Indonesia Threatens to Ban Leonardo DiCaprio

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 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 hotspot, 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, says DiCaprio used his visit to discredit the palm oil industry and the Indonesian government. "We support his concern to save the Leuser ecosystem," Santoso says. "But we can blacklist him from returning to Indonesia at any time if he keeps posting incitement or provocative statements in his social media." Santoso says companies that objected to DiCaprio's comments have the right to request that immigration authorities bar him from reentering Indonesia, though none have done so yet. (DiCaprio recently told Beijingers that China could be the "hero of the environmental movement.')