President Joko Widodo has cancelled thousands of mining, plantation and forestry permits in Indonesia, according to a new Greenpeace report.

Mr. Widodo said that he was cancelling permits for 192 forestry zones over an area of 3,126,439 hectares; 2,078 mining permits; and 34,448 plantation land permits. The forest area has plantations of 951,771 hectares, with Bali having an area of 578,000 hectares.

The report, published by Greenpeace, says the organization was aware that the list of cancellations that President Widodo announced included forest permits which were previously in place, leading to negative local environmental impacts.

“The cancellation of these thousands of permits was the right decision, but one that should have come earlier,” said Sekar Banjaran Aji, Forest Campaigner for Greenpeace.

“It’s crucial that the next step is to ensure these areas are protected and returned to Indigenous communities, not re-issued for extractive use by new companies.”

The cancelled permits for lands in Indonesia that have important ongoing ecological purposes (such as forests and peatlands) must be legally protected once again, according to critics.