International financial support despite Indonesia’s failures
159 The scale of the challenge ahead
© Albertus Vembrianto
A father and son in an oil palm plantation in Boven Digoel regency.
As Part 1 of this report notes, although West Papua’s deforestation rate within oil palm concessions has fallen in recent years, this fall has been to a large extent market-driven, thanks to pressure from companies that buy palm oil and civil society organisations, and local Indigenous opposition to plantations. Meanwhile, as this report’s analysis shows, the key national government policies aimed at reducing deforestation have not been effectively implemented in practice. New concessions covering forest areas have been issued, and old and flawed permits have been allowed to remain valid. The government has allowed the same failures of governance that have led to widespread forest destruction in the past to continue without reform, including conditions conducive to systemic corruption, poor transparency, an ambiguous regulatory environment and lack of recognition of Indigenous sovereignty.
