Tenure Facility pilot initiative in Indonesia

Accelerating legal recognition and protection of tenure rights of Indigenous Peoples in Indonesia. The Indigenous Peoples’ Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN) is capitalizing on new political momentum in Indonesia to implement the Government’s commitments to recognize and protect the tenure rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Completed

From: 28/05/2015

To: 30/10/2017

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

Stakeholders: Indigenous communities, including women and marginalized groups
AMAN
Indigenous Peoples’ organizations
Civil society organizations
District government
Public sector agencies involved with forest tenure
Office of the President
National Parliament

Indigenous Peoples and local communities in Indonesia have been managing forestlands under customary systems for generations, and their rights are enshrined in the country’s constitution. Yet most of their territory remains unrecognized, and 30 percent of the country is under industrial concession, resulting in massive forest fires and significant conflict and inequality. After decades of advocacy, a 2013 Constitutional Court ruling declared that the state had wrongly appropriated Indigenous Peoples’ customary forests and must return them, and the Government subsequently committed to transfer management of 12.7 million hectares of forestland to indigenous communities. With technical and financial assistance from the Tenure Facility, AMAN is supporting the drafting and adoption of district-level regulations to recognize rights. Securing rights at the district level immediately benefits indigenous livelihoods, reduces conflict, and strengthens natural resources management. In an innovative new approach, these regulations not only establish procedures for recognizing indigenous lands but also include recognition of specific territories by embedding community maps directly in the legislation. This scalable model is already spreading to other districts and creating bottom-up momentum toward national recognition of indigenous rights. 

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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