Papua deforestation highlights eastward shift of Indonesia forest clearing Deforestation is increasing in forest-rich regions in Indonesia, even as the government claims the national average has gone down, a new report shows. The NGOs behind the report attribute the decline in the national deforestation rate to the fact that there’s virtually no forest left to clear in parts of Sumatra and Borneo. Instead, deforestation has moved east, largely to the Papua region, home to nearly two-fifths of Indonesia’s remaining rainforest — an area the size of Florida — where companies are clearing land for oil palm and pulpwood plantations and mines.