Indonesia has great natural wealth but many of its citizens live in extreme poverty. Democratic progress has been made since the resigation of former president Suharto in 1998, but many civil society organisations feel that far too little progress has been made towards sustainable management of the country's resources, and ensuring that Indonesia's diverse communities have a real say in decisions which affect their future.
The brutal crackdown by Indonesian security forces on the Third Papuan Congress in October has brought up to six deaths and hundreds of beatings and arrests.
The United National Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has written to the Indonesian government to express concern about the impacts of the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate project (MIFEE) on the indigenous peoples affected by this agro-industrial mega-project.
The following report, by independent researcher Anna Bolin,[1] explores the global trends and influences at work behind agriculture mega-projects like MIFEE in Papua.
DTE last reported on the development of policy and projects in Indonesia to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) in early 2010. At that point, President Susilo Bambang Yudoyono had made an international commitment to limit Indonesia’s carbon emissions, and had announced plans to plant million of hectares of new forests.
The attached report, 'BHP Billiton, Dirty Energy, Alternative Annual Report 2011' was published by London Mining Network, DTE et al for the BHP Billiton AGM in London, 2011, and contains a section on Kalimantan by DTE.
The following submissions were made in July and August 2011 in response to the urgent threats to human rights and livelihoods faced by indigenous peoples in the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) project area.
gn [dot] apc [dot] org
