Greetings from Jakarta, where I just wrapped up a whirlwind week of meetings on nature and climate-related risks and opportunities along with a group of global investors as part of our international forest protection initiative. This is my second trip to Indonesia this year after September 2025 meetings in New York and a February investor trip to Jakarta. These trips build on our dialogues with companies, government officials, and civil society groups about climate-related risks and opportunities for investment in Indonesia’s incredible nature.
Often described as the Emerald of the Equator, Indonesia contains the third-largest tropical rainforest area on the planet. Incredibly, it’s the fourth most populous country for humans and home to 10-15% of all known plants and animals – including orangutans, Sumatran tigers and the Javan rhinoceros.
This sprawling, strikingly beautiful country is teeming with life. Jakarta hums around the clock, offering a sensory feast of taxi horns, bright lights and the aromas of street food. Outside of the city, Indonesia offers a rich array of wildlife, ranging from Sumatran elephants roaming on grasslands to the Javan Hawk Eagle.
Green Century has advocated to protect Indonesia’s tropical rainforests from being bulldozed and burned since the early 2010s – our impact is detailed in this short video clip. During the early years of our forest protection campaign, we helped convince major U.S. companies, such as Kellogg’s and Starbucks, to commit to using palm oil in their products that didn’t cause deforestation. These pledges drove demand, ultimately making it easier to convince growers and traders, including Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), to change their practices, shifting markets toward deforestation-free palm oil production.
The Indonesian government and a set of leading palm oil companies, urged to act by investors and NGO’s, drastically drove down the destruction of rainforests. Deforestation rates have significantly declined since their peak in 2016, when nearly 10,000 square km of forest was lost every year, and hit a low in 2021 at around 2,000 square km. Concerningly, those rates have begun to creep back up, threatening habitat and accelerating climate change.
That’s why I have returned to Jakarta – to help deforestation rates stay low by communicating that investors view nature and forest conservation as protecting value. This week’s productive meetings revealed that there is significant work underway, with more to be done, to protect nature in this incredible place. Our message — that global investors see financial risks in increased deforestation as well as opportunities in keeping trees standing — was well received, and progress is being made.
This weekend, I’ll be embarking on a 700-mile trip from Jakarta to Borneo, where I’ll travel by boat to visit orangutans in Tanjung Puting National Park, along with other local wildlife including proboscis monkeys, hornbills, and maybe even the Bornean clouded leopard.
How lucky are we to live in a world where these creatures exist?
Stay tuned for my next report back – with photos – coming soon. Thank you for your investment in Green Century, which makes our work possible.
— Annie Sanders, Director of Shareholder Advocacy