Anti-Palm Oil Activist Murdered in Indonesia

Indonesian environmental activist Jopi Peranginangin, 39, was stabbed to death early Saturday morning outside of a bar in South Jakarta.

Although the police investigation has not yet been able to determine if the attack was related to his activism as head of campaigns for the local Sawit Watch, eyewitnesses described the assaillants as “brawny men with military-style crew cuts,” local media reported.

RELATED: Report: World Bank Loan in Honduras Ignores Environmental and Social Risks

"We don't yet know the motive," said South Jakarta Police Chief Wahyu Hadiningrat as officers reviewed street surveillance footage from the scene, trying to find out whether the crime was premeditated or not.

Peranginangin, who collaborated with Greenpeace and other envirinmentalist organizations, was stabbed with a knife-shaped bayonet outside a nightclub, and later transported to the hospital where he died from his injuries.

RELATED: Aguan, Honduras: World Bank Backs Death Squads and Displacement

He fought the expansion of palm oil plantations because in his opinion they were “causing land conflicts, marginalizing indigenous communities, destroying forest biodiversity, criminalizing farmers,” he argued on his blog.

According to Global Witness, an organization focused on corruption and environmental abuse, eight Indonesian activists have been assassinated between 2002 and 2014.

​About 85 percent of the world’s palm oil production comes from Indonesia and Malaysia. It has been skyroketting over the past decade, as the widespread product used in biofuels and everyday products such as much in cosmetics. It is also a major cause of deforestation all over the world, in addition to being responsible for other disastrous impacts such as biodiversity destruction, water loss, poor employment conditions, among others.