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Industrial pulp and paper plantations have expanded substantially in Indonesia over the past three decades. This paper analyses how plantations were established and changed over time, focusing on the ways owners have asserted control over massive forestland areas. The study centres on two major companies which control 95% of plantations in Riau, a province with the largest industrial tree plantations in Indonesia. The current analytical framework combines national and subnational interests alongside theories of bureaucratic politics. We found that large-scale forestland controlled by a few private players was made possible through meeting national development targets and carried out by the national forest bureaucracy. Under this constellation, a few conglomerates closely tied to central power holders secured mandates to pursue forestry goals. Our findings explain emergent subnational patterns among local bureaucracies, whose growing interests coincide with large-scale plantations agglomerating land to supply shortfalls in mega-processing plants. The mechanisms of formal and informal interests at play among bureaucracies at both national and sub-national levels enrich our current understanding about forestland acquisitions, which is often simplistically interpreted as a centralised state obsessed with economic opportunities presented by a global commodity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]