World’s biggest deforestation project gets underway in Papua for sugarcane

A total of 2 million hectares (5 million acres) of forests, wetlands and grasslands will be razed to make way for a cluster of giant sugarcane plantations.
And much of the sugar produced from the Merauke project won’t even be used for food. The government plans to develop sugarcane-derived bioethanol as part of its transition away from fossil fuels.
Satellite imagery analysis shows that 30% of the concessions appear to fall inside a zone that the government previously declared should be protected under a moratorium program.
A similar megaproject in Merauke, the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE), initiated by Jokowi’s predecessor turned out to be a failure, used as cover to establish oil palm and pulpwood plantations instead.

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