Toxic palm oil air pollution kills people and orangutans alike

In a sealed bedroom in Palangkaraya, a 27-year-old mother coaxes her five-month-old son to breathe through a nebuliser. Somewhere deep in the jungle, an orangutan mother cries through the haze for her babies. Meanwhile, in an air-conditioned Jakarta conference hall, the palm oil industry celebrates its dubious sustainability credentials.

“RSPO is greenwashing”

For two days, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) held its 2026 regional meeting in Jakarta. According to analyst Edi Suhardi, writing in The Jakarta Post, the mood was subdued. He described “muted engagement and flat dynamics”, a gathering marked by “industry-wide fatigue” toward a certification scheme that once captured nearly one-fifth of the global palm oil market.

Meanwhile outside, organisers assembled with a clear banner message: “RSPO is Greenwashing!”. Humans are easier to hear and see in the toxic palm oil air pollution, but the cries for help of thousands of orangutans, gibbons and elephants go unanswered in the terrifying roar of the fires.

Palm oil summit held in toxic palm oil air pollution

Indonesia has endured one of its worst fire seasons in years. In Palangkaraya, capital of Central Kalimantan, the crisis is being written daily on the lungs of infants.

Reporting by The Guardian on 9 November describes a city of roughly 300,000 people besieged since July by wildfires. Windows are sealed with plastic sheeting, children are confined to bedrooms, and families spend evenings inhaling oxygen from machines.

Apri Dona Yusmelita’s baby son has been sick for most of his short life. “The cough is phlegmy, so he always has to vomit,” she said. “Whatever he drinks, he vomits it all up, because he coughs so often.”

In order to escape the deadly smoke, she’s spent four months shut in one bedroom with her children and an air purifier. When she lets them play outdoors – they immediately can’t breath. “I can’t bear it,” she said. “It’s so pitiful.”

Air pollution 20 times the WHO healthy limit

Palm oil air pollution kills people and kills orangutans. The numbers are staggering. The World Health Organisation recommends a 24-hour PM2.5 average of 15 micrograms per cubic metre. In Palangkaraya, readings regularly hit 300, and volunteer Melodyna Adhesiva recorded a peak above 3,000 last month. Her monitor maxes out at 999, so her team rarely takes it outdoors.

The smoke has since drifted into Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and Timor-Leste, reaching as far as the Philippines and Vietnam. Meanwhile schools have closed and tens of thousands have been hospitalised with breathing problems. Singapore has opened air-conditioned pollution shelters.

Orangutans, elephants and gibbons equally at risk

While toxic smoke assaults Palangkaraya’s human families, endangered wild animals like orangutans, gibbons and elephants are being permanently silenced.

On October 1, The Guardian reported that a mother orangutan, named Mama Abu by rescuers, was found with scorched hands from walking on burnt ground. Also her dehydrated eight-month-old baby Abu was clinging to her side. The two were rescued along with 20 other orangutans and pangolins. The vulnerable beings were evacuated by the non-profit Yiari. But sadly one orangutan died, likely from smoke inhalation.

An extinction-level event for endangered species

Additionally, blazes have spread to endangered gibbon and elephant habitats. Endangered proboscis monkeys, Sunda pangolins, pythons and king cobras have all been found dead. The extent of the extinction-level event is unclear until the haze clears. However, the same life-threatening pollution impacting humans is causing suffering and death in animals.

“I believe that the toll on wild animals being burned, dead, will be huge because the fires are huge,” said Dr Karmele Llano Sanchez, a veterinarian and chief executive of Yiari. “It hasn’t rained here in 80 days here, and everything is dried and burned. [There are] no leaves and no fruits, nothing for animals to eat.”

Fifteen ‘sustainable’ palm oil companies to blame

In response to the enormous ecocide and health crisis, non-profit groups WALHI and TuK INDONESIA staged a protest on 4 November.

Their message was clear – the RSPO certifies and protects its palm oil supply chain members, even though they have fires on their palm oil plantations.

WALHI and TuK Indonesia point the blame on fifteen palm oil giants for widespread ecocide, suffering and death. The group’s analysis is based on satellite hotspots measured with more than 80% confidence and on field findings.

• Genting Plantation Berhad
• SD Guthrie Berhad
• Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad
• United Plantations Bhd
• First Resources Limited
• Golden Agri Resources
• Musim Mas Holdings
• Wilmar International
• PT Astra Agro Lestari
• Bumitama Agri
• PT Prime Agri Resources
• PT Sumber Tani Agung Resources
• PT Sawit Sumbermas Sarana
• PT Triputra Agro Persada
• PT Palmina Utama.

Read more on their website

“This initiative is intended to raise public awareness, particularly among buyers, financiers, brands, and consumers, that RSPO certification does not guarantee a product’s sustainability,” said Linda Rosalina, Executive Director of TuK INDONESIA. She added that the annual meeting was held “with great fanfare while the people were struggling to extinguish forest and land fires and cope with toxic smoke”.

“The RSPO and its members should not be in Jakarta,” she continued. “Rather, they should be at the fire sites, ensuring the blazes are extinguished and people granted their right to a healthy environment. The RSPO and its members must be held accountable for violating the constitutional rights of the Indonesian people.”

Transparency International: Corruption fuels ecocide

Tremendous and all-consuming fires are not a new thing for palm oil. When exploring the underlying reasons for the fires – structural corruption and collusion between palm oil giants and the government may be the answer. Corruption makes it easier for officials to ignore important checks and balances in regulation and rights protections.

For example, a landmark report in 2023 by Transparency International Indonesia (TII) found that:

• 50 palm oil companies scored only 3.5 out of 10 for corporate transparency in reporting.
• Almost half of companies lacked anti-corruption commitments that covered covering all staff.
• Additionally, 46 companies had no anti-corruption training, and 49 of the 50 did not publish their political donations.
• Furthermore, TII identified 80 politically exposed persons working across 33 of the companies.

The TII report delivered a damning verdict. Between 2015 and 2021, a state palm oil fund collected US$9.64 billion in export tariffs, yet handed 80% to biodiesel producers and below 5% to smallholder farmers.

Wilmar: corruption, collusion and link to the 2026 fires

Furthermore, in January 2026, Master Parulian Tumanggor, a board member of Wilmar subsidiary PT Wilmar Nabati Indonesia, was convicted and sentenced to one and a half years in prison for conspiring with a trade ministry official to help palm oil companies evade domestic market obligations. Wilmar is also the biggest recipient of biodiesel subsidies and appears on WALHI’s list of member groups linked to the 2026 fires.

RSPO greenwashing: a shield against corporate responsibility

Umi Ma’rufah, forest and plantation campaigner at WALHI, warned that the RSPO helps companies “build an environmentally friendly image without guaranteeing the prevention of damage or the remediation of the resulting impacts”.

Certification must not become “a shield for corporations to avoid accountability for forest and land fires”. Companies proven to have violated environmental standards, she said, must face strict sanctions, including review and revocation of their certification.

TuK INDONESIA: RSPO is a greenwasher

TuK INDONESIA urged banks and investors to conduct due diligence when financing RSPO members. They urge an end to RSPO greenwashing and that financiers stop treating RSPO certification as proof of “green” economic activity.

Furthermore, it called on brands and buyers to trace supply chains down to plantation level without relying on the label. The group wants supermarket brands to stop buying palm oil from suppliers involved in fires and human rights violations.

Twilight for voluntary models of certification

The industry’s own observers seem to agree the model is failing. Suhardi wrote in the Jakarta Post that the RSPO has “struggled to decisively address deforestation and peatland fires across member concessions”, leaving it “vulnerable to persistent NGO critique”. Its response to the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) has been no more convincing: Brussels has made clear that voluntary certification does not equal statutory due diligence.

While an RSPO certification is easy to obtain and difficult to lose, the assurances RSPO offers for no deforestation and no rights violations are worth less than the paper they are written on. While the political battles rage, in Palangkaraya, a mother seals another window and listens closely to her daughter’s breathing.

Meanwhile in the rainforest, an orangutan mother cannot breathe and struggles to hold onto a tree while feeding her son scorched leaves. The toxic palm oil air pollution in S.E. Asia does not lie. It’s strong evidence of corporate greed!

Further information

Cecep Aminudin, ‘Laying down the law on air pollution.’ Republished with permission by Palm Oil Detectives. Originally published by 360info.org. https://palmoildetectives.com/2024/03/03/air-pollution-from-palm-oil-deforestation-is-a-human-rights-issue-affecting-everyone-in-s-e-asia/

Lamb, Kate (2026, October 15). ‘Indonesia fights fire with dry ice as toxic haze spreads across region.’ The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/15/indonesia-fires-dry-ice-dropped-toxic-haze-spreads

Lotulung, Gary and Holmes, Oliver. (2026, November 9). ‘I can’t bear it’: Young family takes refuge in bedroom as choking haze engulfs Indonesian city. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/nov/09/indonesia-air-pollution-toxic-haze-family-takes-refuge-in-bedroom

Ratcliffe, Rebecca (2026, October 1). ‘The toll is huge’: El Niño-driven wildfires overwhelm Indonesia’s orangutan population. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/oct/01/el-nino-orangutans-indonesia-wildlife-destruction-aoe

Suhardi, Eddie. (2026, November 5). The twilight of RSPO: A multistakeholder sustainability forum. The Jakarta Post. https://archive.is/ukjlz

WALHI National Executive Board, WALHI Central Kalimantan and TuK INDONESIA. (2026, November 4). RSPO is greenwashing! Don’t celebrate sustainability amid forest and land fires and violations of community rights. WALHI. https://www.walhi.or.id/en/rspo-is-greenwashing-jangan-rayakan-keberlanjutan-di-tengah-karhutla-dan-pelanggaran-hak-masyarakat

ENDS

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