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Indigenous peoples demand land back from Lake Toba Authority
Customary people in the Toba Samosir regency, North Sumatra, are demanding the government return their traditional lands they claim had been taken by the Lake Toba Authority for tourism purposes.
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A fisherman on Lake Toba, North Sumatra, Indonesia. (Shutterstock/DH Saragih)
C
ustomary people in the Toba Samosir regency, North Sumatra, are demanding the government return their traditional lands they claim had been taken by the Lake Toba Authority (BPODT) for tourism purposes.
They are claiming the land appropriation violated the law. The group is especially criticizing the authority for unilaterally evicting residents from their own villages for the launch of the Caldera-Toba Nomadic Escape in Ajibata district in Toba Samosir last week.
“It’s very inhumane,” the director of a local NGO called People's Initiative Development and Study Group (KSPPM), Delima Silalahi, said on Monday.
The group represented the residents of the customary Sigapiton village who she said had been ousted from their land when it was encroached upon for tourism purposes.
“Several residents wanted to get their land back but they were thrown out. Many say tourism aims to boost the economy for people, but the reality is it is suppressing people,” she said.
Delima explained that a number of Sigapiton villagers went to the site of the Caldera-Toba Nomadic Escape launch in Ajibata district on the shore of the famed Lake Toba on Thursday, which was also attended by Tourism Minister Arief Yahya.
They went to protest against the alleged seizure of their customary land, but on the site they received ill treatment from officials from the BPODT who asked them to leave the vicinity.
