The European hardwood market is deeply linked to the destruction of natural forests in Indonesia, particularly in Borneo, one of the world’s last remaining refuges for orangutans. This is what emerges from the Risky Business investigative report, published by the British NGO Earthsight in collaboration with the Indonesian partner Auriga Nusantara.
The investigation took its steps from an archive of almost 10,000 unpublished government documents which allowed for the first time to comprehensively map 65 Indonesian sawmills and factories that process wood resulting from the deforestation of Borneo’s natural forests. Combining this data with export records, the investigators found that the five largest users of this type of wood in 2024 regularly sell their products within the European Union.
Confirming the devastation, Auriga Nusantara used drones to film four areas of recently razed forest in central Borneo, which had supplied the five producers. Aerial footage shows thousands of hectares of cleared natural forest that, until a few years ago, made up a significant part of orangutan habitats. As if that wasn’t enough, members of local communities reported losing vital resources such as food and income due to deforestation, leading to clashes and leaving them with a sense of helplessness in the face of destruction.
The role of Europe and regulatory delays
Much of Borneo’s landscape has been transformed in recent decades, shifting from predominantly forest cover to a patchwork of plantations that have destroyed lowland forests, vital habitat for orangutans and other threatened species. Deforestation in Borneo has also increased in recent years, with the loss of 129,000 hectares in the last year alone – an area the size of Rome.
The European Union is about to adopt new legislation, the EU Deforestation Regulation, which should ban the import of what is called “deforestation wood”. However, the entry into force of the law, scheduled for 30 December 2025, has already been postponed once and risks further delays and weakening due to pressure from the industry, as Brussels is considering. According to Earthsight, this failure to meet deadlines keeps Europe’s borders open to even the most destructive timber.
The trade flows confirm this: the five Indonesian companies investigated exported a total of 23,272 cubic meters of plywood, door frames and garden decking to Europe in 2024, mainly destined for the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. All of these shipments were found to be legal, but Earthsight deems them to be at “high risk” of containing deforestation timber, often sold under the label of selective logging.
Lack of transparency in the supply chain
The investigation brought to light a clear lack of transparency along the European supply chain. Earthsight spoke to several European companies – importers and wholesalers of hardwood products supplying at least nine European countries, including Belgium, Germany, France and the Netherlands – and found that most were unable to indicate the precise origin of their wood or demonstrate the actual absence of wood from deforested areas.
A Dutch company that received a shipment of Indonesian plywood, despite being informed by NGOs that the timber had come from hundreds of hectares of destroyed landscape, said it would continue to work with long-standing suppliers. Another admitted to having traced its supply chain to the Indonesian company PT Mayawana Persada, which has been blamed for deforestation in Indonesia in recent years.
In Italy, Earthsight identified a single shipment in 2024 from the five suppliers under review: 156 cubic meters of Meranti plywood. This wood, which grows only in natural forests, came from a supplier who had purchased logs from a company responsible for deforestation in one of the orangutan strongholds visited by NGOs.
The call for immediate action
The executives of the Indonesian companies involved, despite internal government documents showing the purchase of thousands of cubic meters of deforestation timber in 2024 (and exporting 73% and 88% to Europe), denied the accusations in meetings filmed by NGOs. This further highlights the opacity of supply chains.
The stakes are high and they don’t just concern Indonesia. Hilman Afif of Auriga Nusantara warns: “The destruction of Borneo’s forests is not just an Indonesian tragedy, but a global one. Orangutans are being pushed away, indigenous peoples and local communities lose their living space and the climate becomes increasingly unpredictable.” Deforestation has indeed reached peatlands, which are huge carbon sinks, leading Indonesia to generate more carbon emissions than the Netherlands last year.
Aron White, Earthsight’s head of Southeast Asia, calls for immediate action.
There is a real risk that European money will contribute to the destruction of some of the last orangutan sanctuaries on Earth. These cases show why the EU Deforestation Regulation must be enforced without delay: to force companies to clean up their supply chains and stop hiding behind misleading green labels. European wood companies should stop all relationships with suppliers who deal with this shameful deforestation wood and switch to the numerous truly deforestation-free alternatives.
