Indonesia - Historical deforestation for palm oil (industrial)

Years available: 2014-2024

Data last updated: 27 Oct 2025

This metric estimates how much deforestation is associated with industrial palm oil production in a given year. This includes the full plantation cycle, from establishment, planting and harvest in a particular year. To estimate the deforestation associated with industrial oil palm production in a specific year, we used a three-year lag between deforestation for oil palm and the first harvest, and aggregated deforestation at the location of oil palm production across 10 years. Deforestation for industrial oil palm is derived from Gaveau et al. (Gaveau et al., 2022; The TreeMap, 2025). By setting these parameters we are assuming that oil palms will start to produce, and consequently start to contribute to the volume traded in a given year, in the third year after the deforestation event for new plantations. These trees will continue to produce for around 30 years; however, here we are accounting only for the first ten years of production. For example, the total area of land that was classified as forest in 2007, but had been converted to oil palm plantations by 2017, would be considered as areas of deforestation contributing to industrial oil palm deforestation in 2020.