The government's plan to expand oil palm plantations could founder because it fails to address the underlying question of community rights to farmland and forests. Oil palm remains a central plank of Indonesia's economic recovery strategy despite growing social unrest arising from disputes over plantation land. Oil palm development is also widely accepted to be a major cause of forest loss in Indonesia, due to the policy of converting natural forests to plantations and because of the fires spread by the illegal practice of burning to clear plantation land.