As Forests Burn, Money Continues To Flow: TuK INDONESIA Calls for Binding Finance Rules at CBD COP17

Press Release

Yerevan, Armenia, 21 October 2026 — As forest and land fires come sweeping again across Indonesia, we must acknowledge that these are not recurring accidents of nature. They reflect a failure of financial systems to curb the flow of capital into high-risk industries. Based on independent satellite monitoring by Nusantara Atlas up until 20 October 2026, as many as 1,146,209 hotspots and an estimated 1,916,588 hectares have burned across the country.  Yet amid the haze and the loss of locals’ living spaces, credit facilities and investment funds from banks continue flowing into offending companies unhindered.

This disconnect between the damage to ecosystems and communities, and the capital injected into banks is the point of concern that TuK INDONESIA is bringing to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP17) in Yerevan. TuK INDONESIA Executive Director Linda Rosalina states that governments and global financial authorities must stop treating the biodiversity crisis as simply a matter of conservation or firefighting.

“We cannot claim to take biodiversity protection seriously while the financial system still allows money to flow into businesses that risk destroying forests. Banks are not neutral bystanders, because their financing decisions help determine which economic activities continue. At COP17, we urge that biodiversity commitments be translated into rules that bind the financial sector, rather than unguaranteed promises of sustainability,” Linda said.

The latest report by the Forests & Finance Coalition, Regulating Finance for Biodiversity 2026, reinforces this point. Its assessment of 11 strategically important jurisdictions, including Indonesia, found that not one of them has a comprehensive ban on financing companies that drive deforestation. Between January 2016 and September 2026, the coalition identified USD 894 billion in loans and underwriting flowing to forest-risk sectors: USD 531 billion to agricultural commodities and USD 363 billion to mining. Legal uncertainty over which party to hold responsible for starting fires is often used as a reason for banks to avoid due diligence responsibilities.TuK INDONESIA argues that this legal uncertainty cannot be a reason for banks to skimp on due diligence. The underlying problem lies in a financing system that keeps giving problematic corporations a platform without adequate and thorough evaluation.

Linda also presented TuK INDONESIA’s findings concerned with which corporate groups are linked to this year’s fires.  “We identified 14 corporate groups in the palm oil and pulp and paper sectors linked to this year’s forest fires: Fangiono (First Resources), Wilmar, RGE, Sinar Mas, Salim, Musim Mas, Genting, Sampoerna Agro, Harita, Rajawali, Sungai Budi, KLK, Carson Cumberbatch, and SD Guthrie. According to our report, these groups control around 7.6 million hectares of land in Indonesia, nearly the size of the Czech Republic. Several of them have records of deforestation, land conflicts, human rights violations, and even corruption,” she said.

Regarding credit flows, Linda cited Forests & Finance data. From 2020 to September 2026, these groups received about USD 53.4 billion in credit, and the flow is highly concentrated. Sinar Mas received about USD 35.1 billion, or around 66 percent. RGE received about USD 9.4 billion, around 18 percent. These two groups alone absorbed about 83 percent of all the credit. “Around 60 percent of this credit came from Indonesian banks. BCA provided USD 7.6 billion, Bank Mandiri USD 4.8 billion, BNI USD 3.8 billion, and BRI USD 3.4 billion. These four banks alone provided about USD 19.6 billion, or around 37 percent of the total. Securities firms such as Sucorinvest, Indo Premier, Trimegah, and Danareksa are also recorded at about USD 4.2 billion, so capital markets are a financing channel too, not only banks.”

“This is not only Indonesia’s problem,” Linda continued. “International banks are part of this system, including Japan’s MUFG with USD 2.4 billion, Mizuho and SMBC, and Malaysia’s Maybank with USD 1.5 billion and CIMB with USD 1.3 billion.”

Linda added that the profits of these corporations reach far beyond Indonesia. “Besides credit, these groups received about USD 10.7 billion in investment as of September 2026. Around 50 percent came from investors based in Malaysia and around 30 percent from investors based in the United States. SD Guthrie is the largest recipient of investment, at about USD 5 billion. This means Indonesia provides the land and most of the credit, but the profits flow far beyond Indonesia. That is why responsibility for biodiversity loss must also extend beyond Indonesia.”

“Indonesia does have sustainable finance regulation, but it is not strong enough to stop financing linked to deforestation and ecosystem destruction,” Linda said. This is why TuK INDONESIA is urging radical reform in how the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) is implemented at COP17.

On GBF Target 14, which concerns aligning financial flows, TuK urges that it not be narrowed to issuing green-labelled financial instruments or mobilising conservation funding. It must take the form of binding financing rules that clean up banks’ portfolios of deforestation risk. Governments cannot keep raising funds for nature restoration on one hand while leaving the tap for environmentally destructive financing wide open on the other.

Whereas for Target 15, Linda warned that disclosure requirements for large companies and financial institutions must not stop at transparency for show or greenwashing. “Target 15 asks governments to ensure companies and financial institutions assess and disclose their impacts on biodiversity. In Indonesia, the quality of sustainability reporting remains very low and does not reflect the reality of environmental and social impacts,” she said. Disclosure does not automatically stop destructive activity. It must be accompanied by mandatory, verified environmental and human rights due diligence, corrective action, strict oversight, and sanctions with real consequences.

Likewise, implementing Target 18, which calls for reducing harmful incentives by at least USD 500 billion per year by 2030, must be carried out as a reform of the economic structure. “Governments must review public financial support that in practice facilitates environmental destruction, and withdraw any financial support and credit facilities that allow extractive industries to operate without adequate environmental safeguards. Tens of billions of US dollars in credit flowing to the same corporate groups over the past six years, with no comprehensive ban in any of the jurisdictions assessed, is a clear example of such a harmful incentive,” Linda said.

Ultimately, protecting biodiversity cannot be separated from upholding the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities through the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and guaranteed access to remedy. People should not continue to bear the toxic smoke and the destruction of their living spaces while financing decisions are made without transparency. COP17 must be a moment to change the rules of the game, not only to raise money to protect nature, but also to stop the money that destroys it.

About TuK INDONESIA

Transformasi untuk Keadilan Indonesia (TuK INDONESIA; Transformation for Justice Indonesia) is an Indonesian civil society organisation working on human rights, sustainable finance, and corporate accountability. It investigates the financial relationships that enable environmental destruction and human rights violations, and urges banks, investors, corporations, and policymakers to take responsibility for the social and environmental impacts of their funding decisions. TuK INDONESIA is a partner of the Forests & Finance coalition.

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