Papua has been a largely inaccessible region of highlands and thick forests under the control of Jakarta since the 1960s.
Greenpeace warns that palm oil companies in Indonesia’s remote and easternmost Papua region are clearing massive swathes of virgin forests to expand their plantations.
The group called on the government to stop issuing land conversion permits to the giant corporations that want to fell tropical forests in what once was among the world’s most inaccessible areas.
Greenpeace campaigner Bustar Maitar points to the devastation inflicted on the other Indonesian islands of Borneo and Sumatra, where deforestation has destroyed once-great forests and the homes of the creatures that lived there.
Land clearing to establish or expand palm plantations is a major source of deforestation in Indonesia.
Destruction of forests has caused the country to become the world's third-highest carbon emitter.
Photo: Tammy Peluso - iStockphoto