Indonesia is going ahead with a project to convert millions of acres in Papua into a gigantic sugarcane plantation to produce bioethanol. But Indigenous communities and environmentalists worry that the project in South Papua’s Merauke regency will lead to land grabs, ecological damage, and the destruction of traditional livelihoods.
Representatives of the Awyu and Moi communities from the Indonesian province of West Papua held traditional ceremonies outside the country’s Supreme Court calling for their traditional land and forests to be protected from palm oil plantations. The Awyu have also intervened in appeals taken by two other palm oil companies against a decision to cancel permits that it had previously issued for them to clear Indigenous lands.
Food estate yang sudah dan akan dikerjakan di beberapa wilayah Indonesia seolah menjanjikan ketersediaan pangan berkelanjutan dan meningkatkan ketahanan pangan nasional. Namun, di balik semua janji manis, banyak sisi gelap perlu dipertimbangkan secara serius. Semua kajian memperlihatkan ”food estate” lebih banyak membawa kerugian, bahkan kekerasan, terhadap masyarakat.
The Government approved Decree 15 of 2024 signed by President Joko Widodo on April 19 to form a task force for the acceleration of sugar and bioethanol self-sufficiency stationed in Merauke district, South Papua province.
Indonesia's Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman and the South Papua provincial government launched 500 thousand hectares of rice fields in the region to increase agricultural production, both regionally and nationally.
Palm oil companies in Indonesia, the world’s top producer of the commodity, cleared 30,000 ha of forest last year to make way for plantations. France-based TheTreeMap used plantation concession data from Greenpeace to identify 53 companies behind the plantation expansion and resulting deforestation, of which 20 had cleared carbon-rich peatlands.
Two oil palm plantation companies related to the Fangiono family and Ciliandry Arky Abadi Group are set up in the land belong to the Moi Sigin and Moi Kelim Indigenous communities in Southwest Papua. Fangiono family is one of the richest palm oil tycoons in Indonesia reportedly have taking over 100,000 hectares of land forest areas in the Moi Sigin and Moi Kelim indigenous territory.
Brazilian federal prosecutors are asking a judge to unwind a 2017 deal handing control of pulp and paper company Eldorado from Brazilian firm J&F to Paper Excellence Group, citing restrictions on foreign land ownership.
Indonesia's State-Owned Enterprise Minister Erick Thohir recently claimed that United Arab Emirates-based agriculture giant Elite Agro was looking to invest in Indonesia’s food estate project. Elite Agro currently farms in the UAE, Serbia, and Morocco.
The government has not disclosed how much peatland has been razed so far for its Food Estate project but groups say more land, including peat swamps, is set to be cleared in Central Kalimantan, Sumatra and Papua.
Penghentian operasional kebun plasma oleh pemilik lahan plasma yang bermitra dengan PT. Hardaya Inti Plantations di Kabupaten Buol memasuki minggu kedua di lima desa yang melibatkan pemilik lahan di empat koperasi dari tujuh koperasi plasma yang bermitra.
Konflik antara petani plasma dengan PT Hardaya Inti Plantations (HI)P di Kabupaten Buol, Sulawesi Tengah, kembali meletup hari ini, 8 Januari 2024. Petani pemilik lahan program plasma perkebunan sawit mitra PT HIP melakukan aksi penghentian operasional kebun plasma, karena dianggap merugikan petani plasma.
