Fires are raging in the forests around mining and oil palm land seized by the Forest Area Enforcement Task Force (Satgas PKH), only months after the seizures. The public is demanding accountability from the state and the companies.
November 9, 2026
TRACES of embers could be seen in PT Antasena Technindo's concession on Gebe Island, Central Halmahera, North Maluku, on Sunday, October 4, 2026. Trees such as bintangur and gayam, as well as nutmeg, a plant typical of North Maluku, had burned.
Every night the fire could be seen, and it kept growing.
The fire also spread to an area near a spring that flows to six surrounding villages. A concession map obtained by the IndonesiaLeaks team shows the spring, which belongs to the Indigenous community, lies inside the company's concession.
Not far from the spring stands a sign reading “PT Antasena Technindo Mining Area of 0.3329 ha Under the Control of the Government of the Republic of Indonesia, Forest Area Enforcement Task Force (PKH).” The figure 0.3329 hectares is placed over a section covered with dark tape.
That figure differs from the one recorded when Satgas PKH took control of the land on December 22, 2025. At the time the area was recorded as 315.91 hectares, around 60 percent of the total concession. The company was accused of mining in forest areas without a Forest Area Use Permit (IPPKH).
Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite imagery shows the first fire on the Satgas PKH land was detected on September 8, 2026, covering 6 hectares. Ten days later, on September 18, 2026, it had spread to 10 hectares.
The area, now under Satgas PKH's authority, was not guarded at all, either by the company or by task force personnel. The fire kept spreading from tree to tree. No attempt was made to put it out.
According to data from the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM), PT Antasena Technindo holds a Mining Business Permit (IUP) covering 513 hectares in Sanafi Kacepi village, Gebe Island. The company has held the permit since 2011.
The company's General Legal Administration (AHU) records indicate that La Ode Darwin is Antasena's president director, a Golkar Party politician and regent of West Muna, Southeast Sulawesi, for 2025-2030.
IndonesiaLeaks sent an interview request to PT Antasena Technindo's office in the Indonesia Stock Exchange Building, Jalan Jenderal Sudirman Kav. 52-53, South Jakarta, and messaged and called La Ode Darwin on Saturday, November 7, 2026. As of publication, neither the company nor La Ode Darwin had responded.
Drone footage of PT Antasena Technindo's mining area on Gebe Island. A Satgas PKH sign marks the area as under state control; on the slopes around it, the vegetation is scorched.
Gebe Island, Central HalmaheraSatgas PKH spokesperson Barita Simanjuntak acknowledged that the task force had seized Antasena Technindo's land. But Barita declined to explain who is accountable for the seized land that burned.
“With forest and land fires, of course we have to look at what caused them. Because the task force does not carry out any activities in the forest areas it controls,” Barita said by phone on Thursday, October 29, 2026.
Satgas PKH submitted accountability reports on forest and land fires to the Ministry of Forestry and the ESDM Ministry. According to Barita, Satgas PKH only enforces order in forest areas and has no obligation to fight fires.
“For forests it is the Ministry of Forestry, and for mining companies it is the ESDM Ministry. If there are forest and land fires, that is the task and responsibility of the Ministry of Forestry's fire task force. They are the leading sector,” Barita said.
On the gap between the 315.91 hectares seized from Antasena and the 0.3329 hectares on the sign, Barita said it may have happened after a verification process.
Sometimes it's like this: the information we get is not accurate. Why is it inaccurate? We don't know the progress. Why don't we know? Maybe it wasn't passed on. Why wasn't it passed on? Because it concerns data that isn't final yet.
The North Maluku High Prosecutor's Office, as a unit of Satgas PKH, declined to comment much on the finding of fires on the land. It said it was not aware of any forest fire on Satgas PKH land.
“We haven't checked whether there are fires on the seized land. If something burns, the task force usually lets us know,” said Matheos Matulessy, head of legal information at the High Prosecutor's Office, when met at his office on Tuesday, October 7, 2026.
Satgas PKH is a joint cross-ministry and cross-agency team, including the military, police and prosecutors, formed by President Prabowo Subianto through Presidential Regulation No. 5/2025. Its mandate is to act against anyone who controls land and runs mining or oil palm operations illegally in forest areas.
The task force takes over land from corporations or individuals, imposes fines, then hands the land to the Ministry of Forestry for restoration. Land judged still worth managing goes to PT Agrinas Palma Nusantara, the state-owned oil palm company, and to mining companies under the coordination of the ESDM Ministry.
It is commanded by Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, assisted by Attorney General ST Burhanuddin, TNI General Agus Subiyanto and National Police Chief Police General Suyudi Ario Seto. Its work is split in two: Satgas PKH Garuda for oil palm plantations and Satgas PKH Halilintar for mining.
For oil palm, fines are calculated under Government Regulation No. 45/2025: the size of the problematic land multiplied by years of operation and a rate of Rp25 million per hectare. For mining, rates range from Rp354 million up to Rp6.5 billion per hectare for nickel, under ESDM Ministerial Decree 391.K/MB.01/MEM.B/2025.
PRESIDENT Prabowo Subianto praised Satgas PKH for saving 6.2 million hectares of forest from destruction. “If you hadn't saved it, it would have burned. That wealth would be lost, these 6 million [hectares] are worth almost 400 trillion (rupiah),” Prabowo said at the Attorney General's Office in Jakarta, on Wednesday, October 6, 2026.
Prabowo stressed that the government would not stop its enforcement drive. All the money collected from the task force's work, he said, would be used to manage burned forest areas.
We have money to deal with forest fires.
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IndonesiaLeaks traced the fires in the concessions of eleven companies in North Maluku, Kalimantan, and Sumatra. The PKH Task Force and Agrinas are reluctant to take responsibility.
This 511-hectare nickel concession lies on the northern coast of Gebe Island. Its production-operation mining business permit runs from February 13, 2011 to February 13, 2031. On September 8, 2026, Sentinel-2 flagged 2.7 hectares of burned land, 2.3 hectares of it inside the concession.
By September 18, the burn scar had grown to 15.6 hectares. Of that, 95 percent (14.8 hectares) lies within the permit boundary. According to Nusantara Atlas data, about 231 hectares of this concession are still forested.
PT Weda Bay Nickel's contract-of-work area, owned by Tsingshan/Eramet, covers 44,858 hectares and stretches from the coast of Weda Bay into the mountains of Halmahera. On September 13, Sentinel-2 captured two small, smoking fires on forested slopes, both less than a kilometer from the contract-of-work boundary.
By October 3, the fire had become a front creeping several kilometers along the slope. 23 percent of the fire pixels fall inside the contract-of-work boundary; overall, 62 percent lie inside the concession or less than a kilometer from its boundary. Most of the fire burned in a gap of land hemmed in by the concession, between mine openings.
The fire did not appear on just one slope. Between November 1, 2026 and November 8, 2026, NASA satellites recorded 53 hotspots inside the contract-of-work boundary. About 38,075 hectares inside this concession are still recorded as forested.
PT Asmin Koalindo Tuhup's 21,519-hectare coal concession lies in Murung Raya Regency, Central Kalimantan. Energy ministry data record its permit as ending on October 19, 2017. About 11,151 hectares inside it are still forested.
Between November 1, 2026 and November 8, 2026, the VIIRS and MODIS satellite sensors recorded 0 hotspots squarely inside this concession's boundary.
Besides the three mining concessions, Satgas PKH also seized oil palm plantation concessions. We tracked ten of them, spread across South Sumatra and Kalimantan, with a combined area of 120,577 hectares. Six of those concessions burned between July and September 2026, over a combined 5,288 hectares.
Keep scrolling to see Sentinel-2 images from July 20 to October 21. In July, this concession belonging to the Best Agro Plantation group was still green. On September 6, burned areas spread across the northwestern block; the image flags 1,317 hectares of burn scars inside the concession. On October 21, thick smoke covered almost the entire area.
Images from July 31 and August 5 still show the blocks of this Musim Mas group concession largely intact. On September 14, thick smoke blanketed the area. Inside the concession boundary, that day's image flags 2.3 hectares of newly burned area.
Between August 5 and September 19, smoke began rising from the southern edge of this Wilmar group concession. The September 19 image flags 26.7 hectares of newly burned area inside the concession.
In this Salim/IndoAgri group concession, burns appear as small, scattered patches. The August 8 image flags 25.9 hectares inside the concession; cloud covers part of the image.
In South Sumatra, fire swept through 15.4% of this concession. This 1,938-hectare concession is almost entirely peat. Copernicus's Burned layer flags nothing here, yet the change is plain to see: green on July 10, brown burn scars at the western tip on September 8, then a brown expanse across the northern and eastern sides on October 18. Color-change detection picks up 45.6 hectares; other parts were covered by cloud.
The burned area in the seized oil palm concessions rose from 123.9 hectares in July to 1,774 hectares in August, then 3,390.1 hectares in September. Four concessions recorded no burning. Open "Explore the map" and tap each concession for company-level details.
In East Kotawaringin, Central Kalimantan, the IndonesiaLeaks team also found burned land that had been taken over by Satgas PKH. The land was previously registered to PT Globalindo Alam Perkasa (GAP), a subsidiary of palm oil giant Musim Mas Group.
After it was seized by Satgas PKH Garuda on March 18, 2025, GAP's 12,069 hectares were handed to Agrinas in October 2025. Since then, Agrinas has allegedly been harvesting GAP's oil palm fruit under armed guard.
Dedy Susanto, a resident of Penyang village, East Kotawaringin, said that after the land passed to Agrinas, residents staged an action to reclaim it by harvesting oil palm fruit from areas they claim. The action was also a protest against Agrinas for taking over residents' land too.
Residents have pursued several avenues to reclaim their rights, including mediation with Agrinas facilitated by the local government.
“In the end they came. ‘Oh, so this is it!’ I said, the Agrinas people. Turns out they were retired generals,” Dedy said.
According to Dedy, GAP's oil palm land burns almost every year. But in his view, this year's fire was worse than the one in 1997.
For one, the smoke is getting thicker. If you think about it, the forest is almost gone, almost extinct. So how come the smoke is so extraordinary?
According to satellite imagery analysis by Trend Asia and Greenpeace Indonesia, there were 4,090 fire points on GAP's land from January to September 2026. The biggest spike came in September 2026, with 3,354 points, when the land had been managed by Agrinas for almost a year. Nusantara Atlas recorded 683.56 hectares of GAP's land burned this year.
July 31, 2026
The July 31 Sentinel-2 image still shows the concession's blocks largely green. Yet over the course of July, 15 burn-scar polygons covering 80.9 hectares had already been recorded inside the concession.
August 10, 2026
The MODIS Aqua satellite picked up a fire-source point in the concession's northern block, at the edge of the remaining peat forest. The August 5 image does not yet show extensive burn scars.
August 26, 2026
Planet Labs imagery from August 26 shows a brown expanse of scorched land in the northern block (orange highlight). August alone accounted for 126 burn-scar polygons covering 297.4 hectares.
October 18, 2026
In total, 684.6 hectares burned, or 4.3 percent of the 16,060-hectare concession. On October 18, MODIS was still recording fires on land now managed by Agrinas.
Janang Firman Palanungkai, regional executive director of WALHI Central Kalimantan, said the party that should be responsible for the fires is the land's new owner.
“The state has taken over, taken back land that companies had been managing illegally. That means the responsibility lies with Agrinas, not with the company anymore,” Janang said in an online interview on Tuesday, October 27, 2026.
Under Minister of Forestry Decree (SK) No. 36 of 2025, 16,426 hectares of GAP's land lie inside forest areas. The decree lists the legal entities running oil palm plantations built inside forest areas without forestry permits.
From January to June 2026, the GAP mill was recorded as a source of crude palm oil for refineries in Brazil and the Netherlands owned by AAK AB, a vegetable fats producer based in Malmö, Sweden. The GAP mill was also a recorded source of palm kernel oil for AAK refineries in Sweden and the United Kingdom.
In the same period, the GAP mill was also on the supplier list of Japanese chocolate and dairy giant Meiji Holdings. The group, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, produces chocolate, yogurt, milk and pharmaceuticals, and uses palm oil mainly for chocolate and processed foods sold in Japan and other Asian markets.
Before Satgas PKH took control, the GAP mill was already on the supplier lists of more than a dozen global brands, including Ferrero, Nestlé and Hershey. For July–September 2026, supplier reports show the GAP mill no longer appearing at Musim Mas refineries in Indonesia.
Janang said companies that buy palm oil from GAP or Musim Mas Group must also share responsibility, because they profit from the supply chain. Yet, he said, the companies have committed to no burning, no use of forest areas, no environmental damage and no violation of Indigenous rights around the plantations.
“We must put empathy and humanity first, not just profits that are taken while leaving suffering behind,” he said on Friday, October 30, 2026.
For Sawit Watch, the case shows how important it is for buyer countries such as the European Union to know what companies are actually doing. RSPO certification cannot stand in for EUDR compliance.
Eep Saefulloh, head of advocacy at Sawit Watch, said importing countries need to carry out direct field verification, push for open spatial maps and provide public access to supply chain traceability data.
“This step is crucial to ensure that palm oil entering the global market is truly free of deforestation on the ground,” Eep said.
Walhi Jateng, Sawit Watch and TuK Indonesia have filed complaints with 15 global consumer brands allegedly using Indonesian palm oil from suppliers whose land burned and who damaged the environment. They have also filed a complaint with the RSPO.
On October 31, 2026, PT GAP was named a suspect by the Ministry of Forestry in an alleged forestry crime case related to fires in the company's oil palm plantation area. Dwi Januanto Nugroho, the ministry's Director General of Forestry Law Enforcement, said the case concerns fires that occurred in 2025 and 2026, with a total burned area of 901.4 hectares. “The corporate suspect designation is the result of the investigation process that has been carried out. Indonesian law applies equally to every company doing business in this country, whether it uses domestic or foreign capital,” Dwi said on Saturday, October 31, 2026.
IndonesiaLeaks sent letters to Agrinas Palma president director Mohammad Abdul Gani and to PT Globalindo Alam Perkasa at Spring Tower 04-41, Jalan K.L. Yos Sudarso Km. 7.8 No. 12, Tanjung Mulia, Medan Deli, Medan 20241, North Sumatra. As of publication, neither provided a response.
Sapta Ananda Proklamasi, a Greenpeace researcher, stressed the need for a clear law enforcement mechanism in areas targeted by Satgas PKH when damage such as fire occurs.
“The [company's] management can say it has been frozen, taken over by Satgas PKH. So who gets sanctioned? In the end, for now we can only name names without being able to dig deeper into who it should be. The manager? Or the beneficial owner?” Sapta said.
Greenpeace analysis based on Nusantara Atlas data shows 5,380 hectares of land in eight concessions on Satgas PKH’s enforcement list burned between July and September 2026. According to Greenpeace Indonesia, Satgas PKH must take responsibility for the burned land, and Agrinas must be sanctioned because areas it manages burned.
“The lack of a clear accountability mechanism for damaged seized land opens the door to environmental crime without accountability. We want to say that this is neglect,” Sapta said.
In response, Ristianto Pribadi, head of public relations and international cooperation at the Ministry of Forestry, said that in principle, forest areas not covered by a permit remain under state protection.
Even so, he said, the duty to protect these areas must also be underlined by the legal liability of whoever committed violations or caused the fires.
“For areas being brought under control by the Forest Area Enforcement Task Force, the party operationally responsible needs to be determined by taking into account the stage of the takeover, the handover documents, and the management assignment at each location,” Ristianto said in a written statement on Thursday, October 29, 2026.
He said enforcement must not create a protection vacuum or erase liability for earlier violations.
On the size of burned land under Satgas PKH control, Ristianto said the ministry still needs to reconcile the details of burned areas inside forest areas, how they split between permitted and unpermitted areas, and the number of permit holders with repeated fires, along with their permit status in the year of the incident.
“We cannot yet give figures for all of these details before they are verified,” he said.
5,380hectares
53.8 km²
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As the fires burned, the government and parliament (DPR) were drafting a revision of Forestry Law No. 41/1999, to be passed soon.
A leaked draft obtained by IndonesiaLeaks shows Commission IV did not change Article 49 of the Forestry Law but added Article 49A on permit holders' obligation to provide fire control facilities. The draft also prioritizes administrative sanctions over criminal ones: administrative fines, temporary suspension of business activities, freezing of business permits and revocation of business permits.
“If an area has been handed to a new manager, the obligation to provide fire control facilities and infrastructure must be carried out by that manager in line with its authority. As for the transition period after a permit is revoked or an area is taken over by the state, who is responsible needs to be made clear,” Johan Daniel told IndonesiaLeaks in a written reply on Thursday, October 29, 2026.
Commission IV also added Articles 78, 78A and 80A on corporate criminal provisions and administrative sanctions. According to Johan, these articles do not provide criminal penalties for officials, company owners or company executives.
“Any person proven [guilty] can be sanctioned under 78A. It does not explicitly mention officials, but if they are proven to have violated it, it could possibly apply,” Johan said.
The #ResetKehutanan civil society coalition said there are danger signs in the revision. It highlighted DPR proposals on Articles 49, 50, 78, 79 and 80 that do not impose heavy sanctions on corporations, even though corporations are at the root of much forest destruction, including the recent forest and land fires.
Forest-burning corporations have long hidden behind the complexity of legal proof. Whoever owns a concession whose forest burns must pay for its restoration.
Decmonth Nuel Pasaribu, a researcher in the forestry and biodiversity division of the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL), said that in the List of Issues the coalition submitted, it urged provisions on strict liability and additional criminal penalties to strengthen accountability and push for forest ecosystem restoration.
Decmonth also said law enforcement in the forestry sector must not stop at sanctioning violators but must ensure forest ecosystems are restored. Restoration schemes, he said, have not been integrated into the law enforcement framework of the Forestry Law or into Satgas PKH's practice.
“Forest area enforcement should not be oriented solely toward taking back areas or imposing administrative fines, but must integrate forest ecosystem restoration and the resolution of long-running land tenure conflicts. Without these two aspects, PKH risks becoming merely an instrument of administrative enforcement and area control, without resolving the root environmental problems and social injustice that have long plagued the forestry sector,” Decmonth said.
Decmonth therefore urged the government to draft a new Forestry Law that takes into account proposals the #ResetKehutanan coalition submitted to the DPR in October.
“There are three fundamental changes that are the main concern of the #ResetKehutanan coalition: formulating restoration-oriented law enforcement, setting adequate forest cover based on the environment’s carrying capacity, and building a transition to community-based forest management,” he said.
IndonesiaLeaks used document tracing, open-source intelligence (OSINT) techniques, and Copernicus and Planet Labs satellite imagery to identify embers and hotspots. The team also used NASA's FIRMS platform (VIIRS S-NPP, NOAA-20, NOAA-21 and MODIS) to corroborate its findings.
The IndonesiaLeaks team carried out rigorous verification using data from Greenpeace Indonesia, Trend Asia and ICEL to ensure the accuracy of the data. These findings were combined with interviews, remote monitoring by drone, analysis of company documents, and tracing of company supply chains.
This interactive report was also produced with the help of Claude AI, which was used to package the report for multiple platforms.