Our work Projects Accelerating agrarian reform and recognition of indigenous territory in Indonesia

Accelerating agrarian reform and recognition of indigenous territory in Indonesia

Building on decades of advocacy and lessons learned in the successful Tenure Facility pilot project, this initiative capitalizes on the current momentum in Indonesia for agrarian reform, social forestry, and recognition of indigenous rights. Led by the Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), the initiative aims to enhance tenure security over 2 million hectares of land and forest.

Completed

From: 15/11/2018

To: 30/06/2021

Partners: Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN)

Associates: Consortium for Agrarian Reform (KPA)
Indigenous Territory Registration Body (BRWA)

Stakeholders: Indigenous communities
Local communities
District and national government agencies

It will set the stage for scaling up implementation of indigenous and local community land rights by piloting new approaches that can be replicated, feeding lessons into national policy dialogues, and promoting collaborative management of indigenous forests that overlap with conservation lands. The initiative also promotes the rights of women and their full participation in decision making.

AMAN is twinning its strengths with those of two longstanding partners. The Agrarian Renewal Consortium (KPA) is Indonesia’s largest national organization working for farmers. KPA fights for a fair agrarian system and prosperity for poor people. It promotes secure ownership, possession and use of agrarian resources for peasants, fisherman, and Indigenous Peoples. The Indigenous Territory Registration Body (BRWA) establishes and promotes standards for community mapping and documentation, acts as a single reference for community maps, and registers, verifies, and certifies claims. It feeds data to the Government’s geospatial agency which implements the national ‘One Map’ initiative. One Map’s purpose is to ensure that land rights and use data is integrated and accessible to decision-makers to enable efficient and conflict-free land-use planning.

To read a brief overview of Indonesia, click here.

For a timeline of land and forest rights in Indonesia, click here.

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"Between 50 and 70 million Indigenous People in Indonesia claim rights to 40 million hectares of land and forest. While their rights are recognized by Indonesia's constitution and some laws, their title is not yet secure and they are vulnerable to prosecution, eviction, exclusion, loss of assets and violence"

- Rukka Sombolinggi, Secretary General of AMAN

Project Overview

Goal

To secure tenure rights over 2 million hectares of land and forest and improve the livelihoods of 2,300 indigenous communities and hundreds of local communities.

Objectives

Recognize the legal rights of 200 indigenous communities’ rights over 300,000 hectares of land and forest at the district level.
Title 500,000 hectares of indigenous territory as indigenous forests and communal land
Recognize 600,000 hectares of indigenous territory within the Government’s One Map initiative
Register 250,000 hectares of land in priority locations for agrarian reform within the Government’s TORA system.
Redistribute 4,000 hectares of land and reinforce rights over an additional 4,900 hectares of land.
Establish agreements between communities and forest agencies for the collaborative management of 250,000 hectares of forest in indigenous territories.

“The Government has set an ambitious target of 9 million hectares for land reform. Progress has been slow because there has been a focus on certifying existing and uncontested rights—and a failure to address the conflict and inequality of access to land. Rather than the current top-down approach, we need to work from the bottom up. We must engage communities in identifying lands with potential for agriculture, setting priorities, and resolving conflicts. The approaches we are testing are highly relevant to our national policy dialogue on land reform. ”— Dewi Kartika, Secretary General of KPA

Actions

Conduct district-level consultations and discussions with communities, local governments, and other stakeholders on the recognition of indigenous rights.
Inform decision-makers at local government and community levels about opportunities available to secure indigenous and local land rights.
Train communities on how to document and map indigenous community rights.
Document and map indigenous community rights.
Conduct field verification of documents and maps submitted, leading to registration of indigenous community rights in the national database.
Train community and district governments in agrarian reform.
Facilitate government verification of lands proposed for agrarian reform.
Implement participatory land-use planning for indigenous forests to establish communal rights and collaborative management agreements for protected areas.
Provide legal and advocacy support to district governments to further the development and enactment of regulations recognizing indigenous and local community rights
Communicate project achievements, impacts and learning to national policy makers and decision makers.
Engage with policy makers to demonstrate the feasibility and benefits of secure tenure, such as resolving conflicts and providing opportunities for secure livelihoods.

"At BRWA we have already registered 777 indigenous territories covering 9.3 million hectares in Indonesia. However, we have verified and certified only 430,000 hectares. This initiative will enable us to verify and certify many more claims and feed the data into the Government's One Map initiative."

- Kasmita Widodo, Indigenous Territory Registration Body (BRWA)

Expected results

Land conflict is reduced in participating indigenous territories and local communities.
Participating district governments share their experiences with other districts which, in turn, extend the results and impact of the initiative.
Government and private sector understand the benefits of clear and secure tenure
National and local decision makers address key bottlenecks in processes for implementing tenure regulations.
Achievements and lessons inform discussions on proposed new national laws on tenure.

Expected impact

Improved policies, laws and regulations enable the upscaling of secure tenure rights across Indonesia.
Indigenous and local communities with secure land rights take advantage of opportunities to improve their livelihoods and quality of life.
Indigenous and local communities manage their forests sustainably, protecting biodiversity and helping to mitigate climate change.

Impact

The 2018-2021 Phase contributed to strengthening communities’ tenure security under different legal avenues at national and sub-national levels: 79 Indigenous communities received official legal recognition to their territories on 542,550 hectares, and 634 communities submitted their claims over 1,288,047 hectares of Indigenous territories. Peasant organizations submitted 645,854 hectares of agriculture land and forest area for redistribution process, and over 201,299 households – including 12,243 female headed households- became organized to advance conflict resolution and land redistribution. As a result, conflicts were resolved over 2,942 hectares of disputed land redistributed to 4,111 family in 6 provinces. Besides, local regulations were issued to recognize 6 Indigenous Communities living on 1,291,454 hectares of Indigenous territories. And over 1,000 communities completed their mapping process.

Rukka Sombilinggi
Secretary General
Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN)
rsombolinggi@aman.or.id

Dewi Kartika
Secretary General
Consortium for Agrarian Reform
dewi@kpa.or.id

Kasmita Widodo

Head
Indigenous Territory Registration Body (BRWA)
kwidodo@gmail.com

Erasmus Cahyadi
Project Director
Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN) erasmus@aman.or.id

Duman Wau
Project Manager
Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN) duman.wau@aman.or.id