Indonesia just spared about 4 million acres of rainforest — by growing enough rice without it

The plan was vast: clear millions of acres of rainforest, swamp and peatland in places like Kalimantan and South Papua for new rice fields, in a push to stop importing rice by 2029. Then the harvests came in early. Indonesia produced about 34.7 million tonnes of rice in 2025 against demand of about 31.2 million tonnes, and its strategic reserve reached about 5.3 million tonnes — self-sufficiency roughly three years ahead of schedule. So the government changed course: climate envoy Hashim Djojohadikusumo told a Jakarta sustainability forum that about 4.4 million acres of forest once slated for plantations will stay untouched, and future farm expansion will use already-degraded land instead — of which officials count more than 28 million acres. 'The government sees no further need to expand rice cultivation in so-called forest areas,' he said.

SDG 15 · Life on land — Mechanism: policy reform