Imbau Warga Tak Tanam Kelapa Sawit Di Pulau Enggano, BKSDA Khawatir Perusahaan Perkebunan Participating Berkempung

Illustration. Palm oil plantations in Kalimantan. (Between)

BENGKULU - Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) appealed to the public not to plant palm oil on Enggano Island, North Bengkulu Regency.

Head of the Conservation Section Region I BKSDA Bengkulu Said Jauhari said that in addition to causing drought, planting palm oil by local communities could trigger large companies to enter. "We ask that people do not plant palm oil on Enggano Island, because it can cause the impact of drought in the future. Even though residents do not plant these palm oil in protected forests," he said in Bengkulu City, Friday, May 26, confiscated by Antara.

Currently, there are three villages that have planted palm oil on Enggano Island, namely Ka'ana Village, Banjar Sari Village, and Kahyapu Village in Enggano District, North Bengkulu Regency.

Said is worried that if the people on Enggano Island massively grow palm oil, the crude palm oil company (CPO) will soon be involved in the discussion. "Currently, people have cleared land to grow palm oil, although it is not yet massive and if people start massive it will cause drought in the area," he said.

The land used by local people for housing and gardening is around 12 hectares or about 20-30 percent of the total land area on Enggano Island. Previously, the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago (AMAN) Bengkulu area strongly rejected the plan for large-scale oil palm plantations on Enggano Island. According to AMAN, the plan has the potential to damage the regional ecosystem and make customary community areas even more eroded. In addition, the rejection was carried out after the proposed opening of oil palm plantations that would use 15 thousand hectares of land on Enggano Island or almost half of Enggano Island area which has an area of about 40 thousand hectares.