JAKARTA — Indigenous Papuans say they’ve been caught off guard by helicopters flying over their villages and excavators tearing down their forests in their area, all while accompanied by the Indonesian military.
What they’re being subjected to is one of the largest deforestation projects in the world, which will see the development of 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of rice fields in Merauke, a district in Indonesia’s Papua region that borders Papua New Guinea.
The military is involved in the project because it’s led by the Ministry of Defense and has been designated a project of national strategic importance. Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, who will be sworn in as Indonesia’s next president on Oct. 20, has appointed the hugely controversial Jhonlin Group to help administer the project.
The military’s involvement, coupled with the lack of free, prior, informed consent (FPIC) from Indigenous communities living in the area, have fueled concerns that the project will create new conflicts in the region.
Indonesia has maintained a heavy military presence in the Papua region since annexing it in 1963, with security forces frequently accused of committing human rights violations under the justification of cracking down on a low-level independence movement.
‘A war zone’
In the early months of the rice project, Indigenous Papuans living in the project area had already begun protesting, saying they were never properly informed or consulted with.
“Without [us] knowing, backhoes have already entered our villages,” said Yasinta Moiwend, an Indigenous woman from Ilwayab subdistrict in Merauke.
This lack of consultation has created confusion among the villagers, according to Pius Manu, a local priest who lives in a village across from the area earmarked for the rice project. He cited the recent arrival of a large barge in Ilwayab, carrying in dozens of excavators. There have also been helicopters crisscrossing the skies over their villages, ferrying experts to collect soil samples, Pius said.
“They did so without asking for permission from the villagers,” he said. “So people started to become suspicious and afraid because of the helicopters flying freely. Shortly after that, in came the military.”
The presence of the military in the villages further spooked the Indigenous inhabitants, Pius said.
“The people could do nothing because the company [Jhonlin] came with armed [military] forces,” he said. “Without the military, there’s no way the company could enter the villages and people’s lands as they please.”
Pius said he expected increasing military presence in the region as there’s a plan to deploy five battalions, with one battalion usually consisting of 1,000 soldiers, to the project site.
On Oct. 2, the National Military commander, Agus Subiyanto, inaugurated the formation of the five battalions.
“The five battalions in five regions in Papua will work together with the Ministry of Agriculture and local communities to plant the main food commodities, including rice,” Agus said as quoted by local media.
Under the outgoing president, Joko Widodo, the military has enjoyed a return to non-defense activities, such as agriculture. Observers and historians say this marks a severe regression toward the past militaristic tendencies of the late authoritarian president Suharto, who ruled from 1966 to 1998. Under the Suharto regime, known as the New Order, the military had a “dual function” that allowed it to get involved in civilian affairs.
“This means the New Order era is coming back,” Pius said. “This might even be scarier than the New Order. The villages [in the project site] only have around 3,000 people. It means there’s going to be more soldiers than villagers. What does the government want to create there? A war zone?”
With the presence of armed soldiers, it will be impossible for the villagers to live in peace on their own land, he said.
“If the soldiers stay in their barracks, there might not be a problem. But if they’re already in the middle of the people, [the villagers] will no longer feel free, especially once they see weapons,” Pius said. “It’s like a war zone.”
Food insecurity
The rice project marks a shift in the government’s focus from developing large-scale agricultural plantations in the country’s west, particularly the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, to the east. A previous attempt under Suharto to establish a million hectares of rice plantations in Borneo had failed. Under Widodo, similar attempts at creating a “food estate” there also flopped.
The government says the Merauke project is necessary for Indonesia’s food security in the face of climate change impacts that are driving weather unpredictability and affecting crop yields. In recent years, the wet season has started late, delaying sowing. And when it does start, rainfall patterns are erratic.
In 2023, El Niño brought a prolonged dry season, resulting in many cases of rice harvest failure.
Furthermore, rice fields across Indonesia are being lost to housing estates, industrial parks and infrastructure projects. Each year, the country loses an average of 100,000 hectares (nearly 250,000 acres) of rice fields. The total harvested area in 2023 was 10.2 million hectares (25.2 million acres), about 250,000 hectares (618,000 acres) or 2.45% smaller than in 2022, official data show.
This is a cause of concern as Indonesia is highly dependent on rice. The grain is the staple food across the country, with Indonesians consuming 35.8 million metric tons annually, or about 124 kilograms (273 pounds) per person.
“That’s why we have to innovate by making new programs,” said Ahmad Rizal Ramdhani, the military general who heads the government task force overseeing the Merauke rice project. “One of them is the 1-million-hectare rice field project.”
Deforestation fears
The scale of the project has raised concerns over deforestation, as Merauke is also the site of another mega agricultural project: the development of 2 million hectares (5 million acres) of sugarcane plantations.
If both projects progress as planned, a total of 3 million hectares (7.5 million acres), or more than half of Merauke’s total land area, will be transformed into agricultural plantations.
In a feasibility study into the rice project, Jakarta-based consultancy Sucofindo identified 2.3 million hectares (5.7 million acres) of land in Merauke that could be converted into rice fields.
A spatial analysis by conservation NGO the Nusantara Foundation found that the targeted areas comprised mostly secondary swamp forests, swamp thickets, and savanna. These ecosystems and the biodiversity they host risk disappearing if the rice project moves ahead, said Amanda Hurowitz, senior director of forest commodities at U.S.-based campaign group Mighty Earth.
“Papua is Indonesia’s last great frontier, with vast swaths of pristine forest still untouched,” she told Mongabay. “It cannot become the new agricultural frontier with the destruction of nature that brings.”
The rice project also threatens Indigenous peoples and their rights to their ancestral lands, according to Pusaka, an NGO that advocates for the rights of Indigenous Papuans. Pusaka estimates that more than 50,000 Indigenous people will be affected by the project.
Among them is Yasinta in Ilwayab subdistrict, a member of the Moiwend clan that owns land covered by the project.
“Where should we look for food? There’s no more place for us to look for food, to send our kids to school,” Yasinta said during a recent visit to the area by the South Papua provincial governor.
Forest conversion
Some of the Indigenous communities live in forest areas that the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, in Jakarta, has permitted to be cleared for the rice project.
On July 12 this year, the environment ministry issued a decree allowing the Ministry of Defense to use 13,540 hectares (33,460 acres) of areas zoned as forest for agricultural purposes, according to Pusaka.
In the past, such a move would be illegal, as Indonesian law prohibits farming in forest areas unless the environment ministry issues what’s known as a forest conversion permit to strip the area of its forest zoning designation. But in 2020, the environment ministry issued a new regulation that exempted plantation operators from such a requirement if they plan to clear the forest area for “food security.”
The 13,540 hectares of forest area in question includes 94 hectares (232 acres) of protected forest and 9,256 hectares (22,872 acres) of land dedicated to sustainable forestry. The fact that they were designated as such in the first place indicates that these lands are of high ecological importance or significant to local communities, particularly Indigenous peoples.
Pusaka also identified sites deemed sacred to local communities and traditional hunting grounds in the area gifted by the environment ministry to the defense ministry for the rice project.
Promises (broken)
The presence of Indigenous peoples and their ancestral lands in the project site should have prompted the government to consult with the communities in Merauke before deciding to locate the project there, said Pusaka director Franky Samperante.
“The people should receive information regarding the project which will be carried out in their ancestral lands and given freedom to negotiate and make a decision on whether to accept or reject the project,” he said. “The government and the company [developing the project] didn’t do this.”
Rizal, the project lead, said Indigenous communities have nothing to worry about because the government will include them in the project. The government will also avoid clearing sacred sites when building infrastructure for the project, he added. And to mitigate environmental impact, the government will avoid clearing areas with high conservation values, such as those that are biodiversity hotspots, he said.
Despite these promises, however, at least one Indigenous community has reported the clearing of its sacred sites due to the project, according to Pusaka. This, Franky said, is a violation of the rights of Indigenous peoples, which should be protected under Indonesian law.
Clan protests
Yohanes Mahuse, the head of LMA, an organization that purports to speak for Indigenous communities in Ilwayab subdistrict, said the rice project won’t violate the rights of Indigenous peoples. Instead, it will benefit them, he said.
“The people [here] are no longer afraid or concerned about their lands being grabbed by companies,” Yohanes said as quoted by local media. “Especially ancestral land rights. They’re not going to be handed over [to companies]. They will still belong to the people.”
However, Pius said Yohanes doesn’t represent the Indigenous communities in Ilwayab because he comes from the Mahuse clan; the lands covered by the rice project belong to the Moiwend and Gebze clans.
Members of the latter two clans have staged a series of protests against the project, most recently on Sept. 24, when Apolo Safanso, the interim governor of South Papua province, visited Ilwayab subdistrict.
The protesters covered themselves in white mud as a display of their grief due to the rice project threating their land rights.
Infrastructure spree
To prepare for the project, the government will build infrastructure with the help of the Jhonlin Group, a company owned by influential Bornean tycoon Andi Syamsudin Arsyad, popularly known as Haji Isam.
Jhonlin, whose business interests range from palm oil to coal mining, has a track record of clearing rainforests and peatlands as well as being embroiled in numerous disputes with local communities over land, labor and human rights violations.
Isam himself is the cousin of Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman.
Jhonlin is tasked to build roads, irrigation canals and logistics facilities for the rice project, Rizal said. In June, the company ordered 2,000 excavators from China’s SANY Group, the world’s second-largest heavy equipment manufacturer. The deal is the biggest of its kind in the world, according to Isam.
“The state has given me this task [to carry out the rice project]. In my mind is how to make this 1-million-hectare rice project successful within three years, without worrying about the profit or the loss,” Isam said as quoted by local media.
As of August, 232 excavators had been shipped to Wanam, a village in Merauke at the heart of the project site. Among the infrastructure to be built are a logistics port on the coast and a road connecting it to Wanam 135 kilometers (84 miles) away, Rizal said.
The port and the road will facilitate the transport of farming equipment to Wanam, and, once harvests begin, rice heading the other way, he said. The government will also build irrigation canals along the road to feed the rice fields.
Satellite analysis by technology consultancy TheTreeMap indicates that land clearing for the logistic port has begun.
‘Failure assured’
Experts are split on whether this million-hectare rice project will succeed, unlike those before it. Lilik Sutiarso, an agricultural expert at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, on the island of Java, said he’s optimistic about the project, adding the landscape in Merauke is suitable for rice fields.
“The land there is vast and flat, with not many hills and valleys,” he said as quoted by local media. “Furthermore, I see that there’s enough water [to irrigate the rice fields].”
Dwi Andreas Santosa, an agricultural researcher at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB), just south of Jakarta, said both the rice and sugarcane megaprojects are bound to repeat the failure of past food estate projects in the region.
In 2011, then-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono initiated the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE), aimed at turning the district into the “future breadbasket of Indonesia” by establishing rice and sugarcane plantations — the same justifications being touted by government officials today.
The MIFEE project turned out to be a failure, used as cover to establish oil palm and pulpwood plantations instead. It became a “textbook land grab,” activists said: Under the guise of the project, companies acquired large swaths of Indigenous lands without the free, prior and informed consent of communities, and without providing adequate compensation.
More recently, the government tried to revive the food estate program by clearing land for cassava and rice farms in Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of Borneo Island. This despite experts warning the government that the project would fail since the swampy lands of Kalimantan aren’t suitable for large-scale agriculture, unlike Java where the soil is nourished by frequent volcanic eruptions.
The experts’ warning turned out to be true, with a field investigation finding that some of the food estates in Kalimantan had been abandoned; instead of food crops, wild shrubs were growing, the abandonment attributed to lack of proper planning.
Dradjad Wibowo, a politician from the National Mandate Party and member of president-elect Prabowo Subianto’s campaign team, acknowledged the shortcomings of the food estate project in Kalimantan. That’s why Prabowo decided to shift the program’s focus to Merauke, where the soil is more suitable for farming, he said.
“We realized we can’t rely on Kalimantan, and so we will develop [a food estate] in Merauke, because it has flat and vast lands,” Dradjad said as quoted by local news. “While there’s a lack of infrastructure there, it has very good agricultural [potential].”
Dwi from the agricultural institute said the government doesn’t seem to have learned from the long list of megaproject failures. The sheer size of the two currently being pursued in Merauke — for rice and for sugarcane — is one of the reasons why they’re bound to fail.
At a combined 3 million hectares, they eclipse the ambition of previous food estate projects, including MIFEE, which had a relatively modest scope of 1.2 million hectares (3 million acres) of agricultural fields in Merauke.
Dwi also said the landscape of Merauke, dominated by swamps, grasslands and savannas, isn’t fertile enough for agricultural purposes.
“Let’s say the types of crops [used] are suitable for the soil there. But what about the pests? How to control them?” he said as quoted by local media.
Dwi also questioned the availability of farmers in Merauke to work the land. He estimated the two projects would need a combined 2 million farmers at the very least, even if they’re aided by machines.
“[The government] wants to repeat the same mistake, so I can assure you [the project] will fail,” he said.
Cui bono?
Even if the rice project does turn out to be a success, it’s not clear how the Indigenous Papuans who have been stripped of their land for it will benefit: the government plans to export the rice to other countries, according to project lead Rizal.
“The concept of Merauke [rice project] is for export, not for domestic consumption, because we are targeting Pacific islands and Australia as market,” he said. The rationale? Shipping the rice to Jakarta for domestic consumption “will be more expensive,” whereas “it’s cheaper to export to the Pacific,” Rizal said.
Critics say this flies in the face of the government’s repeated claims that the project is about boosting Indonesia’s food security. The irony, they say, is that this is being carried out in Papua, a region where food scarcity is prevalent in some districts. In fact, the Papua region is the only one in Indonesia that the government categorizes as “very susceptible” to food insecurity, and is listed as the government’s top priority for improving food security.
Rizal said the project will ultimately improve the welfare of the people of Papua, which long has been one of the most underdeveloped regions in Indonesia. The region has the nation’s highest poverty rate, with more than 28% of its residents living below the poverty line, more than triple the national average.
“We are ordered [by the central government] to improve the economy, the health and the education of people in remote areas through agriculture,” Rizal said. “Our brothers and sisters in Wanam rarely receive attention from the government.”
Regardless of whether the rice ends up being exported or eaten domestically, the project is still at odds with the Indonesian government’s commitment to combat climate change, said Mighty Earth’s Hurowitz.
“Indonesia says climate change is driving food insecurity, but razing forests to grow crops further fuels global heating through deforestation,” she said. “The outgoing President Jokowi recently admitted that the food estate project has been tried many times before with no success. In a climate and nature emergency this venture makes no sense and calls into question Indonesia’s climate commitments, while canceling out the progress it’s made in driving down commodity-driven deforestation.”
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