“We, the indigenous people of Yowied Village reject corporations coming on to our land in Tubang District for the following reasons: there is not so much land around Yowied Village. Our lives are dependent on what our environment can provide. Where will the future generations go?” The sign is tied with coconut leaves, a signal […]
The forest villages of Merauke are as remote as it is possible to imagine in the twenty-first century. Nowhere in Indonesia is further from Jakarta – 3700 kilometres as the crow flies. 662 km of forest and a high mountain range separate Merauke from the Papuan capital, Jayapura, which is also the focus of most […]
Three years ago, on August 11 2010, Agriculture Minister Suswono travelled to remote Kampung Serapu, inland from Merauke in the south-east corner of West Papua, He was there to launch the Merauke Integrated Food And Energy Estate(MIFEE). It was an ambitious plan for 1.28 million hectares of high-tech agribusiness development, with the aim of restoring […]