WUNRN
PAPUA NEW GUINEA-INDONESIA - SEIZURE
OF INDIGENOUS LANDS, STARVATION & POVERTY - WOMEN & CHILDREN
Child
suffering from severe malnutrition, Zanegi village, Merauke Regency,
29
August 2013 - The village of Zanegi in Merauke Regency of Papua Province,
Indonesia, lies desolate and silent, in contrast to the rumble and drone of
bulldozers and chain-saws in the distance. At the end of a row of humble wooden
houses, thirty-one year old Yosefa, an indigenous Malind mother of three,
crouches beside her hearth, raking the embers of a dying fire, whilst rocking
to sleep her three-year old infant. The child is emaciated and hollow-eyed.
Gaunt and lethargic from severe malnutrition herself, Yosefa wipes beads of
sweat off her feverish forehead, and tells the story of a dying village:
Before the company, there was little illness. We would
eat sago and walk the forest all day without being weary. Now, the sago dies
and the earth is dry. The rivers are dark and oily, and the fish drunk on
pollution. Our children are dying because our sacred mother land has been
ripped away from us. Soon, the Malind people themselves will cease to exist.
When the forest disappears, the Malind will disappear.
The
Indonesian government has issued an industrial timber plantation licence for
use on the Zanegi community’s customary lands to timber company PT Selaras Inti
Semesta, a subsidiary of the Medco Group, whose concession extends over 169,400
ha, and which is one of over 80 companies operating as part of the
government-sponsored Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE)
agro-industrial mega-project. The MIFEE project was formally launched in 2010
by Minister of Agriculture Suswono and today covers an estimated 2.5 million
hectares, more than half of the 4.5 million hectare area of Merauke. However,
instead of the promised social development and economic aid, the people of
Zanegi today live in abject and unprecedented poverty, with scarcely sufficient
land to hunt and gather to meet their daily needs.
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FAO - Food & Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations
FAO COMMITTEE ON WORLD FOOD Security
- CFS
VOLUNTARY GUIDELINES ON THE
RESPONSIBLE GOVERNANCE OF TENURE OF LAND, FISHERIES & FORESTS
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The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security promote secure tenure rights and equitable access to land, fisheries and forests as a means of eradicating hunger and poverty, supporting sustainable development and enhancing the environment. They were officially endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security on 11 May 2012. Since then implementation has been encouraged by G20, Rio+ 20, United Nations General Assembly and Francophone Assembly of Parliamentarians. http://coin.fao.org/cms/do/en/office.html?officeCode=FAINS _________________________________________________________ PAPUA
NEW GUINEA-INDONESIA - MASSIVE SEIZURE OF INDIGENOUS LANDS CAUSING STARVATION
& POVERTY - WOMEN & CHILDREN By Chris Lang - 3rd September
2013 The
Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) industrial plantations
project is having serious impacts on people and forests in Papua province,
Indonesia. Forest Peoples Programme’s Sophie Chao visited the project area
earlier this year and reports that “disease and undernourishment are
rampant”. Forest
Peoples Programme and 26 Indonesian organisations have submitted a report to the UN Committee on
the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) requesting its consideration
of the situation of the indigenous peoples of Merauke. (Also available in
bahasa Indonesia, here.) The MIFEE project covers a total area
of about 2.5 million hectares. Indigenous peoples have already lost large
areas of their land to the companies investing industrial plantations in the
State-initiated project. Forest
Peoples Programme notes that, “The irreparable harm they have
already experienced continues to expand and intensify as more companies
commence operations.” The process of moving between two and four million
workers to Merauke to provide labour for the MIFEE project has already
started, overwhelming the rights and well-being of Indigenous Papuans. The
ongoing conflicts and protests about the MIFEE project are documented on the awas MIFEE!
website. Some of the latest posts include the following: a report
from a community that is opposing all plantation company investments on their
lands; an occupation of PT Mayora and PT Astra’s offices by 100 villagers
demanding that the companies stop their sugar cane operations; and two palm
oil companies, PT Nabire Baru and PT Sariwana, that logged commercially
valuable trees on indigenous peoples’ land. Two years
ago, as a result of a report submitted by 12 Indonesian
organisation and Forest Peoples Programme, CERD sent a formal communication about MIFEE to the
Permanent Mission of Indonesia in Geneva. But Forest Peoples Programme points
out in its letter to CERD that this has made little difference on the ground
in Merauke:
Far from
addressing the social and environmental problems that large scale industrial
agriculture causing in Merauke and elsewhere in the country, the Indonesian
government is encouraging the expansion of industrial plantations. Last week,
Indonesia’s Agriculture Minister Suswono spoke at an event for foreign diplomats aimed at
encouraging foreign agro-industry firms to invest in Indonesia:
Meanwhile,
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is pushing APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation) to reduce tariffs on exports of palm oil from Indonesia, arguing
that palm oil is “environmentally friendly”. At last year’s APEC forum in
Russia, Yudhoyono’s proposals were rejected. This year, Indonesia is hosting
the APEC forum and is hoping that its status as host will help to push
through its arguments that oil palm should be considered “green”. Press
Release - 2 September 2013 STARVATION
& POVERTY IN INDONESIA: CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS APPEAL FOR
SUSPENSION OF MIFEE PROJECT IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA PENDING REDRESS FOR LOCAL
NATIVE COMMUNITIES The
village of Zanegi in Merauke Regency of Papua Province, Indonesia, lies
desolate and silent, in contrast to the rumble and drone of bulldozers and chain-saws
in the distance. At the end of a row of humble wooden houses, thirty-one year
old Yosefa, an indigenous Malind mother of three, crouches beside her hearth,
raking the embers of a dying fire, whilst rocking to sleep her three-year old
infant. The child is emaciated and hollow-eyed. Gaunt and lethargic from
severe malnutrition herself, Yosefa wipes beads of sweat off her feverish
forehead, and tells the story of a dying village:
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