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Indigenous Peoples

TRANSFORMING THE INDONESIAN UPLANDS: Marginality, Power and Production

Down to Earth No. 42, August 1999
Book Review:


TRANSFORMING THE INDONESIAN UPLANDS: 
Marginality, Power and Production

Tania Murray Li (ed), 1999, Harwood Academic Publishers.

Dayaks charged in oil palm dispute

Down to Earth No. 42, August 1999

A long-running land dispute between oil palm plantation company PT London Sumatra and indigenous Dayak landowners has resulted in large-scale military and police repression in East Kalimantan.

Central Kalimantan mega-project re-invented?

Down to Earth No. 42 1999

The Central Kalimantan Mega-project, or 'PLG', as it is known in Indonesia, has been an unmitigated disaster. The ecology and biodiversity of a vast area has been devastated; indigenous communities have lost their resources and livelihoods; and the transmigrant families who were brought in to work on the project remain dependent on government assistance as their harvests fail repeatedly.

Forestry Act fiercely opposed

Down to Earth No. 42, August 1999

Forests: Reforms bring few gains

Down to Earth No 40, February 1999

A number of factors are forcing the pace of reforms in forestry policy in Indonesia: many logging concessions have expired or will do so soon; the devastating 1997/8 forest fires; the corruption revealed in the aftermath of Suharto's resignation; the pressure for increased revenues from the forestry and plantation sectors from the economic crisis; loan conditions imposed by international donors; the ITTO's goal of sustainable logging by 20

Transmigration: No end in sight

Down to Earth No. 39, November 1998

The government has produced a new document on transmigration which describes the 'achievements' of the past twenty five years and outlines the priorities for the future programme.

For almost fifty years, the transmigration programme has meant the violation of rights of indigenous communities whose lands are taken for resettlement sites.

Bank report on chaos at Kalimantan Project

Down to Earth No. 39, November 1998

A World Bank report on the government's project to convert a million hectares of peat swamp forests into rice-lands reveals how appalling the situation on the ground is.

What comes out of the report is the project's total lack of planning and failure to anticipate the economic, social and environmental costs.