• With the Indonesian government refusing to renew a three-year ban on issuing licenses for new oil palm plantations, experts are warning of a deforestation free-for-all.
• The end of the moratorium means companies can once again apply to develop new plantations, including clearing forests to do.
• This coincides with a rally in the crude palm oil price due to tightening supply, which activists say portends a possible surge in deforestation.
• According to one analysis, rainforests spanning an area half the size of California, or 21 mil

Patches of forest cleared and tended by Indigenous communities but lost to time still show more food bounty for humans and animals than surrounding forests.

As indigenous groups lock down in villages, trespassers are taking advantage of their absence to steal their land

By Richard Pearshouse, Amnesty International’s head of crisis and the environment, and Jurema Werneck, executive director of Amnesty International Brazil