CEO Note: Indonesia’s forests become top political issue
By Glenn Hurowitz, Founder & CEO
The fate of Indonesia’s forests is becoming a top issue in the country after former President Megawati Soekarnoputri said she cried as she contemplated the world’s largest deforestation project – the Food and Energy Estates ripping through Papua which is slated to destroy 4.3 million acres of forest throughout the country.
“Yesterday, I cried while watching the film ‘Pesta Babi.’ What it portrayed is real. So many forests have been converted into palm oil plantations. For what purpose? There are indigenous traditions, customary laws, and territorial rights. They only ask to be respected. Is that wrong?”
She was discussing the sensational new documentary, Pesta Babi, by celebrated filmmaker/journalist Dandhy Laksono and anthropologist Cypri Dale.
Megawati is the head of the largest political party in Indonesia, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). And she is just the most prominent member of a rapidly growing group of Indonesians (and international voices) urging the government to immediately rechannel the project onto Indonesia’s plentiful degraded lands instead of forests, peat, and Indigenous lands. The film is striking a chord, with more than 10 million downloads so far.
And it comes in the context of rising economic pressure on Indonesia due to a variety of state interventions in the economy, including the Food Estates. Foreign investors have conducted the largest sell-off of stocks since at least 1996, according to The Financial Times, helping drive a 32 percent decline in Indonesia’s stock index – making it the worst performing equity market in the world this year. The Economist, FT, and Bloomberg have all editorialized calling for major changes in Indonesia’s economic approach (you can read Prabowo’s response here).
President Prabowo has a chance to reset to achieve his environmental and economic goals alike; we hope he takes it.
Mother resisting food estates disappears
Indeed, the movie – and the broader resistance – seems to have struck a chord with the Indonesian authorities, which have been shutting down screenings nationwide, and companies driving the destruction of Indigenous lands.
Mama Yasinta Moiwend, who is one of the key figures in the film, is a 64-year-old mother of three. For the last two years, she has been involved in her community’s opposition to the seizure of their lands. She lives modestly, selling vegetables at a local market to support her family.
But then, as Pesta Babi began receiving broad attention, she was suddenly boarded by security personnel onto a small plane to leave Papua. Her family had no idea where she was; activists have alleged that the notorious Jhonlin Group, one of the two major deforesters, flew her out of Papua on one of their private planes.
She then materialized days later, thousands of miles away in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, allegedly without her ID card. Soon, according to an extraordinary BBC Indonesia investigation, she was seen repeatedly in the upscale Menteng district of Jakarta – close to the Vice President’s residence and seemingly in the company of government and security personnel.
The BBC reported that she then met three lawyers, including one who works at a law firm owned by a member of the Central Executive Board of the ruling Gerindra Party. Despite the fact that she has been a vocal opponent of the Food and Energy Estates for two years, Yasinta then filed a complaint against the Pesta Babi filmmakers she’d been working closely with, claiming her participation wasn’t authorized.
Here’s what Mama Yasinta’s nephew said in statement on behalf of the family to Radio New Zealand:
“From what we can see physically, Mama appears to have undergone interrogation or pressure,” Kahol said.
“Looking at her body language, it seems as though she is struggling against herself. Words may say one thing, but her eyes do not lie. They cannot hide the truth from herself.”
He also said there was no way Mama Yasinta could have made the trip to Jakarta of her own volition or means. […]
“Our family lives in poverty. It is impossible for to suddenly have access to that kind of money, gain such opportunities, and secure legal representation,” the spokesman said.
This operation has completely backfired on the companies and the forces participating in it by drawing more attention (a classic example of the “Streisand Effect”).
Frankly, the people responsible for Mama Yasinta’s removal – as well as the entire project – are embarrassing President Prabowo and their country. Indonesia has made colossal progress in protecting its forests over the last decade, but the Food and Energy Estates, and the Jhonlin and Fangiono Groups conducting, it are undermining all of it.
Meanwhile, as far as we know, Mama Yasinta is still isolated from her family in an unknown location, while the bulldozing of her homeland in Papua continues. Mighty Earth is joining many others in calling her for immediate release and return to her family in Papua – and a suspension of the entire project so that Indonesia can recapture its nature and climate leadership and focus its resources on the urgent economic challenges it faces.
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