“Sometimes,” Baso said quietly, reminiscing about his untended oil palm plot now overtaken by weeds, “this grant feels no different than being forced into debt, especially if it’s your first time planting.” For four years, he has helped manage a seventy-two-hectare...
Tabea Meuter This ethnographic study explores the role of solidarity and gender relations within the Transnational Palm Oil Labour Solidarity (TPOLS) network, specifically in the context of the palm oil industry. It highlights ethnographic observations and interviews...
Since the colonial era, health has been an integral part of labor control, as seen on palm oil plantations. Today, these agri-capitalist factories, operating in multinational contexts, continue to benefit from this mechanism of control, degrading workers’ bodies...
A Just Transition perspective would integrate ecological sustainability and social justice. Photo: Worker’s helmet and fresh fruit bunch, North Sumatra, Indonesia © RAN/OPPUK/Nanang Sujana. Steps towards a Labour Perspective on Just Transition We have seen how...
The palm oil industry is plagued by land conflicts. Photo: Indigenous farmers block a road to a palm oil plantation and ritually spill pig’s blood in West Kalimantan, Indonesia © Irendra Radjawali Mosaic Landscapes as a Transformative Vision for the Palm Oil Industry...
What could a socially and ecologically just palm oil industry look like? Worker load fresh fruit bunches into a truck, North Sumatra, Indonesia © RAN/OPPUK/Nanang Sujana. Oliver Pye, Fitri Arianti, Rizal Assalam, Michaela Haug, Janina Puder[i] The palm oil...
Introduction On 28-29th November 2023, an international conference on “Just Transition in the Palm Oil Industry” was held in Sambas, West Kalimantan in Indonesia. The conference was attended by 140 participants, mainly from Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Cambodia,...
Transnational Palm and Oil Labour Solidarity (TPOLS) Network is urging the Indonesian government to immediately declare the forest and land fires (Karhutla) in Kalimantan and Sumatra a national disaster and to end impunity for corporations damaging the environment....
WILDFIRES, FLOODS, AND DROUGHTS: Impacts of Corporate Crime, State Denial, and Labor Safety Neglect in Kalimantan and Sumatra Bogor, September 2, 2026 – The wildfires that have once again struck several regions in Kalimantan and Sumatra are not merely seasonal...
Friday, June 19, 2026 — An online discussion titled “Labor, Land, and Ecology Struggle: Organizing Strategies and the Struggle of Extractive Reserves in Acre, Brazil” was held through a collaboration between Sawit Wxmen Educational Group (SWEG), Sawit Watch (SW),...
Saturday, June 6, 2026 — The increasingly widespread military-based violence and land grabbing in the Southeast Asian region have sparked deep concern among various civil society groups. In response to this crisis, an online public discussion titled “Military-Based...
SAVE INDONESIA, IMPROVE THE PEOPLE'S LIVES! Today, the Indonesian people are facing a battered economic fate. The failure of fiscal policy is the most determining factor in the current situation. Nevertheless, US neoliberalism is the root cause of the fiscal...
