Indonesia
Displaying 97 - 108 of 143
20 February 2018
The Yogyakarta Indonesian Ombudsman (ORI Yogyakarta) says a 1975 Yogyakarta deputy gubernatorial instruction cannot be used as a legal basis for the State Land Agency (BPN) to reject the registration of land ownership status transfers requested by Chinese-Indonesians.
“This is in line with a…
14 February 2018
For decades the Papua region in Indonesia has remained the country’s least-understood, least-developed and most-impoverished area, amid a lack of transparency fueled by a strong security presence.
Activists hope their new website, Mata Papua, or Eye of Papua, will fill the information void with…
8 February 2018
For more than a half-century, Indonesia's government-backed economic development has been based on exploiting and exporting the vast natural resource wealth in its waters and forests— often to the detriment of indigenous people who historically occupied these areas. This exploitation has also gone…
7 December 2017
In August, the village of Taba Padang in southwest Sumatra was recognized by the Indonesian government for practicing the best community-based forestry management this year.
Less than a decade ago, however, many of its residents were being arrested for planting in a nearby forest, deemed off-…
14 November 2017
Indonesian President Joko Widodo last month gave several indigenous communities back the land rights to the forests they have called home for generations.
The total amount of customary forests relinquished to local groups under this initiative remains far short of what the government has promised…
4 September 2017
A small community on the island of Sumatra is at the heart of a battle for traditional territories that could finally resolve the muddled and exploitative system of laws governing land ownership in Indonesia
It is cold and late on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Huddled around a map, a…
31 August 2017
As a young man, Abdon Nabadan loved nature-tripping—climbing mountains and trekking forests.
Little did he know that his love of nature would lead him to reconnect to his ethnic roots and become one of Indonesia’s leading advocates of the rights of indigenous peoples (IPs), locally known as the…
9 August 2017
Unclear regulations on land ownership have led to overlapping claims, with some indigenous people occupying the concession areas of palm oil companies
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesian security companies have seen a surge in demand for guards to protect palm oil plantations from fruit thieves…
18 May 2017
Poverty eradication is high on President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo administration’s agenda. On his election campaign trail in Bandung, West Java, on July 3, 2014, he elucidated how he would address the acute poverty among 29 million citizens, 18 million of whom live in rural areas. A priority…
21 April 2017
ASOLOKOBAL, Indonesia — Laurensius Lani’s footsteps can be heard at dawn alongside the traditional honay thatched-roof houses of the Baliem Valley, here in the archipelago country’s eastermost Papua province.
This is a region of biodiversity and riches. Asolokobal sits on the southern end of…
27 March 2017
Land reform has been much talked about lately, but not everyone understands what it really means. The term is interesting because it is related to what is really needed to be revised in our existing agrarian field.
When talking about agrarian reform, it is not only about land aspects but also…
17 March 2017
In almost every aisle of the grocery store, you can find products from the palm oil, soy, wood, and cattle industries. Together, these industries are responsible for more than a third of tropical deforestation annually, according to the non-profit organization Forest Trends. While strides have been…