Accelerating the Recognition of Customary Indigenous Territories in Indonesia

Project Overview

Over the past years, securing tenure by collective action responding to local priorities as defined by Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and community-based organisations has proven to be the most successful path. The Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN) and its two longstanding partners the Agrarian Reform Consortium (KPA) and the Ancestral Domains Registration Agency (BRWA) have built strength from the ground up from communities to provincial and national levels, advancing recognition of indigenous communities and their territories, including forest rights, and Agrarian Reform implementation under existing laws and policies. They are deeply invested in the future of the indigenous communities they represent and work with, and they have proven their ability to adjust to uncertainties and navigate risks while securing tenure for communities in Indonesia. 

This project will continue the progress achieved under the AMAN, KPA and BRWA previous project implemented between 2018 and 2021 which had the aim to accelerate the implementation of the Agrarian Reform and the recognition of indigenous territories in Indonesia.  

The previous progresses set the stage for scaling up agrarian reform and tenure rights recognition in a supportive environment. Therefore, this project will expand the impact of their alliances toward more secure tenure rights in Indonesia.  

Through and array of different activities, the project will focus on mapping indigenous lands, increasing tenure security over important extensions of indigenous territory, strengthening capacities of Indigenous Peoples to secure their tenure rights, advancing in conflicts and threats resolutions, ensuring Indigenous Peoples can protect and manage their customary territories, integrating tenure advancements into a national geospatial information system, and broadening public support for the recognition of community tenure rights. 

In its first two years of implementation the project has achieved important results. For instance, BRWA conducted registration, verification and certification processes in 180 indigenous territories, AMAN submitted documents to local governments proposing the recognition of 76 indigenous communities in 15 districts covering an area of 966,346 hectares. The partners also integrated 48 spatial data of customary territories into the National Geospatial Information Network (JIGN) representing an area of 1,620,732 hectares that spreads across 7 districts and the Indigenous Peoples Defense Lawyers of the Archipelago (PPMAN) provided legal aid services both in litigation and non-litigation to 25 indigenous communities dealing with extractive industries and to 50 indigenous peoples who have been criminalised for fighting for their rights.  

Upon its completion the project targeted communities across Indonesia will have stronger territorial rights.