By Mahawan Karuniasa Salemba
After tracing the trajectory of national development across various presidential administrations and re-examining the relationships between the state, conglomerates, strategic projects, social conflicts, and environmental degradation, a fundamental question emerges: when a project is deemed “strategic,” for whom is it strategic, for what purpose, and at what ecological cost? This article is written to contribute to rectifying the meaning and direction of development, which should fundamentally serve as the nation’s way of nurturing life, upholding justice, and preserving the Indonesian Earth to ensure the survival of both the present and future generations.
Deforestation Across Indonesian Presidential Eras
The journey of Indonesia’s development reveals that forests are frequently the first spaces sacrificed in the name of progress. The history of Indonesian deforestation demonstrates that the depletion of natural forests has aligned with shifts in development orientations during each presidential leadership. Under Sukarno, pressure on forests began to mount alongside state consolidation, agricultural expansion, timber demands, and post-colonial foundational development. During the Suharto era, forest destruction reached its most massive, structural scale, as development relied heavily on Forest Concession Rights (HPH), transmigration, plantations, mining, the timber industry, and land-based economic expansion. The transitional period under Habibie witnessed exceptionally high pressure on forests due to the economic crisis, weak oversight, illegal logging, and the restructuring of natural resource assets.
In the Reformation era, deforestation did not vanish; rather, its pattern transformed. While it was previously centralized through large state concessions and conglomerates, decentralization caused pressure on forests to diffuse through regional permits, the expansion of oil palm, pulp, mining, and infrastructure. Under Abdurrahman Wahid and Megawati, deforestation persisted within the context of Reformation and regional autonomy, during which natural resource permits proliferated and forest governance became fragmented. Subsequently, during the SBY era, climate commitments began to surface through REDD+ and moratoria on primary forests and peatlands; however, the expansion of oil palm, pulp and paper, and coal remained the primary drivers of environmental pressure.
In the more recent era, ecological pressures manifest not only as logging. They emerge through mineral downstreaming, smelters, industrial estates, food estates, bioenergy, dams, and National Strategic Projects (PSN). The Jokowi era demonstrated a decline in official deforestation, yet ecological pressures shifted toward mineral downstreaming, nickel, smelters, PSN, the new capital city (IKN), food estates, and biodiesel. In the Prabowo era, the primary risks stem from food-and-energy self-sufficiency agendas and large-scale land clearing. Environmental degradation in this new era has transformed: from forest loss into water crises, peatland destruction, coastal pollution, habitat fragmentation, spatial conflicts, and industrial emissions.
National Development and Conglomeration Patterns
National development has never been neutral from economic power relations. The relationship between national development, conglomeration patterns, and environmental degradation in Indonesia continues to evolve in accordance with the political-economic regime of each president. In the Sukarno era, the state acted as the primary actor through nationalization and state-owned enterprises. During the Suharto administration, conglomerates flourished in close proximity to the state through HPH, mining, oil palm, pulp, cement, and food sectors. Following the Reformation, conglomerates did not disappear; they adapted to democracy, regional autonomy, and the global market.
Under Sukarno, development was still anchored in state consolidation, the nationalization of colonial assets, and state enterprises; thus, environmental pressures were largely confined to agricultural land clearing, colonial-legacy plantations, timber requirements, and population pressures. In the Suharto era, New Order development birthed conglomerates intimately tied to the state via HPH, timber, oil palm, mining, food, and extractive industries; during this period, environmental damage became structural through deforestation, forest degradation, pollution, and agrarian conflicts.
The period from Habibie to Megawati demonstrated that the Reformation did not automatically improve natural resource governance; legacy conglomerates adapted, while regional autonomy expanded permits, rent-seeking behavior, illegal logging, and tenurial conflicts. In the SBY era, climate agendas and moratoria began to take shape, yet coal, oil palm, pulp and paper, and commodities remained the pillars of the economy.
Today, that pattern is shifting once again. Development conglomeration is no longer solely based on timber and oil palm, but also on coal, nickel, smelters, industrial estates, biodiesel, and the food-energy nexus. The Jokowi era shifted ecological pressures toward infrastructure, PSN, nickel downstreaming, smelters, IKN, food estates, and biodiesel. In the current Prabowo era, the emerging pattern is a combination of strategic State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN), oil palm-mining-nickel conglomerates, and food-energy self-sufficiency initiatives, carrying a primary ecological risk of large-scale land clearing if left unchecked by environmental carrying capacities.
A critical question continues to surface: when the state requires growth and the private sector provides capital, who ensures that forests, water, soil, indigenous communities, and future generations do not become the casualties?
Social Conflict and Environmental Degradation in National Development
Social-environmental conflicts in Indonesia’s national development exhibit a recurring pattern: mega-projects are introduced with narratives of progress, yet local communities frequently bear the ecological and social burdens. Many development conflicts in Indonesia are not merely disputes over compensation; they are conflicts over living space (ruang hidup).
During the Sukarno era, conflicts arose in forms such as inundation and the alteration of living spaces caused by the Jatiluhur Dam, as well as coastal conversion through early tourism development in Sanur. In the Suharto era, conflicts became more structural, such as the construction of gold mining dams, which manifested as displacement, loss of agricultural land, destruction of mountain ranges, tailings pollution, and pressure on indigenous communities. The Habibie and Abdurrahman Wahid eras witnessed forestry and pulp industry conflicts, alongside logging and forestry permits of the Reformation era, resulting in pollution, deforestation, and tenurial disputes. Under Megawati, certain cases highlighted the risks of coastal pollution, as well as the inundation of residential areas and cultural sites. The SBY era was marked by the Lapindo mudflow and the Kendeng conflict, highlighting pollution, the submergence of living spaces, and threats to karst systems and water springs. In the Jokowi era, Wadas and Rempang exemplified conflicts over project material mining and island-coastal conversion. In the ongoing Prabowo era, the Merauke Food and Energy Estate and the Bangka Belitung tin mining crisis demonstrate new risks of land clearing, loss of local food sources, coastal damage, and livelihood conflicts.
Social conflicts and environmental degradation in these cases do not merely represent lost trees or land that has changed function. They concern human lives and nature as life-support systems—water sources, rice fields, coastlines, sago forests, cultural sites, and fishermen’s fishing grounds. Consequently, development that displaces citizens from their living spaces cannot be termed “strategic,” regardless of how heavily it is backed by regulations and massive investment.
National Strategic Projects (PSN)
Strategy is a conscious, directed, and long-term choice to establish goals, select priorities, allocate resources, manage trade-offs, and determine the path toward achieving objectives within environments of limitation, uncertainty, and conflicting interests. Within the context of Indonesian development, PSN is legally and normatively understood as projects or programs implemented by the central government, regional governments, and/or business entities that are deemed to possess a strategic nature for accelerating growth, ensuring equitable development, creating jobs, improving public welfare, and fostering regional and national development.
However, from a critical-academic perspective, a PSN cannot be understood merely as a mega-project that enjoys regulatory leniency, fiscal support, expedited permitting, land acquisition facilities, and state institutional facilitation. A PSN must also be viewed as an instrument of developmental power capable of reshaping living spaces, social relations, land use, and the distribution of both benefits and risks/impacts. Therefore, the metric for what constitutes “strategic” must not be determined solely by the scale of investment, land area, infrastructural connectivity, export value, or economic growth velocity. It must also be measured by its capacity to maintain ecological carrying capacity, respect spatial planning, protect natural forests, peatlands, water, and biodiversity, safeguard the rights of indigenous and local communities, protect public health, and ensure the safety of future generations. Thus, a project is only truly worthy of being called strategic if it not only accelerates development but also ensures that such development is socially just, ecologically secure, governmentally transparent, and sustainable for life.
Rectifying the Meaning and Direction of Development
There is a vital missing element in these development projects: development that subordinates itself to ecological carrying capacities, the harmony of the Indonesian Earth, and social justice. Therefore, the definition of “strategic” must be rectified. A project is only worthy of being called strategic if it preserves natural forests, peatlands, water resources, biodiversity, local food security, indigenous rights, public health, environmental justice, and the safety of future generations.
True development is certainly not a feast that plunders the earth and robs future generations. Development should be the nation’s vehicle for nurturing life, upholding justice, and preserving the Indonesian Earth to guarantee the survival of both the present and generations to come. (*)
