“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 […]
[awasMIFEE note: this press release is concerned with the same submission we reported on on July 26th. Four organisations have issued their press release now to coincide with the end of the 83rd Session of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination] 29 August, 2013 From Forest People’s Programme, Down To Earth, […]
21/06/2013 When the MIFEE food and energy development project was launched in 2010, it was imagined that it would turn Merauke into Indonesia’s national ‘rice barn’ which could even export food around the world with all its billions of hungry mouths. Between 2007 and the present day, around 80 Indonesian and foreign companies have been […]
A roundup of recent material about MIFEE, January 2013, from Down To Earth Indigenous communities living along the Bian and Maro Rivers in Merauke, southern Papua, have demanded the return of their customary lands taken for the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) mega-project. A set of demands issued after four days of community […]
Representatives of the Lembaga Masyarakat Adat (Customary People’s Assocation), together with other people affected by the MIFEE mega-agriculture project, made a visit to Papuan provincial capital Jayapura just before Christmas. In meetings with Papuan media, they explained the new problems local communities in the Merauke Area are facing as different companies rush to develop oil […]