Indonesia International Sustainability Forum: empty words?

“The government … does not need to expand the cultivation of rice in so-called forest areas,” said Hashim Djojohadikusumo, special envoy for climate and energy and brother of President Prabowo Subianto, in his opening address at the ISF. He seemed to promise an end to large-scale forest clearing for rice, sugarcane and oil palms. Indonesia had achieved self-sufficiency in rice, the country’s staple food, he said, so no new land would be opened up for cultivation. Food and biofuel crops would instead be grown on “degraded land”. International media reported the announcement with lavish praise.

Civil society groups in Indonesia read the special envoy’s speech cautiously, as the government’s first response to the resistance of many Indigenous and local communities defending their forests against state food and energy projects across the country. It could be a good sign – or empty words that never lead to action.

We remain skeptical. Too often, the government has pledged at conferences to protect forests and the climate, then acted against those pledges at home.

“In fact,” Solidaritas Merauke, an Indigenous and civil society solidarity movement, writes in its response to the announcement, “vast tracts of natural forest across several regions in Papua continue to be destroyed and cleared by corporate heavy machinery escorted by military personnel.” In Papua, sugarcane and oil palm plantations are being established to produce biofuels. “The local Indigenous people, who are the custodians of the land and forests, are being criminalized and have become victims of violence in the name of development, national food and energy security.”

“The changes caused by PSN projects extend beyond the reduction in forest cover to encompass water management and biodiversity, affecting local people’s livelihoods, cultural practices, food security, health and inherited knowledge, and threatening their survival,” Solidaritas Merauke says.

Solidaritas Merauke questions the term “degraded land.” State and commercial actors often disregard Indigenous people’s presence and biocultural knowledge. They label lowland forest ecosystems, including swamps and savannas, as degraded, unproductive land where no one lives – and so turn them into targets for commercialization, resource extraction and development programs.

Before making sweeping promises, the government must stop destructive projects, restore cleared areas and return their rights to Indigenous people.

“Solidaritas Merauke calls for fundamental changes to the development paradigm based on unlimited exponential growth, capital accumulation, totalitarianism, extractivism and exploitation. This should be replaced with a regenerative development paradigm based on emancipation and social justice, the respect and protection of human rights, independence and collective action, and the care and the restoration of social and ecological systems, which are interconnected.”