ENVIRONMENTAL
PANORAMA
ENVIRONMENTAL
PANORAMA
ILLEGAL LAND OWNERSHIP CHANGE
Palm oil companies influences
The Indonesian palm oil industry was imported by Dutch Colonists in 1848, and expanded larger from national to transnational scale. After independence, Sukarno transferred foreign plantation companies to state ownership control, and the state encouraged the expansion of the palm oil industries in Indonesia. Many areas that the government agencies classified as forests are actually village home sites.
During the Suharto regime, due to the weakness of law enforcement, the illegal palm oil industries have expanded rapidly. The establishment of the expansion of palm oil plantations in Indonesia has unfavourably impacted indigenous people’s rights to their forests, livelihood, food, and culture. The persistence of law violations of the companies includes the illegal use of fire for forest clearance and illegal land ownership transformation.
PALM OIL PLANTATION IN INDONESIA
Burning activities
The land ownership transformation before and after forest fires in palm oil plantation activities are questionable. The majority of land transformations occurs from community property ownership to ownership by local elites. It was confirmed that 60% of the burnt forest between the year 2015 and 2016 were converted to palm oil plantation, and 40% were the unplanted areas which were occupied by local communities who do not have land rights or certificates. Due to the lack of property land rights protections, the open-access land used by small farmers is always subjected to the intimidation of government officials, and corporations.
Therefore, it is possible that burning activity is actually a conversion technique of land use. Local elites benefit from these land transformations; however, farmers are poorly at a disadvantage. This transformation is an illegal activity, in accordance with the Presidential Decree No. 88/2017 on the certificate of land rights in which the state forest cannot be owned by private ownership. Although there are laws that protected human rights, and the environment, the state agencies and private companies are left unpunished because of a lack of access to justice, and corruptions
FIRES OUTSIDE THE PROTECTED AREAS AND CONCESSION IN BORNEO
Illegal land ownership transformation process
The main sources of forest fires are driven by the issues of land ownership and the intervention of the more influential figures regarding land rights. The burning activity becomes a conversion of land use which is an illegal activity ignored by the authorities. The elites including the government officers took advantage of small farmers to gain the ownership of land to expand their concession they occupy. The issues of how to deal with the uncertainty of land rights remain unsolved.
ILLEGAL LAND OWNERSHIP TRANSFORMATION DIAGRAM
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OF PEAT FIRES SHORT EXPLANATION
4 DEMANDS AS A CALL FOR JUSTICE
4 demands as a call for justice
Our demands is to intervene within the process of the company being able to take over the land that have already burnt. To be able to interrupt the process of illegal land ownership transformation and stop the burning, the regulations for the land are required to have stronger legal frameworks. We pledge the government to transform the law to be stronger, to be clearer, and to be fairer to both forest and human.
