By the end of 1997, nearly 7 million ha of forest had been approved for conversion to estate crop plantations, and this land has almost certainly been cleared. But the area actually converted to oil palm plantations since 1985 is about 2.6 million hectares, while new plantations of other estate crops probably account for another 1-1.5 million ha. The implication: 3 million ha of former forest land are lying idle [3].
The transmigration program that relocated people from densely populated Jawa to the outer islands was responsible for about 2 million ha of forest clearance between the 1960s and the program’s end in 1999. In addition, illegal migration and settlement by pioneer farmers at the margins of logging concessions, along roads, and even in national parks has greatly accelerated since 1997. Small-scale farmers through shifting cultivation practices are estimated be responsible for about 20 percent of forest loss about 4 million ha between 1985 and 1997 [3].