Jambi
Central Sumatran palm oil and rubber heartland with $2.34B exports in 2024, where RIMBA corridor tests tiger-plantation coexistence.
In the lowland forests of central Sumatra, rubber cultivation spread through traditional agroforestry systems since the early 20th century, creating a landscape where trees and smallholders coexisted. Then palm oil arrived. Over the past 30-40 years, vast forest tracts converted to monoculture plantations, fragmenting the habitat of Sumatran tigers into isolated patches. The tiger population collapsed from roughly 1,000 in the 1970s to an estimated 400 by 2017.
Today Jambi's economy runs almost entirely on these plantation crops. Palm oil contributes 70% of non-farm household income; combined with rubber, coal, and fisheries, exports reached US$2.34 billion in 2024—up 6.74% from the previous year. The RIMBA wildlife corridor attempts to connect three national parks through the fragmented landscape, a conservation experiment testing whether commodity production and biodiversity can coexist.
The EU's deforestation regulation now threatens this economic model. Indonesian smallholders see the law as external imposition; European markets demand traceability they struggle to provide. By 2026, Jambi will test whether the world's appetite for palm oil can accommodate both price premiums for sustainability and livelihoods for 10,000 smallholder families caught between global demand and global regulation.