You report that Indonesia is leading the way with its new regulation for limiting deforestation in order to mitigate climate change (REDD) and that this will include indigenous peoples and others who have "ownership certificates in managing forests" ("RI ready for REDD" The Jakarta Post, May 22).
Under Indonesian statutory law, none of the 70 million indigenous people living in forest areas yet have such rights. Indonesia's REDD program looks likely to perpetuate the same pattern of marginalizing forest peoples as have the previous regulations for logging and plantations.
The new REDD regulation actually says that "customary forests" (hutan adat) - a legal category which is in place nowhere - are in "State Forest Areas" which are, by definition in the same law, "forests with no rights attached". Therefore, no indigenous peoples can enjoy "ownership certificates" of forests, owing to the Ministry of Forestry's misguided insistence that 70 percent of the territory of Indonesia is "State Forest Area".
This is contrary to international human rights laws, to which Indonesia is a signatory, which recognize indigenous peoples' rights to land based on their customary usage. Only last month, the United Nations' Commission on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination explicitly criticized this very regulation "for appearing to deny *them* any proprietary rights in forests". Urgent action to curb deforestation in Indonesia is indeed vital. But it needs to be done in a way that respects, not denies, forest peoples rights.
Marcus Colchester
Stratford Road, UK
| 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|