Indonesia has kidnapped and threatened Mama Yasinta Moiwend (Mama Sinta), one of the Marind tribe women featured in the controversial documentary Pesta Babi (Pig Feast), into denying the film and its message, claims a West Papuan advocacy group.

Pesta Babi, which focuses on the Merauke sugarcane megaproject and was premiered in New Zealand in March, exposes how Indonesia is destroying West Papua’s ancestral forest for profit.

“It is a moderate film, which does not show the real truth — that all West Papuans want freedom and independence instead of colonial ‘development’,” said the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) president Benny Wenda.

• READ MORE: ‘Threat to democracy’ – Indonesian filmmaker slams military crackdown on Papua documentary
• West Papuan doco Pig Feast exposes oligarchs, food security crisis and ecocide under noses of military — film review
• Other Pesta Babi reports

“Despite this, Indonesia has done everything they can to destroy it.”

Since the screenings of the film in New Zealand and Australia, the documentary has been widely shown in Indonesia and stirred a military crackdown with attempts to block it.

Partners in the production of the film include the Papuan media group Jubi, Greenpeace  and Pusaka, a group committed to “fostering and advancing a just and equitable life” for Indigenous peoples and marginalised communities.

In a series of social media videos, Mama Sinta has publicly distanced herself from Pesta Babi, stating that she was “exploited by the filmmakers”.

She was later presented to a police station in Jakarta, where she filed charges against LBH Papua Merauke, an organisation involved in producing the film. Her family have stated they have not been able to contact her for the past week.

‘Why change her views suddenly?’
“Mama Sinta has clearly been kidnapped by the colonial TNI. Why else would she be in Jakarta, away from the community she has spent her life fighting to protect? Why else would she change her views so suddenly?” asked Wenda.

Against her will, the Indonesian state had forced Mama Sinta to issue a statement retracting her involvement in the film, he said.

“For West Papuans, this is not a new phenomenon. Indonesia has always used any means they can to divide our spirit: bribery, threats, arbitrary arrests, beatings and torture.

“Those who they cannot silence they simply kill.

“Mama Sinta is just like the elders who were forced at gunpoint to vote against West Papuan independence during the Act of ‘No Choice’ [in 1969]. Merdeka remained in their hearts, even if they raised their hands against it.”

Wenda said Mama Sinta would have been afraid of “what would happen to her” if she did not agree to the TNI’s demands.

At a time when violence had ramped up across West Papua, with nearly 40 civilians “massacred in the past two months”, Papuans were aware of the dangers of speaking out.

“This is why she recanted.”

‘Terrified’ of public
“The Indonesian state response to Pesta Babi — from kidnapping its star to violently shutting down screenings of the film — clearly demonstrates their overwhelming fear of being found out.

“Indonesia is terrified that their own people, their youth and students, will discover what their government is doing to West Papua.

“The filmmakers deserve thanks for exposing Indonesia’s ecocide in Merauke. I call on them, and all Indonesian solidarity groups to stay strong: deepen your support for West Papua, oppose your country’s ongoing occupation, genocide and crimes against humanity.”

In an interview with RNZ Pacific last week, the film’s director, Dandhy Laksono, criticised the military crackdown over the documentary.

He said that Pesta Babi had been showing at about 1700 cinemas around Indonesia.

“We have recorded more than 30 incidents of the state apparatus stopping the screening — mostly by military, and then they are also using the civil servants — in the name of public order,” he said.

No public disorder
Laksono said there had been no public disorder from the film in parts where it had shown.

“It’s ridiculous, and thanks to the audience they defend the film quite hard, and they defend their rights to to watch and to absorb the information, about what has actually happened in West Papua.”

Wenda said the crackdown on the documentary was just one small example of Indonesia’s policy of repression in West Papua.

“They are only able to get away with their crimes because they have transformed West Papua into the Pacific North Korea: journalists are banned from entering, along with NGOs like Amnesty and the Red Cross.”

Six years had passed since Indonesia vowed to allow the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit West Papua — “and still they refuse access”.

Pesta Babi (Pig feast), the controversial Papuan documentary film critical of a major development project impacting on the environment in the southeastern Melanesian region, is stirring public debate and a “crackdown” across Indonesia.

The film caused a stir when it had its premiere in New Zealand in March and was described in a review by Asia Pacific Report as “exposing oligarchs, food security crisis and ecocide under the noses of the military”.

Screenings followed in Australia but there have been reports of a backlash in some parts of Indonesia and some public shows being shut down.

• READ MORE: West Papuan doco Pig Feast exposes oligarchs, food security crisis and ecocide under noses of military
• Army chief denies direct central command over Pesta Babi film crackdown
• Other Pesta Babi reports

However, the Indonesian military denied they were responsible for the crackdown, blaming some local authorities.

An Al Jazeera television report said Indonesian authorities had shut down several screenings of the documentary about alleged human rights abuses in Papua, including Indigenous land seizures.

It noted that human rights groups and international media still faced restricted access to the Papuan region, which is mainly referred to as “West Papua” in Pacific countries.

Pesta Babi is focused on the largest forest conversion project in modern history in a remote are near Merauke — turning 2.5 million ha of tropical forest into industrial plantations under the guise of “food security” and the “energy transition”.

Footage of village resistance
Dramatic footage of scenes show Indigenous village resisters against the massive destruction of rainforest in one of the three largest “lungs of the world”, shipping of barge-loads of heavy machinery, vast swathes of forest scoured out for rice and palm oil plantations, and of a traditional “pig feast” — the first in a decade.

Papuan environmental film ‘blocked’                       Video: Al Jazeera

In an editorial last week, The Jakarta Post said: “A series of crackdowns on public screenings and discussions of the documentary film Pesta Babi (Pig Feast) serves as a grim reminder that the nation’s democratic progress is not only stalling but effectively backsliding.”

Indnesian Army Chief-of-Staff General Maruli Simanjuntak said there had been “no direct instructions from the central military command to shut down public screenings of the documentary film Pesta Babi: Kolonialisme di Zaman Kita (Pig Party: Colonialism in Our Era).

“The shutdowns came from local administrations to maintain regional safety,” he said at the House of Representatives in Jakarta, according to antaranews.com.

“It is the responsibility of the regional coordinator … who deemed there was a risk of rioting. There was no direct instruction.”

Coordinating Minister for Legal and Human Rights Yusril Ihza Mahendra described the title of the film as “provocative” but denied there was a formal ban on screening it.

‘Important educational film’
Jubi News reports from Manokwari, West Papua, that a member of Indonesia’s Regional Representative Council (DPD RI) for West Papua, Filep Wamafma, welcomed the documentary as an “important educational medium” to open public discussion about development issues facing Papuans.

Wamafma said this after attending a public screening of the documentary at the School of Law (STIH) campus in Wosi, Manokwari Regency, last Monday.

The screening was organised by the academic community from Manokwari School of Law in collaboration with academics from Universitas Papua. Participants included students, lecturers, activists, and members of the public.

Wamafma said social conflicts arising from competition over natural resources and economic interests occured not only in Papua but also in many parts of the world.

However, he stressed that Papua’s problems had “unique characteristics” needing serious attention.

“This is a real global phenomenon, but each region has different problems. This film provides a concrete picture of the issues currently faced by Papuan society,” Wamafma said.

He encouraged students, especially law students, to approach the issues raised in the documentary through academic and constitutional perspectives.

Students, he said, should develop systematic analytical thinking by examining facts, legal norms, conducting analysis, and drawing conclusions.

The documentary has been made by award-winning investigative filmmaker Dandhy Dwi Laksono and producer Victor Mambor, founder of Jubi Media, who first visited New Zealand 12 years ago.

• Pesta Babi film review

West Papuan diaspora, academics, students and community activists warmly applauded the screening of the new investigative documentary, Pesta Babi (Pig Feast): Colonialism in our Time, in its pre-launch international premiere in New Zealand last night.

It was shown for the first time back in West Papua at the southeastern town of Merauke, which is centred in the vast denuded rainforest area featured in the film, and also in the capital Jayapura on Friday.

Dramatic footage of scenes of village resisters against the massive destruction of rainforest in one of the three largest “lungs of the world”, shipping of barge-loads of heavy machinery, vast swathes of forest scoured out for rice and palm oil plantations, and of a traditional “pig feast” — the first in a decade — gripped the audience from the opening minute.

• READ MORE:  Pesta Babi – ‘Pig Feast’ . . . a vivid new film exposing Papua’s political ecology
• Indonesia suspends participation in Board of Peace initiative

This is the largest forest conversion project in modern history — turning 2.5 million ha of tropical forest into industrial plantations under the guise of “food security” and the “energy transition”.

“It is a powerful film, rich with data and stories drawn from the lived experiences of masyarakat adat [Indigenous people],” comments Dr Veronika Kanem, a New Zealand-based Papuan academic and researcher, who was at the premiere with a group of her students.

“The film is also grounded in research conducted by Yayasan Pusaka, along with other national and local organisations.” She is pleased that her home village Muyu is featured in the film.

The audience was also treated to Q&A session with the film director, Dandhy Dwi Laksono and producer Victor Mambor, an award-winning investigative journalist and founder of Jubi Media, who first visited New Zealand 12 years ago.

Documented collusion
Investigative filmmaker Laksono gained a reputation for his 2019 documentary Sexy Killers, released just before the Indonesian general election year and documented the collusion between the political establishment and the destructive coal mining industry.

He was arrested later that year over tweets he posted about state violence in Papua.

Laksono and Mambor, along with co-director Cipri Dale, make up a formidable investigative team.

The storytelling focuses on the experiences of five Papuans and their communities:

Yasinta Moiwend was startled when, on a quiet morning, a massive ship docked at her village pier. The vessel carried hundreds of excavators and was escorted by military forces.

It was the first convoy of 2000 heavy machines to arrive in Papua under a National Strategic Project for food production, palm-based biodiesel, and sugarcane bioethanol.

Yasinta, a Marind Anim woman in Merauke, never realised that her village had been chosen as the ground zero for what would become the largest forest conversion project in modern history.

Vincen Kwipalo, from the Yei community, was likewise shocked when his clan’s land was suddenly marked with a sign reading: “Property of the Indonesian Army.” Only later did he learn that the land had been seized for the construction of a military battalion headquarters, at the very moment when a sugarcane plantation company was also encroaching on his ancestral forest.

Red Cross Movement
Threatened by the same project, Franky Woro and the Awyu community in Boven Digoel erected giant crosses and indigenous ritual markers on their land.

Known as the Red Cross Movement, this form of resistance has spread among Indigenous groups across South Papua.

More than 1800 red crosses have been planted to confront corporations and the military—both physically and spiritually. Though a Christian symbol is central to the movement, local Church pastors condemned it as not part of the church.

Dr Kanem says the film could have explored why the Awyu and Marind people chose to use the red cross, a symbol strongly associated with Christian values?

“Why did they not use their own cultural attributes or symbols instead?” she adds.

Laksono says: “Pig Feast combines detailed field recordings with in-depth research to examine the power structures behind the operation.

“It exposes how government and corporate entities — collaborating with military and religious groups — advance international and national goals of ‘food security’ and ‘energy transition’ at the expense of Indigenous communities and landscapes.”

Multinational corporations
The documentary illustrates the networks of Indonesian elites, oligarchs, and multinational corporations that benefit from the project, providing a vivid depiction of the political ecology of Indonesian governance in Papua.

Pig Feast reveals how the system of colonialism remains intact today.

Asked at the screening how dangerous was the film making, Mambor described the hardships their small crew faced to “find the truth” under the noses of the Indonesian military.

He said they walked up to 17 km a day at times to get the exclusive footage obtained for the documentary.

International journalists are banned from West Papua and a 2019 resolution by the Pacific Islands Forum calling for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit West Papua to investigate allegations of human rights abuses has been ignored by Jakarta.

The film reveals how 10 companies — all owned by one family — gained the backing of three presidents.

The Jhonlin Group, owned by oligarch Andi Syamsuddin Arsyad (aka Haji Isam), ordered about 2000 excavators from Chinese company SANY, considered one of the largest orders of its kind in the world, to clear one million hectares.

‘Second thoughts’ on Gaza
Q&A moderator Dr David Robie, deputy chair of the Asia Pacific Media Network (APMN), notes the massive military involved in the operations in West Papua — as shown in the film — and how Israel has been counting on Indonesia forming “the backbone” of the planned “International Stabilisation Force” for the besieged Palestinian enclave of Gaza with about 8000 troops because of its experience in “suppressing rebellion”.

“However, since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran it seems that Jakarta has now had second thoughts,” he said.

Indonesia has suspended all discussions on the so-called “Board of Peace” initiative launched by US President Donald Trump, citing the military escalation in the Middle East, reports Anadolu Ajansi.

Critics had argued that joining a council led by the Trump administration could undermine Indonesia’s longstanding support for the “free Palestinian” cause.

Indonesia’s Ulema Council, the country’s top Islamic scholar body, had also called for an immediate withdrawal from the Trump initiative.

The filmmakers and documentary will now go to Australia for screenings in Sydney, Melbourne and hopefully Brisbane.

West Papua updates
Earlier in the day, at a two-day West Papua Solidarity Forum at the University of Auckland, several speakers gave updates and an analysis on political and social developments in the repressed Melanesian region.

Among speakers were Papuan environmental campaigner for Pusaka Dorthea Wabiser, longtime Aotearoa and West Papua human rights campaigner Maire Leadbeater, Papuan cultural advocate Ronny Kareni , Hawai’ian academic Dr Emalani Case, Ngaruahine researcher Dr Arama Rata, PNG academic at Waikato University Nathan Rew, West Papuan scholar Kerry Tabuni, Green Party Pacific peoples and foreign affairs spokesperson Teanau Tuiono, and forum organiser Catherine Delahunty of the West Papua Action Tāmaki Makaurau and West Papua Action Aotearoa.

Viktor Yeimo, international spokesperson of the KNPB (National Committee for West Papua) and PRP (Papuan People’s Petition), and several Papuan community spokespeople shared messages by video link.

Yeimo spoke about how many students, activists, journalists, church leaders and communities of faith in West Papua faced risks when they spoke about justice and political rights.

“To ignite a large log, one must first find many small pieces [kindling],” he said. “Each piece alone cannot produce a great fire, but together they create enough heat to ignite something much larger.”

He said one pathway involved meaningful political reform within Indonesia, including stronger protection of Indigenous rights and genuine regional autonomy.

Another pathway involved inclusive political dialogue between the Indonesian government and legitimate representatives of Papuan society, like ULMWP (United Liberation Movement of West Papua).

A third pathway existed within international law, “it is the possibility of a self-determination process supervised by an international institution [such as the United Nations].”

He pointed to the progress of the self-determination processes of Bougainville and Kanak New Caledonia for example.

Yeimo said Papuans wanted to build a Pacific future “grounded in justice and solidarity”.

A Papuan rapper spoke on screen saying he wasn’t afraid of the repression of authorities, “but they seem to be afraid of me and my music.”

• Pesta Babi (Pig Feast): Colonialism in our Time, directed by Dandhy Dwi Laksono and Cypri Dale; produced by Victor Mambor (Jubi Media, 2026, investigative documentary 90min).
  

Yasinta Moiwend was startled when, on a quiet morning, a massive ship docked at her village pier in West Papua.

The vessel carried hundreds of excavators and was escorted by military forces. It was the first convoy of 2000 heavy machines to arrive in Papua under a National Strategic Project for food production, palm-based biodiesel, and sugarcane bioethanol.

Yasinta, a Marind Anim woman in Merauke, never realised that her village had been chosen as the ground zero for what would become the largest forest conversion project in modern history — turning 2.5 million ha of tropical forest into industrial plantations under the guise of “food security” and the “energy transition”.

• READ MORE: West Papuan filmmakers expose Merauke rainforest destruction in ‘siege’ doco
• West Papua Solidarity Forum, 7-8 March 2026
• Kōrero with Victor Mambor  – West Papua: Journalism as Resistance, 9 March 2026

Vincen Kwipalo, from the Yei community, was also shocked when his clan’s land was suddenly marked with a sign reading: “Property of the Indonesian Army.”

Only later did he learn that the land had been seized for the construction of a military battalion headquarters, at the very moment when sugarcane, a plantation company, was also encroaching on his ancestral forest.

Threatened by the same project, Franky Woro and the Awyu community in Boven Digoel erected giant crosses and indigenous ritual markers on their land. Known as the Red Cross Movement, this form of resistance has spread among Indigenous groups across South Papua.

More than 1800 red crosses have been planted to confront corporations and the military—both physically and spiritually. Though a Christian symbol is central to the movement, local Church prelates condemned it as not part of the church.

The Pesta Babi trailer. Video: Jubi Media at Café Pacific

Pesta Babi (“Pig Feast”) combines detailed field recordings with in-depth research to examine the power structures behind the operation.

It exposes how government and corporate entities — collaborating with military and religious groups — advance international and national goals of “food security” and “energy transition” at the expense of Indigenous communities and landscapes.

The documentary illustrates the networks of Indonesian elites, oligarchs, and multinational corporations that benefit from the project, providing a vivid depiction of the political ecology of Indonesian governance in Papua.

Pig Feast serves as a record of colonialism that remains intact today.

This film is co-produced by Jubi, Ekspedisi Indonesia Baru, Greenpeace, Yayasan Pusaka, and Watchdoc Documentary. It is being screened as part of a weekend of West Papua Solidarity Forum events organised by West Papua Action Tāmaki Makaurau.

• Pesta Babi (“Pig Feast”) — Colonialism In Our Time, directed by Cypri Dale and Dandhy Laksono and produced by Jubi Media and collaborators. Investigative documentary (90min).
• Book tickets for the “Sinéma Merdeka: Stories from West Papua” event here

West Papuans in Merauke claim the Indonesian government is stealing land to build its global “food barn” and feed its population of 280 million.

Indonesia denies this and says all transactions are lawful.

President Prabowo Subianto’s administration wants Indonesia to be able to feed its population without imports as early as 2028, with the greater goal of exporting food.

• READ MORE: Other West Papua reports

To get there, Indonesia plans to convert millions of hectares into farmland.

Wensi Fatubun, from Merauke in Indonesian-occupied Papua close to Papua New Guinea’s border, said forests where he grew up were being cleared.

“[The] Indonesian government took the land for the [food] security project, it was not consulted with or consented to by Indigenous Papuans,” Fatubun said.

Prabowo’s goal is a continuation of his predecessors.

National food estate project
In 2020, President Joko Widodo announced the establishment of a national food estate project which aimed at opening up new areas of farmland outside the Java main island,

It is similar to the failed Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate, spearheaded by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2010.

About 1.3 million hectares were set aside in Merauke for it — half for food crops, 30 percent sugar cane, and 20 percent for palm.

A report from the US Department of Agriculture said it encountered resistance from locals and legal challenges.

“Approximately 90 percent of the targeted areas were forest, which provided a source of livelihood for many locals. Accordingly, the development plans became a flashpoint for local activists concerned about environmental and biodiversity impacts,” the report said.

Probowo’s government has a more ambitious goal of opening up 3 million ha of agricultural land in Merauke — two million for rice and one million for sugarcane.

Human Rights Watch Indonesia researcher Andreas Harsono said President Prabowo had elevated the “so-called food security issue”.

“[The President] wants Merauke in West Papua to be the so-called national food barn. This deforestation land grabbing is much more deeper in Merauke than in the past.”

Conflict has escalated
Harsono said conflict had escalated in West Papua and was now on par with some of the most violent periods in the past 60 years, but he was not sure if it was connected to the President’s focus on food security.

BenarNews reported that about 2000 troops had been deployed late last year in Merauke to provide security at a 2 million ha food plantation.

Rosa Moiwend, from Merauke, said the soldiers worked alongside farmers.

“They are expected to teach local farmers how to use mechanical agriculture equipment,” Moiwend said.

“But as West Papuan people, the presence of the military in the middle of the community, watching communities activities, people’s movement when they travel from one place to another, actually creates fear among the people in Merauke.”

Like Harsono and Fatubun, Moiwend said “land grabs” were happening.

However, she said it still involved a land broker, which created a facade of a fair procedure.

‘We do not sell land’
“Indigenous Merauke, indigenous Marind people like myself and my people, we do not sell land because land belongs to the community. It is communal land.”

However, a spokesperson for Indonesia’s Embassy in Wellington said all processes and steps involving land sales had been lawful, “always respecting the inclinations of local tribes”.

“Its development always involving local authorities, especially chief tribes for the consent of their ulayat (traditional land),” they said.

“There is no land grab without consent, and the government also working on the biodiversity conservation and forestry production to create space harmonisation model with Conservation International, Medco Group, and couple of other independent organisations.”

‘They are stripping communities’ – campaigner
West Papua Action Aotearoa spokesperson Catherine Delahunty, formerly a Green Party MP, said the region was part of the lungs of the Pacific, which was now being destroyed.

“The plan has been around for a long time but it seems to have escalated under Prabowo,” Delahunty said.

“They are stripping those lands and stripping those communities who live there from their traditional foods such as the sago palm to turn the whole of Merauke into sugar cane, rice and palm plantations.

“The effects have been massive and they’re just getting worse.”

She said New Zealand and Australia — the two “most powerful” governments in the South Pacific — were failing in their obligations to the citizens of West Papua.

“You could almost justify, because it’s a long way away from other parts of the world, that Europe and the northern hemisphere don’t really understand West Papua but there’s no excuse for us.

“These people are in our region but they’re not white people. I think there’s a huge element of racism towards Papuans and towards Pacific nations who aren’t perceived as important in the Western worldview.”

She said there was willingness to trade with Indonesia as a regional powerhouse, and New Zealand did not want to rock the boat.

That coupled with a media blackout made it easy for Indonesia to act with impunity, Delahunty said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Greenpeace Indonesia’s forest campaigner Nico Wamafma says the West Papua region has lost 641,400 ha of its natural forests in the two decades between 2000-2020 in massive deforestation.

Greenpeace’s research shows this deforestation occurred mainly due to the increasingly widespread licensing of land-based extractive industries that damage the rights of indigenous peoples.

Wamafma said that the total forests loss consisted of 438,000 ha spread across Papua, Central Papua, Mountainous Papua and South Papua provinces.

• READ MORE: Other West Papua deforestation reports

The remaining 203,000 ha were lost in West Papua and Southwest Papua provinces.

“In the last two decades, we lost a lot of forests in Merauke, Boven Digoel, Mimika, Mappi, Nabire, Fakfak, Teluk Bintuni, Manokwari, Sorong and Kaimana,” Wamafma told Jubi in a telephone interview

Papua is losing natural forests due to the licensing of land-based extractive industries, such as mining, Industrial Plantation Forest (HTI), Forest Concession Rights (HPH), and oil palm plantations.

Wamafma said the formation of four new provinces resulting from the division of Papua had also accelerated the rate of deforestation in Papua.

He said that if the government continued to take a development approach like the last 20 years that relied on investment, the potential for natural forest loss would be even greater in Papua.

Wamafma said there were now 34.4 million ha of natural forests in Papua.

Republished from Tabloid Jubi with permission.

Plans to establish “food estates” were announced by the Indonesian government at the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic because, it said, it wanted to ensure Indonesia’s food security.

But as AwasMIFEE! and TAPOL show in their new report released today, Pandemic Power Grabs: Who benefits from Food Estates in West Papua?, these plans would seem to benefit agro-industrial conglomerates and oligarchs with close connections to figures in the government.

Based on previous and current plans, food estates could lead to ecological ruin and further sideline the indigenous population in West Papua, says the report.

• READ MORE: Executive summary
• The full report
• Indonesia’s food estate programme eyes new plantations in forest frontiers

The report details planned food estates and the involvement of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry.

A second linked report will examine in more detail the involvement of the Ministry of Defence and the military in food estates.

Pandemic Power Grabs argues that the strong support for corporate plantation agriculture by the government in southern Papua and in other areas of Indonesia has the potential to increase corruption.

The Minister of Environment and Forestry has also seemingly backed off commitments to stop deforestation in Indonesia made at the COP26 summit in Glasgow in 2021.

Long-term impacts of Merauke failure
In the same week that the Indonesian government banned palm oil exports in the face of a global shortage of cooking oils, the report shows that while plans in southern Papua from 2007 for a Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) failed, MIFEE had serious long-term impacts.

As the report states, MIFEE became a “major enabling factor behind the growth of oil palm plantations in the area which have severely impacted [on] West Papuan communities socially, economically and ecologically.”

The report includes:

• A chronology of past top-down agricultural development plans in West Papua
• How plans for food estates could potentially lead to the flourishing of corruption
• How this potential corruption is being facilitated by new legislation which gives new powers to the central government to grab land for food estates, also circumventing environmental safeguards
• That the growth of the plantation industry in West Papua over the last decade has highlighted many of the potential negative consequences indigenous people are likely to suffer under the current plans
• That it is not only indigenous communities’ livelihoods that are threatened by food estates but also their culture.

‘Enduring land grabs’
TAPOL chairperson Steve Alston commented: “Communities in southern Papua province have for more than 15 years had to endure land grabs and clearances for massive plantations.

“We have supported local NGOs to campaign for indigenous peoples’ rights and AwasMIFEE! has publicised and tirelessly reported on the situation.

“But despite it being within its power to review and halt food estates, the Indonesian government has failed to listen to local communities. They have been promised jobs on plantations but then sidelined as transmigrants from other parts of Indonesia have replaced them.

“The food security reasoning for food estates is actually very thin, what we’re seeing instead is cultivation of cash crops for exports, with the government taking a role to support this goal.

“In a time of global crisis for food production, we urge the government to act now to halt plans for food estates which dispossess Papuans of their land, lead to deforestation and will eventually ruin the land of Papua.”

Amnesty International Indonesia is urging the government — and the police in particular — to tighten supervision of the palm oil industry following the finding of a human cage with at least 27 people living there at the home of non-active Langkat Regent Terbit Rencana Perangin Angin, reports CNN Indonesia.

Amnesty International executive director Usman Hamid said that greater supervision of the palm oil industry was needed because the business sector was prone to exploitation of workers, traditional communities and the environment.

“Moreover this is not the first time that the exploitation of workers has occurred in Indonesia’s palm oil industry. In 2016, Amnesty International found serious human rights violations at several palm oil plantations in Indonesia,” he said in a media release.

• READ MORE: Other Indonesian human rights reports

“The findings included forced labour, the use of child labour, gender discrimination and labour practices which were exploitative and endangered workers.”

Amnesty said that the human cage found at the Langkat regent’s house was of great concern.

Hamid said that he could not imagine how the practice of human slavery could have gone on for years.

“Law enforcement officials must fully investigate this case and ensure that all of the people involved are brought before the courts in hearings which meet international standards on justice and not end with the application of the death penalty,” said Hamid.

UN convention against torture
Amnesty also reminded the state about the United Nations convention against torture, which Indonesia had ratified.

“The UN Convention on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishments also prohibits all forms of torture and inhuman treatment,” Hamid said.

In addition to this, he noted that Article 8 of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) — which has been ratified by Indonesia — stated that no person could be treated as a slave or enslaved.

“All forms of torture are explicitly prohibited in a number of instruments on the protection of human rights, such as under Article 7 of the ICCPR for example,” Hamid said.

The finding of the human cage came to the fore after Migrant Care reported it to the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) on January 24. In its report, Migrant Care reported that there were seven alleged cases of slavery.

The human cage was found when a Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) team arrived at the Langkat regent’s house during a sting operation on January 18. At the time, the KPK team, which was backed by the police, found at least 27 people inhabiting a cage when it was conducting the raid.

Based on the results of a preliminary examination, the North Sumatra regional police said that it was claimed that the cage was used for narcotics rehabilitation and had been there since 2012 or around 10 years.

Dwelling had no licence
The dwelling referred to as a rehabilitation facility had no licence even though it had been known about by the Langkat National Narcotics Agency (BNN) since 2017.

National police spokesperson Brigadier General Ahmad Ramadhan said that the dozens of people occupying the cage at the regent’s house were also employed as palm oil factory workers, although they were not paid.

He said that they had recorded at least 48 people occupying the cage on the pretext of narcotics rehabilitation.

“Some were employed at the palm oil factory owned by the Langkat regent. [But] they were not paid a wage like [ordinary] workers,” Ramadhan told journalists.

Translated by James Balowski of IndoLeft News. The original title of the article was “Kerangkeng Manusia, Amnesty Minta Polisi Ketat Awasi Industri Sawit”.

West Papua indigenous independence leaders today launched  “Green State Vision” at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, pledging to take decisive action to address the climate emergency and the impact of natural resource extraction in an independent West Papua.

The Green State Vision was drafted with the assistance of international lawyers, including UK-based barrister Jennifer Robinson of Doughty Street Chambers, reports the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP).

It sets out commitments from West Papua’s “government-in-waiting”, including:

• Making ecocide a serious criminal offence;
• Restoring guardianship of natural resources to indigenous authorities, combining Western democratic norms with local Papuan systems; and
• ‘Serving notice’ on all extraction companies, including oil, gas, mining, logging and palm oil, requiring them to adhere to international environmental standards or cease operations.

In June 2021, a panel of international legal experts, co-chaired by Professor Philippe Sands QC, drafted a definition of ecocide intended for adoption by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

• READ MORE: The Green State Vision document
• Other West Papua articles

West Papua is half of the island of New Guinea, home to the world’s third largest rainforest after the Amazon and the Congo. West Papua is rich in natural resources, including one of the world’s largest gold and copper mines — the Freeport Indonesia mine at Grasberg —  and extensive sources of natural gas, minerals, timber and palm oil.

West Papua was a Dutch colony until 1961. The Indonesian military seized control in 1963.

The people indigenous to the provinces are Melanesian, ethnically distinct from the people of Indonesia. West Papua continues to be unlawfully occupied by Indonesia. Indonesia is currently the world’s largest exporter of palm oil.

West Papuans have contested Indonesia’s occupation for more than half a century, with Indonesian forces repeatedly accused of human rights violations and violent suppression of the independence movement.

According to recent reports, thousands of Indonesian soldiers have been deployed to West Papua in a crackdown, with civilians forced to flee and journalists and activists targeted.

In 2020, the ULMWP announced the formation of its Temporary Constitution and Provisional Government, with exiled leader Benny Wenda as interim president.

He will be a keynote speaker at the COP26 Coalition’s Global Day for Climate Justice rally tomorrow.

A “March Against Climate Colonialism” will be held on Sunday, November 7, starting at 1:30pm at 83 Argyle Street, Glasgow.

Benny Wenda, interim president of the ULMWP and provisional government, said: ‘We are fighting for stewardship of one of the planet’s largest rainforests, a lung of the world.

“The international climate movement and all governments serious about stopping climate change must help end Indonesia’s genocide of the first defenders in West Papua. If you want to save the world, you must save West Papua.”

Joe Corré, founder of Agent Provocateur, said: “This is a critical step towards protecting one of the world’s largest rainforests from catastrophic destruction caused by the illegal Indonesian occupation.

“The Indonesian government and military, supported by BP, are using violence, intimidation and murder to silence the indigenous inhabitants.”

Jennifer Robinson of Doughty Street Chambers said: “The unlawful occupation of West Papua by Indonesia is facilitating the destruction of one of the world’s most important rainforests.

“Ensuring West Papua’s right to self-determination will also ensure the protection of the environment and the climate by allowing the Indigenous custodians of the land to take back control, protection and management of their resources.’

Illegal palm oil plantations are destroying protected Indonesian rainforests and other habitats — and New Zealand’s industrial dairy sector is a major beneficiary, says a new environmental report.

The daming report, released yesterday by Greenpeace Indonesia, “Deceased Estate: Illegal palm oil wiping out Indonesia’s national forest”, finds palm oil plantation expansion in national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, and even UNESCO sites, across Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Papua.

Palm oil expansion is the largest single cause of destruction of critical Indonesian rainforests over the past two decades.

• READ MORE: Fifth of Indonesia’s palm oil sites lie in protected forests, says Greenpeace
• The full Deceased Estate report
• Other Indonesian environmental reports

The Deceased Estate has report found that there are four palm oil producers with at least 50,000ha of oil palm plantations illegally established inside the protected forest estate.

These producers include Wilmar International which imports palm kernel expeller (PKE) to New Zealand.

PKE is a product of the palm oil industry used as supplementary feed in New Zealand’s industrial dairying.

“Back in 2020, when Fonterra handed control of its PKE imports to Wilmar International, Greenpeace warned of trouble to come,” Greenpeace Aotearoa agriculture campaigner Christine Rose said last night.

‘Illegal deforestation’
“Sadly we’re now seeing evidence of New Zealand agriculture benefiting from illegal deforestation for palm oil and PKE.”

New Zealand is the world’s largest importer of PKE, importing an estimated two million tonnes a year which is used to feed the dairy herd because there are too many cows for grass growth alone to sustain.

“New Zealand’s industrial dairying is cashing in on the destruction of endangered species, critical rainforest habitat and indigenous livelihoods in Indonesia,” said Rose.

“New Zealand’s intensive dairying benefits from ecological destruction in Indonesia while polluting rivers, the climate and drinking water at home.

“The New Zealand dairy sector’s use of PKE to support herd intensification and expansion, effectively outsources environmental costs onto some of the most diverse remaining forests and species in the world, and it has to stop.

“It’s unconscionable that New Zealand is complicit in the illegal expansion of palm oil plantations that undermine indigenous community land use and destroy the habitat of rare and endangered species such as Sumatran orangutans, tigers and elephants.”

‘Highly polluting’
Greenpeace Aotearoa is calling for an end to the importation of supplementary feed like PKE, “because it drives highly polluting dairy intensification in Aotearoa, contributes to rainforest destruction and increases climate emissions both here and in Indonesia.”

Clearance of Indonesian rainforest for palm oil released an estimated 104 Tg (million metric tons) of primary forest carbon from Indonesia’s forest estate between 2001-2019. This is equal to 60 percent of the annual emissions of international aviation.

Greenhouse gas emissions from NZ’s intensive dairy sector, supported by this illegal PKE, are 48 percent of this country’s total.

“With industrial agriculture being New Zealand’s biggest climate polluter, we need an urgent shift away from this high-input, industrial agribusiness model towards regenerative organic farming that works within the limits of nature,” said Rose.

SPECIAL REPORT: By Melanie Reid and Bonnie Sumner of Newsroom
Newsroom.co.nz

An Auckland property developer is involved in a company linked to carrying out deforestation in Indonesian-controlled Papua, where virgin rainforest is being bulldozed to grow palm oil plantations. Newsroom Investigates.

From above, the satellite image shows two insignificant dark-coloured shapes, like a couple of missing puzzle pieces in a flat sea of green. But on the ground, they represent devastation.

This innocuous picture illustrates the beginning of what is earmarked to become the world’s largest palm oil plantation, replacing one of the last remaining rainforests on earth.

Two years ago, the Tanah Merah megaproject began clearing just 230 hectares in Papua, the Indonesian-controlled half of New Guinea (the other half of the island is Papua New Guinea).

• READ MORE: Investigation: The secret deal to destroy paradise
• The Tanah Merah project is a bellweather for Jokowi’s permit review
• Nusantra Atlas
• Other Asia Pacific Report articles on West Papua

That relatively small land area was just a warning of what is predicted to come: 270,000 hectares have been allocated to the project, an area 10 times the size of Auckland’s Waitakere Ranges.

After halting work due to alleged non-payment of staff salaries, in March this year the bulldozers arrived again and forest clearing resumed. This can be seen using near-real time satellite imagery on Nusantara-Atlas.org – the newly felled sections of rainforest are in pink.

The project is divided into seven concessions — parcels of land — of around 40,000 hectares each in Boven Digoel, a regency in Papua’s southeast.

Documents obtained by Newsroom show three of those seven concessions are controlled by a company called Digoel Agri Group, whose majority shareholder is listed as a New Zealander. (Read the full response from Digoel Agri Group here.)

Environmental experts say the Tanah Merah project is a sign of things to come and if this entire forest is razed it will be catastrophic — hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon will be released, contributing to the world’s failure to stay under two degrees Celsius of warming.

So why, when we face a climate emergency of biblical proportions, is an Auckland property developer involved in the felling of some of the world’s most diverse, intact, old-growth forest?

‘Charming’ and ‘brazen’
Neville Mahon is 61 with a soft face and a swatch of sandy hair that was once red. (See David Williams’ story looking at Mahon’s business history here)

He has an affable demeanour, and enjoys a weekly standing appointment with a group of associates at a popular Chinese restaurant in Auckland.

He cuts a controversial figure in New Zealand — he doesn’t do social media, and the only online accounts of his existence are a bunch of articles that detail court cases over failed property developments and a Wikifrauds page dedicated to his involvement in the Fiji Beach Resort & Spa, which says dozens of mum and dad investors were left out of pocket in 2010.

(Mahon’s name is registered against more than 120 New Zealand companies, the bulk of which are now defunct.)

Newsroom has spoken with a number of people on the condition of anonymity who have had dealings with him. They variously describe him as “charming”, “brazen” and someone who “worries about looking like a bad guy”.

Sometime around 2015, after he had extricated himself from the Fiji Beach Resort & Spa debacle, Mahon jumped on a plane to Jakarta for business meetings with some Indonesian movers and shakers.

It was to be the beginning of a new chapter in Mahon’s life, a move away from property and into what he described to Newsroom as the “resource sector”.

Three years later, his name popped up as a majority shareholder alongside that of Indonesian political operator Ventje Rumangkang on a companies registration document under the business name Digoel Agri Group.

Rumangkang was the patriarch of a well-connected family and one of the founders of the Democratic Party in Indonesia. He died suddenly last year and his son, Jones, took his place as Digoel Agri’s managing director.

Permits to log rainforest and create palm oil plantations cannot be bought and sold, they can only be issued by local government officials. So instead they are allocated to companies.

In the case of Digoel Agri, three subsidiary companies were set up to manage three concessions as part of the Tanah Merah megaproject.

Tanah Merah’s incredibly murky and complex history was exposed in an extensive international joint investigation by Gecko Project, Mongabay, Malaysiakini and Tempo, which lays out a web of multiple concessions, shell companies, mystery investors, court cases and claims of permit falsifications.

The investigation also exposed Neville Mahon’s involvement in the project, describing him as the Rumangkang’s chief investment partner and the majority shareholder — claims he would come to dispute in a face-to-face meeting with Newsroom.

Another name that also appears on the documents is Australian man Selva Nithan Thirunavukarasu, known as Nithan Thiru.

He was a director of Gleneagles Securities, an Australian financial services firm — the very same company believed to have looked after Mahon’s money from the Fiji Resort & Spa development.

Thiru’s name also appears on the New Zealand companies documents from another property development involving Mahon, a worker accommodation complex in Queenstown that never eventuated.

The Kiwi tree defender
Tanah Merah is just one of a number projects on the island involving dozens of players from around the world, including the Middle East, Korea and Malaysia, who are already turning the varied flora into monocrop forests of palm oil trees.

But a network of individuals and organisations is attempting to shine a spotlight on what’s going on in Papua to prevent what they say is an environmental and human rights calamity.

One of those is Grant Rosoman. Tall, lean and 60 years old, he looks more university professor than tree-hugger, despite dedicating his life to protecting tropical forests and their inhabitants.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s he worked to halt the importation of kwila coming from Indigenous communities in Malaysia, at one point chaining himself to a log at a Christchurch timber yard. His campaigning succeeded.

“We managed to drop imports down to a fifth of what they were and to raise awareness of the issue. Because people had no idea their decking was coming from the destruction of people’s lives and forests. And it’s a bit the same with Papua.”

As a senior adviser to Greenpeace International, he tells Newsroom he is shocked a fellow New Zealander is involved in this – and warns the impact of losing a forest this size during a climate crisis will be catastrophic.

“If we lose this forest then we don’t survive climate change. That’s how important it is for everyone.”

He says all New Zealanders should be concerned about what’s going on over there.

“This is the first time I have come across a New Zealander investing in tropical rainforest destruction.”

But, isn’t it a bit rich for someone from Aotearoa New Zealand — a country that has systematically wiped out two thirds of its native forest in favour of naked rolling landscape covered in cows and a tidal wave of urban housing — to pass judgment when another country seeks to make money from its primary resources?

“We in Aotearoa made the mistake of clearing most of our lowland forest and now there are massive very costly national and local programmes to restore the forest that has been lost. We don’t want Papua to make the same mistake, especially for the local customary communities that are so reliant on and spiritually tied to their forests. The local communities are telling us this,” says Rosoman, who adds that they instead support local enterprises that protect the forest but also generate an income, such as sago, medicinal plants and spices, and ecotourism.

“Destroying the forests of Papua for the benefit a few wealthy Indonesian elites or foreign investors like Neville Mahon is not development.”

Atlas of destruction
New Guinea’s landscape is extraordinary. Mangroves and peat swamps sit alongside tropical alpine grasslands and lush forests: a recently released study in Nature journal proclaims it as “the most floristically diverse island in the world”, home to more than 13,000 species of plants.

It is the world’s largest tropical island, with 83 percent of Indonesian New Guinea supporting old-growth forest, and the third largest rainforest after the Amazon and Congo.

But Indonesia, the fourth largest emitter of carbon, carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions and by far the world’s biggest producer of palm oil, is running out of arable land to grow the fruit.

The thing about palm forests is they have a shelf life — after 25 to 30 years these vast monocrops begin to fail because the soil no longer holds up.

In the last few decades around 21 million hectares of Indonesian land has been relinquished to plantation companies. To put that in perspective, Aotearoa New Zealand’s landmass totals 26.8 million hectares.

Used in everything from biscuits and shampoo to biofuel and supplementary feed for Kiwi cows, palm oil made the Southeast Asian country $23 billion last year — and Papua is Indonesia’s final frontier for this moneymaker.

After laying waste to millions of hectares of primary forest in Borneo and Sumatra, this island is the last remaining opportunity to exploit the primary forest for timber and to grow colossal tracts of palm oil monocrops to feed the demand for the ubiquitous product.

Deforestation accounts for the bulk of Indonesia’s CO2 emissions, and this month Indonesia cancelled an agreement it had with Norway to halt deforestation in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars in environmental protection incentives.

A meeting with Mahon
Mahon told Newsroom he couldn’t speak on behalf of the company, but did eventually meet us at a Newmarket café so he could address some of the allegations reported about him in overseas media.

He orders tea and agrees to let us take notes.

Mahon disputes the four main accusations: that he has a majority shareholding in Digoel Agri Group, that the company has an interest in timber, that the concession area is rainforest at all, and that the land is being used to grow oil palms.

He says the claims are all “bullshit”, and can’t figure out why anyone in New Zealand would be curious about the topic: “What the hell….it’s in Indonesia, it’s in the back end of nowhere, what is the interest here?”

When asked why he hadn’t attempted to rectify the inaccuracies before, he says: “These people are so nasty that even if you tried to correct it, you’d just get yourself into a worse mess.”

By “these people” he means reporters and organisations like Greenpeace International.

“There are people that are out there that are paid to cause that sort of trouble. I mean that’s the reality, they’ll seize on anything.”

Throughout our conversation Mahon repeatedly denies that the area the Digoel Agri concessions cover is rainforest.

“There’s no virgin rainforest in there whatsoever. That’s actually just complete and utter bullshit. That area was cleared out by Malaysians 35 years ago. I mean, it’s just a stupid allegation to start with. If it was a rainforest, I can assure you my partner and my children wouldn’t even want to walk out the door.”

We put this to Grant Rosoman, the forest protector from Greenpeace. He tells Newsroom this is “patently incorrect”, and points to satellite images, aerial photos, field visits and an assessment of timber that all show the concession area is predominantly primary forest.

French environmental scientist Dr David Gaveau, who lived in Indonesia for 15 years and has also been to the area in question, backs this up. He set up Nusantara-Atlas.org for exactly this reason.

“In April I saw that the clearing [in Boven Digoel] had continued since I first looked at it two months before. That’s the whole point of the system, to be able to demonstrate a conservation outcome. Consumers don’t want the food they eat to be causing deforestation.

“The companies have understood this and they’ve signed on these no deforestation pledges. So what we’re doing is developing a system that can verify these pledges on a near real-time basis.”

The platform works as an alert system so officials, NGOs or anyone with a computer and an internet connection can see what’s happening.

“These forests are becoming a very rare resource. And we all know they are an important part of the world’s ecosystems for earth to thrive and for humans to thrive. And so why is it still happening? Why is New Zealand even involved in this?”

‘Majority’ shareholder
But just how involved really is Neville Mahon? In international reports, he is listed as a majority shareholder in Digoel Agri Group, something he strenuously denies at our meeting.

He tells Newsroom he and his family own just “seven to eight percent” of the company.

“It would be quite nice if we did own it,” he says with a laugh. “The reality is we don’t, but my family have a small shareholding,”

Instead, he says he temporarily “fronted” the company when it was first set up.

“What happened was about five or six years ago when the opportunity came up from an Indonesian family I basically sorted a deal out and then I had to pass most of it on. I just didn’t have the money to fund it. But the problem is it was my name there on day one. And so everybody seized on my name.”

Newsroom sought companies records for Digoel Agri Group from the Indonesian government via four separate sources. All documents have been vetted as legitimate and all four — one from 2018, another from 2019 and two from this year — show Mahon as a majority shareholder.

Whatever his exact beneficial shareholding, or exactly how it is configured, what our investigation can confirm is that he was forecast to receive profits from rainforest timber production into the millions this year.

Another contentious issue is the intended land use. Mahon takes a sip of his tea and leans over the table. The company’s shareholders are only interested in bare land and agriculture, not timber, he tells us.

By agriculture, does he mean palm oil plantations?

“What the Indonesian government is motivated towards is food. They’re importing something like 70 percent of their food. So our interest is to put rice, soya beans, sorghum, cattle, you know, whatever we can on it because you’re on the back door of 240 million people.”

But documents from the Indonesian government obtained by Newsroom and translated into English are clear: the concessions attached to the Digoel Agri Group subsidiary companies are expressly for logging and palm oil.

For food crops to be planted, they would need new permits to be issued.

Finally, we wanted to know about the trees. Reports indicate the timber involved in the Tanah Merah project is estimated to be worth US$6 billion, and a sawmill owned by Malaysian logging giant Shin Yang has reportedly been set up on the island.

Mahon says he has “no interest” in the wood: “We have nothing to do with the forestry at all, nothing to do with it. This is just regrowth, which hasn’t even got a lot of value because it’s not, for example, mahogany. What you’ve got to remember is I, or my shareholders, have got no interest in that side of it at all.”

Yet in a judgment issued by the High Court at Auckland in June in a bankruptcy proceedings case against Mahon, Justice Sussock writes of Mahon referring in his evidence to the possibility of security being provided at some future date “from a debt that is due to [him] from a joint venture forestry operation” and that Mahon says “there are monies due to [him] in terms of loans as well as an equity interest in the forestry operation”.

(Greenpeace and NGO Pusaka, which advocates for Indigenous communities in Indonesia, are currently investigating where the logs from the Digoel Agri Group concessions are going.)

When pressed on these issues, Mahon said the best thing we could do is to email him a list of questions and he would send them to the company’s managing director in Indonesia for a response.

So we did.

A spokesperson from Digoel Agri Group, Jones Rumangkang, wrote to Newsroom that the company has business permits to develop “less than 78,630 hectares” — two of their three concessions. (It is unknown what they plan to do with the third concession.)

He writes that they pay attention to, “the principles of sustainability through the NDPE approach in accordance with our sustainability policy.” NDPE is a palm oil industry led initiative which stands for No Deforestation, No Peat, and No Exploitation.

Rumangkang also backed up Mahon’s claim that he is a minority investor, and said the company is committed to following all relevant environmental and consent regulations, including agreement from the local Indigenous communities.

“We have obtained approval from the indigenous peoples who control the land we are working on. We also do not develop areas that are sacred and have local cultural values as well as hunting areas and areas that are a source of staple food such as sago forests.”

‘What will be the fate of our grandchildren?’
New Guinea is not just environmentally diverse, it’s also culturally diverse – a sixth of the world’s languages are found here.

According to an in-depth report released by Greenpeace International in May this year, Indonesian law states that Indigenous land can only be surrendered to a plantation company through musyawarah (a consensus decision-making process), but that this did not occur in the case of the Tanah Merah project.

Instead, police and representatives turned up to the villages handing out envelopes full of cash. There was no clarity around what these were for, but the project to clearfell their land has divided once close Indigenous clans.

The effects can be seen in a film, The Secret Deal to Destroy Paradise, in which locals talk of not being able to carry out their traditional way of life and practices such as hunting, fishing, gathering and processing sago.

“It feels like the clouds have fallen. All destroyed in an instant. What will be the fate of our grandchildren?” asks the chief of the Auyu clan, Bonevasius Hamnagi.

United Arab Emirates-owned companies with concessions in the same Tanah Merah project have already displaced some traditional hunting grounds.

“It used to be customary indigenous forest,” says Mikael Felix Mamon of Anggai village, as he stands before a seemingly endless array of uniform oil palm saplings sitting atop the bare ochre earth, waiting to be planted.

“It used to be a place for hunting. We searched for pigs or other animals. Fishing. And a source of drinking water. We could find these things quite freely. Now the indigenous people looking for food to fulfill our basic needs must go a long way. Further inland. Because our forest around here is gone.”

And agreements to create health, education, facilities, clean water, housing and electricity have not been fulfilled.

Grant Rosoman says this is a common occurrence in Papua and that companies can make up to US$2000 per hectare per year while paying locals less than US$10 per hectare in a one-off payment for taking their land.

“The impact on the community — we are hearing from them and from the local NGOs that are supporting the community — is huge. And if we look at the concessions that have already been developed in that area, their loss of livelihood, their rights not being respected, their sacred sites being desecrated and destroyed, and their food and water sources being destroyed as well.”

And many locals are pushing back against the corporations, people like longtime environmental activist Bustar Maitar, who leads campaigns in Papua to protect the ecosystems through the EcoNusa Foundation, and clan leaders who have been coming together to put pressure on the government to stop the deforestation.

A political situation
There have also been long running debates about whether the Tanah Merah permits to log and plant palm oil have been obtained legally.

According to the NGO Pusaka, permits have not been issued for Digoel Agri to clear the land and is calling on the Indonesian government to take steps to halt the destruction.

They claim that because the original permits were not issued in accordance with the correct process, including the consent of local indigenous people, this would mean the forest clearing happening under Digoel Agri is illegal.

When Newsroom contacted Pusaka director Franky Samperante, he was firm in his request to international players like Neville Mahon.

“I found that the companies are carrying out eviction of the forests and important places of indigenous peoples without the consent of many communities, they are threatened with losing their sources of food and livelihoods.

“We ask the government and companies to be consistent with regulations and commitments to sustainable development, by not doing deforestation, violating human rights and respecting the rights of indigenous peoples.”

Indonesia is no stranger to human rights controversy. According to Amnesty International reports, at least 100,000 West Papuans have been reported killed by the Indonesian authorities since the takeover in the 1960s.

Some New Zealand academics have described Indonesia’s military killings of indigenous people in West Papua as a “slow-moving genocide”, and the conflict between the Indonesian military and the Free Papua movement continues.

Everyone Newsroom spoke to was reluctant to answer questions about the Indonesian government’s involvement in deforestation.

But without government approval, these individual companies would never be allowed to bring in the bulldozers, so isn’t this, in fact, a political situation?

“Papua as a sensitive place for the Indonesian government,” says Greenpeace’s Grant Rosoman. “And there are rights abuses that are going on. They’re being documented by some of the media that’s coming out and it’s a very unsafe place. So there is a lot of fear about speaking out about Papua and what’s going on there.”

“We focus on the deforestation and we can monitor that from satellites so we can see what’s going on and we don’t believe it’s a good thing for a New Zealander like Neville Mahon to be there destroying the forest and basically staining the reputation of all New Zealanders in the process of doing it.”

Since our café meeting with Mahon, we have contacted him several times in an attempt to reconcile his statements to us with what’s on the official documents.

We again received a reply from the company saying he has a small beneficial shareholding.

In the meantime, the bulldozers continue their work while activists and people like Rosoman try to keep them at bay.

“It’s not acceptable to be clearing rainforest in this day and age. We’re in 2021, we’re in a climate emergency. There’s plenty of other land where you can develop businesses. We do not need to clear rainforest for business anymore. It shouldn’t be done.”

Reported by Newsroom with the support of NZ On Air. Republished by Asia Pacific Report with the permission of Newsroom and Newsroom Investigations editor Melanie Reid.