Indigenous activists from the Indonesian province of West Papua held traditional ceremonies outside the country’s Supreme Court in Jakarta, calling for the protection of their traditional lands and forests from palm oil plantations.
Representatives of the Awyu and Moi communities held prayers and danced in front of the Supreme Court building on Monday as the court considered an appeal related to their efforts to revoke licenses for four palm oil companies whose proposed plantations threaten their forests. usual. Indonesia began legally recognizing customary forests in 2016.
“We have traveled the long, difficult and expensive path from Tanah Papua [Papua homeland] end up here in the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, asking the Supreme Court to restore our rights and the land that was taken from us when these palm oil companies were granted licenses on it,” said Hendrikus “Franky” Woro, an indigenous Awyu man.
Woro has filed an environmental and land rights lawsuit in Papua’s capital, Jayapura, challenging a Malaysian-owned palm oil company’s plan to clear tens of thousands of hectares of previously untouched West Papuan forest, including indigenous lands. traditional.
Environmental campaign group Greenpeace said potential emissions from clearing the 26,326 hectares (65,053 acres) of primary forest in its concession would equate to around 23 million tonnes of CO2, equivalent to 5% of Indonesia’s expected annual carbon emissions. in 2030.
The Awyu also intervened in appeals brought by two other palm oil companies against a decision by the Minister of Environment and Forests to cancel licenses it had previously issued to deforest indigenous lands. The repeal has the potential to save 65,415 hectares (161,644 acres) of pristine rainforest, six times the area of the city of Paris, Greenpeace said.
The Supreme Court is the last opportunity for communities to defend their customary forest and generations of ancestral heritage.
“For years, we have been tormented by the threat of our traditional forests being replaced by palm oil plantations. We want to raise our children with the help of nature and the food and materials we harvest from the forest. Palm oil will destroy our forests, we reject it,” said Rikarda Maa, an Awyu indigenous woman.
The Moi indigenous community, in turn, is fighting to protect thousands of hectares of traditional forest that has also been reserved for palm oil. The company involved had its licenses revoked amid community opposition, but lower courts later ruled in favor of the planter.
“The judicial panel needs to prioritize aspects of the case related to environmental and climate justice, the impact of which will not only be felt by the Awyu and Moi, but by the entire Indonesian people,” said Tigor Hutapea, a member of the legal council. Pusaka Bentala Rakyat team said in a statement.
Global Forest Watch, a monitoring platform run by the World Resources Institute, said last month that since 1950, more than 74 million hectares (183 million acres) of Indonesia’s rainforest – an area twice the size of Germany – were torn down, burned or degraded. for the development of palm oil, paper and rubber plantations, nickel mining and other commodities.
Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of palm oil and Malaysia is the second. Indonesia is also a major exporter of commodities such as coal, rubber and tin.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
