INDONESIA Papuan natives in Jakarta against palm plantations

The Awyu and the Moi are protesting before the Supreme Court, which must examine their appeals against mega-concessions approved by the government that would cause massive deforestation of the forests where they have always lived. The complaint of the NGO Forum for Development: “This would be ecocide.”

Jakarta () – “All eyes on Papua”. A simple phrase that has gone viral these days on social networks in Indonesia accompanies the call that dozens of indigenous people from South Papua are taking to Jakarta to defend the rights to their lands threatened by deforestation. They fear that the same thing will happen to them as the region of Kalimantan, in Borneo, whose forests have been massively transformed by the intensive exploitation of plantations for the production of palm oil. Dressed in their traditional clothing, representatives of the Awyu and Moi tribal groups staged a peaceful demonstration in front of the Indonesian Supreme Court to express their fight in defense of the territory they have inhabited for centuries.

These people live in the Boven Digul area, which, according to the “Pusaka Bentala Rakyat” Foundation, is currently the most affected by massive deforestation. They have also filed a lawsuit against the State, which has authorized several commercial companies to exploit concessions on at least 36,099 hectares (almost half the area of ​​Greater Jakarta) that will be transformed into a new palm plantation. The objective of the indigenous communities is to secure their customary lands between the Mappi and Digul rivers.

Speaking to Indonesian media over the weekend, Indonesian Minister of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono – son of former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono – declared that “Papua is our national property of the land and its “Dignity must be respected and restored. We all want all the indigenous people of Papua to be able to live with dignity and prosperity,” he added, arguing that commercial projects were a way of not “leaving this region in the background.”

For his part, Hendrikus Woro, 40, from Yare village, Fofi district, said he was grateful for ‘the moral support’ he received at his protest in Jakarta. So many people heard our cry. “We feel like ducklings who seem to have lost their mother all this time.”

Indonesian environmental monitoring group Walhi said this matter confirms the seriousness of the problem: tensions are exacerbated by the absence of so-called FPIC (free, prior and informed consent) from commercial companies in relation to their environmental concession rights. The horizontal conflict between the local Papuan indigenous communities – the Awyu and the Moi – and the Government clearly demonstrates that the State does not respect the existence of the local indigenous tribal groups and their rights,” says Uli Siagian of Walhi.

Not only customary law is at stake: “The demands presented by these Papuan tribal groups – recalls Siagian – are mainly based on issues related to climate change. When their dense forest is converted into a palm plantation, carbon emissions will be huge.”

In this regard, the Indonesian International NGO Forum on Development (INFID) openly speaks of “ecocide” in reference to projects on the ground on Papuan lands.