Environmental Sustainability: UK-Indonesia Collaboration

Debate between Alex Sobel and Barry Gardiner

Tuesday 23rd June 2026 Westminster Hall

[Alex Sobel]

Absolutely. Unfortunately, that follows a history of 60 years of extrajudicial killings and internal displacement in what are, and have traditionally been, very thickly forested areas. The island of New Guinea, which includes Papua New Guinea, is the world’s third largest rainforest. Modern technologies, which we have seen put to very positive use in Ukraine by the Ukrainian forces and very destructive use by the Russian forces, are now being used by the Indonesian military against civilians who have no way of defending themselves. Again, that has been documented. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East has raised that.

I am asking the Minister whether the UK can assist Indonesia in meeting its commitment to climate and nature protection through Indonesia’s plan to restore 12.7 million hectares of forests, but not in Merauke and not in virgin rainforest, which has a unique ecosystem and biodiversity.

I will briefly talk about ecocide. That is a real threat to Indonesia and its international reputation and claim to be a democracy. Ecocide is where acts create a

“substantial likelihood of severe and…widespread or long-term”

environmental damage. Although it is not a separate crime in the International Criminal Court or the International Court of Justice, the 2025 advisory opinion on the climate brought by Vanuatu very much brings ecocide into scope. The last thing that we want is a major international country like Indonesia being hauled before the International Criminal Court for a project like Merauke or some of the other mining and deforestation projects that are occurring, particularly in West Papua, but in other parts of Indonesia as well.

That leads me nicely to the threats to the Tapanuli orangutan in Batang Toru, Sumatra. The Batang Toru ecosystem in north Sumatra is the only home of the Tapanuli orangutan. Identified as a separate species in 2017, at the time their estimated number was fewer than 800. More recent surveys have shown that they are the most endangered great ape in the world, so the Indonesian Government have a special responsibility for the Tapanuli orangutan. Research suggests that losing even eight adult orangutans a year could lead to the extinction of the species.

The Tapanuli orangutan faces several threats. The Batang Toru dam, owned by the PT North Sumatra Hydro Energy company, sliced through its habitat precisely at the intersection of three subpopulations. There is also PT Agincourt’s Martabe gold mine expanding north into their habitat, as well as logging concessions, community incursions of subsistence farming and small-scale agriculture, and hunting and human-wildlife conflict. Those five threats could mean the end of the Tapanuli orangutan.

[Barry Gardiner]

My hon. Friend speaks knowledgeably about the threats to biodiversity in Sumatra in particular. It is not just the sixth largest island in the world; it also has 1,300 different tree species. Sumatra’s forest cover has been staggeringly depleted, with about 20% of its lowland forest remaining. My hon. Friend is right to speak of the orangutan; the delegation that went to Indonesia looked at its conservation programmes. He will know that the Sumatran tiger and the Sumatran elephant are also desperately endangered, and that 132 bird species, including helmeted hornbills and crested firebacks, are threatened there. It is a biodiversity hotspot, and the threats that he has identified are very real and must be avoided.

[Alex Sobel]

Absolutely. If one looks at the geography of Indonesia and its different sized islands, such as Sumatra, New Guinea or Borneo, and the evolution of species on those islands over millions of years, that is what created these unique animal and plant species, which are found nowhere else in the world. The Indonesian Government have a unique responsibility among nations to preserve those species—once they are gone from the individual islands, they cannot be brought back, because they do not exist anywhere else. I have been to see the West Papua tree kangaroos in Chester zoo, but they cannot survive in Chester zoo—they have to survive in the wild. There is the difficulty of seeing such things in the wild, but it is important that we preserve their ecosystems.

To give time for the Front Benchers, I will finish by saying that the UK also needs to think about its own role, particularly in the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which has called for a moratorium on projects that impact on the habitat of Tapanuli orangutans until a conservation management plan for the species can be adopted. There are some excellent organisations based here in the UK—I will not list them, but each time colleagues and I visit the biodiversity COP, we are amazed by the great British organisations and charities that are world-leading and helping to preserve animal and plant species globally. I know that they and the UK Government can help work on a conservation management plan to save the Tapanuli orangutans. We are uniquely placed to help Indonesia, but it needs to want that help. We should offer everything that we can; hopefully we can secure not just the Tapanuli orangutan but also, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) said, the Sumatran tiger, as well as pangolins, tapirs, sun bears and cassowaries—a whole range of species that live in the same ecosystem in Batang Toru.

We must use this opportunity to enshrine sustainable and ethical human rights practices into our working relationship with Indonesia for the sake of West Papuans and other indigenous peoples, biodiversity and nature. If we do not do it now, when will we do it? Soon, we will start to lose some of this unique biodiversity.