pellets at a facility near the concessions owned by Biomasa Jaya Abadi, the largest exporter of wood pellets from Indonesia from 2021-2023, according to data Auriga Nusantara compiled from the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry database. The database has no records of wood pellet exports prior to 2020.
Biomasa Jaya Abadi did not respond to repeated requests for interviews or comment. Banyan Tumbuh Lestari do not have contact information publicly available; AP contacted their main shareholders seeking comment but got no response. Indonesia’s ministries of Environment and Forestry; Energy and Mineral Resources and Maritime Affairs and Investment did not respond to requests for comment.
Nearly all of Indonesia’s wood pellet production is shipped overseas to meet international demand, said Alloysius Joko Purwanto, an energy economist at the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia.
Most of Indonesia’s wood pellets went to South Korea (61 percent) and Japan (38 percent) from 2021-2023, according to government data.
“It’s clear that Japan and South Korea’s governments are trying to buy more biomass from Indonesia to lower their own domestic emissions,” said Bhima Yudhistira, executive director of the Indonesia-based Center of Economic and Law Studies.
Both countries have provided millions of dollars of financial support toward the development of biomass in Indonesia through research, policy, construction and other support, according to a review of publicly available business and government agreements by AP.
South Korea’s Forest Service, which drives South Korea’s biomass expansion and policy, did not reply to requests for comment. Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries also did not respond to a request for comment.
The promotion of biomass production and use has coincided with the ramping-up of Indonesia’s domestic biomass use.
The country’s state electricity company, Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN), plans to implement 10 percent biomass co-firing for 52 coal plants across the country. PLN estimates that would take 8 million tons of biomass a year — far greater than the wood pellet industry’s capacity at the end of 2023 of less than 1 million tons, according to Indonesian civil society organization Trend Asia.
To achieve PLN’s ambitions, a 66 percent increase in forest plantation land would be needed — “which would likely come at the expense of intact, carbon-rich and carbon-absorbing forests,” according to a report by Mighty Earth.
PLN spokesperson Gregorius Adi Trianto told AP that the company’s plan relied on biomass from “organic waste such as tree branches, rice waste, and wood industry waste ... rather than from actively logged forests.”
With Indonesia lacking clear regulations and oversight of its expanding biomass industry, experts fear deforestation is likely to spike for years to come.
“We’re already far behind when it comes to monitoring and regulating issues around biomass production in Indonesia,” said Yudhistira. “There’s definitely a lack of due diligence, and forests are suffering.”
Indonesian forests pay the price for the growing global biomass energy demand
https://arab.news/pn6zd
Indonesian forests pay the price for the growing global biomass energy demand
- Biomass is organic material like plants, wood and waste, and many coal-fired power plants can be easily modified to burn it alongside coal to make energy
Ukraine’s parliament cancels session after Russia fired a new missile
- Three Ukrainian lawmakers confirmed that the parliamentary session previously scheduled was canceled
- President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office continued to work in compliance with standard security measures
KYIV: Ukraine’s parliament canceled a session on Friday as security was tightened after Russia deployed a new ballistic missile that threatens to escalate the nearly three-year war.
Russian troops also struck Sumy with Shahed drones overnight killing two people and injuring 12 more, the regional administration said Friday morning. The attack targeted a residential district of the city.
Ukraine’s Suspilne media, quoting Sumy regional head Volodymyr Artiukh, said the Russians used Shaheds stuffed with shrapnel elements for the first time in the region. “These weapons are used to destroy people, not to destroy objects,” said Artiukh, according to Suspilne.
Separately, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky arrived on a visit to Kyiv. He posted a photo from Kyiv’s railway station on his X account Friday morning.
“I am interested in how the Ukrainians are coping with the bombings, how Czech projects are working on the ground and how to better target international aid in the coming months. I will discuss all of this here,” Lipavsky wrote.
Three Ukrainian lawmakers confirmed that the parliamentary session previously scheduled was canceled due to the ongoing threat of Russian missile attacks targeting government buildings in the city center.
Not only is the parliament closed, “there was also recommendation to limit the work of all commercial offices and NGOs that remain in that perimeter, and local residents were warned of the increased threat,” said lawmaker Mykyta Poturaiev, who added this is not the first time such a threat has been received.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office continued to work in compliance with standard security measures, a spokesperson said.
Russia on Thursday fired a new intermediate-range ballistic missile in response to Kyiv’s use of US and British longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an address on Thursday.
It struck a missile factory in Dnipro in central Ukraine. Putin warned that US air defense systems would be powerless to stop the new missile, which he said flies at 10 times the speed of sound and which he called Oreshnik – Russian for hazelnut tree.
The Pentagon confirmed that Russia’s missile was a new, experimental type of intermediate-range missile based on its RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile.
Pope Francis to visit French island of Corsica on Dec. 15, local church says
- Short visit to the island’s capital city Ajaccio will mark his 47th foreign trip since becoming pope in 2013
- Corsica’s population of some 356,000 is estimated by the Vatican as 81.% Catholic
VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis will visit Corsica on Dec. 15, the local diocese said on its website on Thursday, in the first recorded trip of a pope to the French island in the Mediterranean.
The short visit to the island’s capital city Ajaccio, where Francis is expected to speak at a conference on popular religiosity across the Mediterranean region, will mark his 47th foreign trip since becoming pope in 2013.
Corsica, noted for its steep, mountainous terrain and as the birthplace of Napoleon, is the fourth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of France’s poorest regions, with government statistics estimating that about 20 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.
The Vatican did not immediately confirm the local church’s announcement, but the trip is known to have been in preparation for weeks. Francis has made two prior visits to France, traveling to Strasbourg in 2014 to address the European Parliament and the Council of Europe, and to Marseilles in 2023 to attend a meeting of bishops.
But the pope, who turns 88 on Dec. 17, has never made a full state visit to France, a historic stronghold for Catholicism that is now widely secular and home to Europe’s largest Muslim and Jewish communities.
French President Emmanuel Macron invited Francis to come to Paris for the Dec. 8 reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral, but the pope will be leading a ceremony at the Vatican that day to install new Catholic cardinals.
Cardinal Francois-Xavier Bustillo, originally from Spain, has led the Catholic Church in Corsica since 2021. Francis made him a cardinal, the highest rank in the Church below pope, in 2023.
Corsica’s population of some 356,000 is estimated by the Vatican as 81.5 percent Catholic.
Francis has traveled widely around the Mediterranean over his 11-year papacy, visiting Malta, the Greek island of Lesbos and the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Record 281 aid workers killed in 2024, says UN, with 1 month left
- 280 humanitarians were killed across 33 countries during all of 2023
Geneva: A staggering 281 aid workers have been killed around the world so far this year, making 2024 the deadliest year for humanitarians, the UN aid chief said Friday.
“Humanitarian workers are being killed at an unprecedented rate, their courage and humanity being met with bullets and bombs,” said Tom Fletcher, the United Nations’ new under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator.
With more than a month left to go of 2024, the “grim milestone was reached,” he said, after 280 humanitarians were killed across 33 countries during all of 2023.
“This violence is unconscionable and devastating to aid operations,” Fletcher said.
Israel’s devastating war in Gaza was driving up the numbers, his office said, with 333 aid workers killed there — most from the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA — since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, which sparked the war.
“States and parties to conflict must protect humanitarians, uphold international law, prosecute those responsible, and call time on this era of impunity,” Fletcher said.
Aid workers were subject to kidnappings, injuries, harassment and arbitrary detention in a range of countries, his office said, including Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and Ukraine.
The majority of deaths involve local staff working with non-governmental organizations, UN agencies and the Red Cross Red Crescent movement, Fletcher’s office said.
“Violence against humanitarian personnel is part of a broader trend of harm to civilians in conflict zones,” it warned.
“Last year, more than 33,000 civilian deaths were recorded in 14 armed conflicts — a staggering 72 percent increase from 2022.”
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution last May in response to the surging violence and threats against aid workers.
The text called for recommendations from the UN chief — set to be presented at a council meeting next week — on measures to prevent and respond to such incidents and to increase protection for humanitarian staff and accountability for abuses.
Russia says ‘derailed’ Kyiv’s war plans after uproar over test strike
- Vladimir Putin says the conflict in Ukraine had taken on a ‘global’ nature
- NATO and Ukraine will hold talks next week in Brussels over the strike
KYIV: Russia said on Friday it had scuppered Kyiv’s military objectives for 2025 just after President Vladimir Putin issued a warning to the West by test-firing a new intermediate-range missile at Ukraine.
That assessment for next year came after a Russian drone attack at night on the eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy killed two civilians and wounded a dozen more in an attack with new cluster munitions, local authorities said.
Putin announced the missile launch in a defiant address late on Thursday, saying the conflict in Ukraine had taken on a “global” nature, while hinting at strikes on Western countries.
In a meeting with military commanders, Russian defense minister Andrei Belousov said Moscow’s advance had “accelerated” in Ukraine and “ground down” Kyiv’s best units.
“We have, in fact, derailed the entire 2025 campaign,” Belousov said of the Ukrainian army in a video published by the Russian defense ministry.
The attack, which apparently targeted an aerospace manufacturing plant in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, sparked immediate condemnation from Kyiv’s allies.
China, which has thrown its political clout behind the Kremlin, reiterated calls for “calm” and “restraint” by all parties after Russia confirmed the new missile strike.
“All parties should remain calm and exercise restraint, work to de-escalate the situation through dialogue and consultation, and create conditions for an early ceasefire,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a regular briefing.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz meanwhile, on Friday described Russia’s deployment of the medium-range missile as a “terrible escalation.”
NATO and Ukraine will hold talks next week in Brussels over the strike, according to diplomats.
Ambassadors from countries in the NATO-Ukraine Council will hold talks on Tuesday. The meeting was called by Kyiv following the Dnipro strike, officials said.
The Russian attack came after Ukraine recently fired US- and UK-supplied missiles at Russian territory for the first time, escalating already sky-high tensions over the conflict, which is nearly in its third year.
Washington said it had granted Kyiv permission to fire long-range weapons at Russian territory as a response to the Kremlin’s deployment of thousands of North Korean troops on Ukraine’s border.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a strong response from world leaders to Russia’s use of the new missile, which he said proved Moscow “does not want peace.”
In Kyiv, Oleksandra, a 30-year-old resident working in the media, said the Russian strike was a sign of desperation within the Kremlin.
“You could have launched a missile that is less expensive and have the same result. As long as this missile does not carry a nuclear payload, there is nothing to fear about,” she said.
Russian troops have been making steady advances in eastern Ukraine for months, capturing a string of small towns and villages from overstretched Ukrainian soldiers lacking manpower and artillery.
In the city of Sumy, authorities said a Russian drone had struck a residential neighborhood. Emergency services distributed images showing rescue workers retrieving the bodies of the dead from the rubble.
Sumy lies across the border from Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops captured swathes of territory after launching a major ground offensive in August.
The head of the Sumy region, Volodymyr Artyukh, said Russia had deployed a drone with modified munitions that were equipped with shrapnel, describing the weapons as being “used to kill people, not to destroy buildings.”
Indian commandos kill 10 Maoist rebels
- More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by the Naxalite movement
- Gunbattle took place in a remote forested area of Chhattisgarh state, the heartland of the insurgency
RAIPUR, India: Indian security forces gunned down at least 10 Maoist rebels on Friday during a firefight, police said, as New Delhi steps up efforts to crush the long-running armed conflict.
More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by the Naxalite movement, who say they are fighting for the rights of marginalized Indigenous people of India’s remote and resource-rich central regions.
The gunbattle took place in a remote forested area of Chhattisgarh state, the heartland of the insurgency.
“Dead bodies of 10 Maoists have been recovered so far,” Vivekanand Sinha, chief of the state police’s anti-Maoist operations, said.
Sinha said the police recovered several automatic weapons from the rebels.
India’s home minister Amit Shah this year issued an ultimatum to the insurgents to surrender or face an “all-out assault.”
A crackdown by security forces has killed over 200 rebels this year, an overwhelming majority in Chhattisgarh, according to government data.
India has deployed tens of thousands of security personnel to battle the Maoists across the insurgent-dominated “Red Corridor,” which stretches across central, southern and eastern states but has shrunk dramatically in size.
India has pumped millions of dollars into infrastructure development in remote areas and claims to have confined the insurgency to 45 districts in 2023, down from 96 in 2010.
The conflict has seen a number of deadly attacks on government forces over the years. Twenty-two police and paramilitaries were killed in a gunbattle with the far-left guerrillas in 2021.
Sixteen commandos were also killed in the western state of Maharashtra in a bomb attack that was blamed on the Maoists in the lead-up to national elections in 2019.
