Indonesia threatens to ban Leonardo DiCaprio over Instagram rainforest rant

Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio may be banned from returning to Indonesia over his criticisms that palm oil plantations are destroying the country’s rainforests and endangering wildlife, an immigration official said on Saturday.

The Oscar-winner made a one-day visit to protected Mount Leuser National Park in northern Sumatra last weekend and uploaded photos to his Instagram account , expressing concerns over species whose habitats are threatened.

“The expansion of palm oil plantations is fragmenting the forest and cutting off key elephant migration corridors,” he posted. “A world-class biodiversity hot spot, but palm oil expansion is destroying this unique place.”

Heru Santoso, the spokesman for the Directorate General for Immigration at the Law and Human Rights Ministry, said that DiCaprio used his visit to discredit the palm oil industry and the Indonesian government.

“We support his concern to save the Leuser ecosystem,” Santoso said. “But we can blacklist him from returning to Indonesia at any time if he keeps posting incitement or provocative statements in his social media.”

Slash-and-burn practises destroy huge areas of Indonesian forest every year during the dry season, creating haze that pollutes neighbouring countries and causes massive economic losses as well as contributing to Indonesia’s carbon dioxide emissions. The fires are often set to clear land for agriculture, including palm oil plantations.