Indonesia's Transmigration Program and Its Role in the Loss of Tropical Rain Forests*

Abstract: Indonesia's transmigration program is the worlds largest government‐sponsored voluntary migration program It aims to move people from areas of degraded or densely populated land onJava and some adjacent islands to areas on the outer islands of Indonesia that have been found capable of supporting some form of agriculture. The major negative environmental impact is the loss of forest. The emphasis on reaching targets has resulted in inappropriate selection of land for settlement, which has in turn led to conditions unsuitable for sustainable agriculture. The loss of tropical rain forest in Indonesia is due to many factors, but the loss athibutable directly to transmigration is relatiuely small. Dramatic reductions in the Indonesian budget resulting from the fall in oil prices have led to a virtual standstill in the movement of new transmigrants. This lull gives an unexpected opportunity to improve the planning of future transmigration settlements and to coordinate these with consmation planning for other development‐related activities.