Recommendations

The preceding sections of this report demonstrate that there is still a major disconnect between the reality on the ground in West Papua, and the actions that the Indonesian Government claims to be taking to improve forest governance (including preventing deforestation and safeguarding peatland). Rights of Indigenous Papuans are also not being genuinely protected.

One key contributing factor to this which has been identified is the strong relationships and overlapping interests which exist between influential players in the natural resources sector and those in government. It is feared that these dynamics may contribute to a culture where corruption and collusion become endemic, legislation and policy making are distorted, and law enforcement is weakened. Such a culture benefits elite and oligarchic interests at the expense of environmental protection and the rights of Indigenous peoples. The reform agenda and progressive measures such as the One Map Policy, the Forest Moratorium and the Oil Palm Moratorium will also fail.

Addressing this challenging situation requires systematic efforts using policy and legal instruments to control improper relationships between political actors, businesspeople and public officials. It also requires concrete action from all levels of government to review and if necessary revoke problematic concessions, and enforce sanctions where laws have been broken.

Indonesian government

• The Indonesian Government must implement and strengthen its existing regulations on beneficial ownership, and punish non-compliance, especially by companies in the natural resources sector. In addition, it must ensure public access to this information. The government must place an emphatic ban on the use of nominee shareholders, with strict sanctions for companies and their controllers who continue to use nominees.

• The government must quicken the implementation of its promised One Map

Policy, including publishing concession maps through a freely accessible online platform.

• The government must ensure complete transparency in accordance with the mandate contained in the Freedom of Information Law. This includes placing copies of all permits and supporting documentation, including EIAs, online for public access.

• The quality of legislation governing the permitting process should be improved. Inconsistent and poorly integrated regulations issued by different ministries should be harmonised. Cross-sectoral issues should be governed through higher-level legal instruments (presidential regulations or higher).

New regulations must provide wide-ranging government power to evaluate and revoke permits, especially in response to inactivity, suspected corruption or changing conservation priorities.

• The government should take strict action against permit speculation, wherein companies obtain concessions and permits with the intention of selling them on. The reason for this is it will hinder the implementation of FPIC. Among the necessary changes to prevent this practice are improved transparency in the permitting process and around ultimate beneficial owners of companies.

• The government must revoke the Omnibus Law and its implementing regulations, which weaken the precautionary principle in environmental management. Requirements for EIAs should be strengthened.

• The government must ensure that EIAs are conducted to high scientific research standards and accurately evaluate the full potential impact of each project. Evaluation of social impacts is an equally important part of this process, and the entire EIA must be subject to peer review. In making its decision whether to grant approval to a proposal, the government must give serious consideration to biodiversity conservation and environmental protection. In Papua, particular attention should be paid to the fact that biological diversity is poorly understood and that detailed long-term research is necessary to understand the possible environmental impacts of natural resources sector developments.

• The government must speed up the recognition of Indigenous rights by introducing and enacting the long-delayed Indigenous Rights Bill.

• The government should stop making plans for top-down food estates in West

Papua and instead leave space for Papuans to devise strategies that prioritise their own food security and economic well-being – an approach which is not incompatible with increasing food production for wider consumption.

It must also recognise that due to the long and continuing history of human rights abuses by the military in West Papua and the ongoing trauma and resentment this has caused, it is unacceptable for the military to be involved in food production or any other civilian activity.

• The government must ensure that all measures mandated in the Oil Palm

Moratorium have been implemented by conducting an evaluation of what has been achieved under the moratorium policy as the basis for deciding whether or not it should be extended. It must provide technical directions to all relevant ministries and government agencies. This should include strict deadlines for implementing government orders, and penalties for missing them.

• The government must move rapidly to recognise Indigenous communities and to define Indigenous territories in accordance with the mandate of

Constitutional Court Decision No.35/PUU-X/2012. It must suspend the issuance of any new permits in West Papua until these processes are completed.

Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs

• The Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, as the ministry with prime responsibility for the review into oil palm permits mandated by the Oil Palm Moratorium, must ensure the task is carried out thoroughly and measurably.

Ministry of Environment and Forestry

• The MoEF should evaluate the industrial forestry permit for PT Merauke

Rayon Jaya and cancel the permit if breaches are identified, taking into account the wishes of the Indigenous landowners.

• The MoEF should investigate the use of timber from oil palm plantation areas. In particular, it should revoke the timber industry business permit of

PT Tulen Jayamas Timber Industries due to the lack of legally required EIA and environmental permit.

• The MoEF should initiate full rezoning of the forest estate with the purpose of ensuring stronger legal protection for primary forest, peatland and other ecologically important areas than is currently provided by the Forest

Moratorium. All remaining areas of primary forest and peatland should be reclassified as protected forest (hutan lindung) or a conservation area, and therefore not available for commercial exploitation. To be in line with the efforts being made by the palm oil and other industries towards the goal of zero deforestation, this new zoning should also aim to ensure that natural secondary forest and other species-rich areas (such as the savannahs and wetlands of southern Papua Province) are also not available for conversion to commercial agriculture or industrial forestry.

• The MoEF should undertake a full revision of the Forest Moratorium map. All areas removed from the map should be reincluded in the Forest Moratorium area unless there is strong and methodologically sound evidence that no peat or primary forest is present.

• The MoEF should undertake an evaluation and inventory of still-forested land which has been released from the forest estate, and return it to the forest estate or class it as a conservation area.

Ministry of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning

• The National Land Agency should issue HGU only when a company wishing to develop land has obtained permission from Indigenous landowners, and after the agency and an independent assessor have verified that a full and fair FPIC process has been carried out.

• The National Land Agency should revoke permits and HGU when they have been shown to be problematic and reallocate the land as Indigenous territory.

• The National Land Agency should abide by the decisions of the Indonesian

Supreme Court concerning freedom of information which state that HGU data should be made available to the public.

Papua Provincial Government

• The provincial government should strengthen the protection of areas of high conservation value (HCV) and high carbon stock (HCS).

• The provincial government should expedite the recognition of customary forest throughout Papua Province.

• The governor should revoke old, inactive or problematic permits, and issue recommendations that areas previously allocated for plantations should instead be taken back into the forest estate and/or established as Essential

Ecosystem Areas (Kawasan Ekosistem Esensial).

• A new Provincial Spatial Plan should be drawn up which recognises that Papua’s forests are of global ecological importance and that their conservation is also culturally vital for Indigenous Papuans.

Bupatis and District Legislative Councils

• Bupatis and District Legislative Councils must carry out participative mapping of Indigenous lands and of potential economic opportunities for Indigenous communities. They must propose and define areas to be recognised as

Indigenous territory.

• Bupatis and District Legislative Councils should issue local regulations under the mandate given by Constitutional Court Decision MK 35/PUU-X/2012 and regulations to implement the Papuan Special Autonomy Law.

• Bupatis and District Legislative Councils should issue local regulations setting out guidelines for carrying out FPIC processes.

• Bupatis and District Legislative Councils should provide assistance empowering Indigenous communities to undertake sustainable economic development.

International partners and donors

• International partners and donors must establish clear and strict criteria to ensure that they are supporting effective implementation of Indonesia’s efforts to achieve good forest management and avoid a worsening climate crisis.