1.6 Million Ha Land Questioned, Zulhas: Pure Spatial Planning, Not New Permit

The polemic about the alleged release of a forest area of 1.6 million hectares (ha) in the era of Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan was again questioned by the public, amid the floods and landslides that occurred in Aceh, North Sumatra, and West Sumatra.

Responding to this, the Coordinating Minister for Food Zulhas, as Zulkifli Hasan is familiarly called, said that the land acquisition of 1.6 million ha was part of the spatial planning process to provide legal certainty for the community.

Zulhas then explained the historical context that became the basis for the arrangement of the space. He said, before Indonesia was in the form of a country like now, the archipelago consisted of various sultanates and indigenous communities that had customary rights and traditional territories.

When the sultanates are integrated into the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI), continued Zulhas, the status of the land will automatically become the authority of the state. Therefore, spatial arrangements are needed to adjust the status of the region to long-developed social conditions.

Many areas that are administratively still listed as forest areas, even though they have been villages, economic centers, and public facilities for decades.

"The land belongs to the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia. From the Dutch era there were villages, there were already villages, there were indigenous peoples. Plus the expansion made new districts, new cities, new markets, roads were built. That's called spatial planning, so that there is legal certainty," he said at the BIG Conference 2025 event, in South Jakarta, Monday, December 8.

Therefore, Zulhas reiterated that the 1.6 million ha that the public said was not the opening of a new space, but the legalization of spatial planning requested by community leaders, customs, regents, and governors so that there would not be overlapping land status.

"There is no new permit. That's what 1.6 million is for space certainty," he said.

Furthermore, Zulhas gave an example of Palangkaraya being a city that was map-based before being in a forest area. Then, by spatial planning, it is changed by land disbursement.

"Like Palangkaraya, it's the forest area, the city. So there must be certainty, but there is no new permit at all," he said.