Tag Archives: Land Grabbing

Jokowi relaunches MIFEE, wants 1.2 million hectares of new ricefields within 3 years!

By admin | Published: May 15, 2015

Indonesian President Joko Widodo made his second presidential visit to Papua on 9th and 10th May. In Jayapura he made two small but welcome gestures, pardoning five long-term political prisoners and announcing that there would be no more restrictions on foreign journalists reporting from Papua. The next day he flew to Merauke to get down […]

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#savearu sees off Menara Group, time to #savebovendigoel

By admin | Published: May 21, 2014

The story may be over for the Menara Group in Aru, now it’s time to look at Boven Digoel. There another mega-plantation plan is opening the door to the Malaysian timber barons, who are using the pretext of oil palm plantations to get their hands on 400,000 hectares of primary forest. The people of the […]

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Three years of MIFEE (part 1): A Growing Movement Against Plantations in West Papua

By admin | Published: October 23, 2013

“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 […]

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Three Years of MIFEE (part 2): First Villages Feel the Impact as the Plantation Menace Spreads.

By admin | Published: October 23, 2013

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 […]

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Ecological Annihilation in the Aru Islands.

By admin | Published: October 1, 2013

[awasMIFEE note: this article is about a planned 500,000 hectare mega-plantation in the Aru Islands. Although they lie due south of West Papua, administratively they are part of Maluku Province. It was in Aru that Alfred Russell Wallace first observed the fauna which the archipelago shares with Papua – birds of paradise and marsupials such […]

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Shut Down Forest-Destroying Oil Palm Companies in Nabire!

By admin | Published: September 7, 2013

A leader of the Yerisiam Ethnic Group in Nabire, on the north coast of West Papua, is once again calling for support and advocacy as two oil palm plantations move on to his people’s land. Simon Petrus Hanebora’s press release, as reported by Majalah Selangkah, is a forthright accusation against the companies, claiming they are […]

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Press Release – Starvation and poverty in Indonesia: civil society organisations appeal for suspension of MIFEE project in Papua pending redress for local communities

By admin | Published: September 2, 2013

[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, […]

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Twenty-seven organisations report MIFEE to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

By admin | Published: July 26, 2013

A coalition of organisations has requested the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Commission to take action under its Early Warning and Urgent Action procedures to address the dire situation being faced by indigenous people all over Indonesia. For the second time, the specific focus of their concern is the Merauke Integrated Food and […]

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PT Agrinusa Persada Mulia Hand over ‘appreciation’ money to three clans in Elikobel District.

By admin | Published: July 8, 2013

Sorry we missed this piece of news when it was published on the Merauke government website in March 2013. It shows that the pattern of land grabbing has not changed at all in Merauke. PT Agrinusa Persada Mulia, whose parent company AMS Plantations is owned by Ganda Sitorus, younger brother of Wilmar’s Mertua Sitorus, has […]

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Meeting with Company, Local Communities Received Compensation of IDR 1 Billion

By admin | Published: May 31, 2013

In the beginning of April 2013, in the Company’s Training Center of Bio Inti Agrindo (BIA), another meeting was held again with the local Customary Councils of Mbian and Mandobo tribes. Head of Ulilin District attended the meeting as well as local Police Chief of Ulilin and Muting Districts, Commander of local military station in […]

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