On January 17, 2010, Indonesia’s then-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono launched a 2-million-hectare program called the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE). From the start the program was opposed by farmer and environmental organisations in Indonesia.
In March 2010, Elisha Kartini of the Indonesian Farmer Union (SPI) said that, “Food is not just a commercial commodity but is also a basic human right, and leaving food provision to the private sector can hinder people's access to food because corporations are driven by profit.” WALHI [the Indonesian Forum for the Environment, part of Friends of the Earth International] called MIFEE a land grab.
'Disease and undernourishment are rampant'
In September 2011, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (UNCERD) wrote to the Indonesian government expressing its concerns about MIFEE, in particular that the “encroachment activities are supported by the State party and enjoy the protection of the Indonesian army”.
The Indonesian government failed to take any action to address the situation.
In May 2013, Sophie Chao of Forest Peoples Program, visited the village of Zanegi in Merauke Regency and reported that “Disease and undernourishment are rampant” as a result of MIFEE.
In July 2013, Indonesian and international organisations submitted a report to UNCERD requesting the committee consider the impacts of MIFEE.
In May 2015, Indonesia’s recently elected President Joko Widodo visited Papua and relaunched MIFEE. Jokiwi announced a plan for 1.2 million hectares of new rice fields as part of a 4.6 million hectare land grab.
Indonesia’s current president, Prabowo Subianto, is also in favour of expanding industrial agriculture projects across Indonesia. He cloaks this as “food self-sufficiency”. Prabowo has appointed Zulkifli Hasan, who was Minister of Environment and Forestry from 2009–14, to a new ministry, the Coordinating Ministry for Food Affairs.
World’s largest deforestation program
Victoria Milko, a journalist with Associated Press, recently reported from Papua on MIFEE — the world’s largest deforestation program. According to Mighty Earth, a Washington DC-based NGO, MIFEE will cover more than 3 million hectares.
Glen Horowitz, CEO of Mighty Earth, told AP that MIFEE is “creating a zone of death in one of the most vibrant spots on Earth”. Mighty Earth commissioned Yusuf Wahil, an Indonesian photojournalist, to spend 10 days in Papua to document MIFEE’s impacts. He travelled with a team from Indonesian NGOs Satya Bumi and Pusaka. Yusuf’s photographs were used to illustrate Milko’s article.
In a December 2024, an Indonesian organisation called the Center of Economic and Law Studies, calculated that the deforestation of 2 million hectares as a result of MIFEE would result in an additional 782.45 million tons of CO₂ emissions.
Indonesia’s Presidential Special Envoy for Energy and Environment, Hashim Djojohadikusumo, announcedin December 2024 that the government plans a 6.5-million-hectare reforestation programme. Hashim, who is President Prabowo’s younger brother, said that, “Thus, the food estate program continues while we mitigate the possible negative impacts with new programs, one of which is reforestation."
Vincen Kwipalo, who lives in the area of the MIFEE program, told AP that forest has been destroyed to make way for sugar cane nurseries. Villagers previously used the forest for hunting. The Indigenous peoples living in West Papua are completely reliant on the forests and their ancestral territories for their culture and livelihoods.
Indonesian military deployment
Earlier this year, The Gecko Project reported on the thousands of troops that the Indonesian government has deployed to Papua. They are forcing through the destruction of vast areas of rainforest to be replaced by the monoculture plantations of the government’s “food estate” program.
Soldiers have arrived in villagers and told Indigenous Papuans that they have to accept the government’s program. The soldiers planted stakes in customary land. And then the excavators arrived. Community forests and farms were bulldozed.
The Gecko Project reports on what Indigenous Papuans say about the destruction of the lands, forests, and livelihoods. And they have been tracking what Indonesian soldiers have posted on TikTok about their deployment:
In August 2024, The Gecko Project reported, “the military deployed an elite combat unit to the program, whose members have been implicated in extrajudicial killings in recent years. TikTok videos show armed members of this unit patrolling the forest, rivers and villages and accompanying excavators.”
The soldiers are also involved in developing the industrial agriculture program, driving excavators, and spraying pesticides. They are often armed, even when patrolling through villages.
The deployment of these military units has generated a climate of fear. This comes on top of decades of occupation, oppression, human rights abuses, and state violence in West Papua.
Indonesian occupation of West Papua
In 1949, the Netherland’s colonial rule of Indonesia ended. But the Netherlands retained control over West New Guinea.
In 1962, the Indonesian government invaded and named it West Irian. In August 1962, the United States government arranged a meeting between Indonesia and the Netherlands, resulting in the New York Agreement which gave control of West Papua to the UN Temporary Authority in West Irian. On 1 May 1963, the UN transferred West Irian to the Indonesian government on condition that an internationally supervised election on self-determination took place no later than 1969.
From July to August 1969, during the Suharto dictatorship, UN officials conducted the so-called “Act of Free Choice”. But it was a sham. Rather than allowing all adult Papuans to vote, the Indonesian authorities selected 1022 West Papuans “to vote publicly and unanimously in favor of integration with Indonesia”, as the US National Security Archive put it in 2004.
In November 1969, the UN lent its support to Indonesia’s illegal occupation of West Papua when it “took note” of the “Act of Free Choice” and its results. The Free West Papua Campaign calls this “one of the most shameful chapters in the history of the UN”.
The Indonesian occupation of West Papua has been described as a “slow-motion genocide”.
This is the context in which Indonesia has deployed thousands of troops to push through the destruction of 3 million hectares of rainforest to make way for industrial agriculture plantations.
One man told The Gecko Project that soldiers are currently stationed at every corner of his village, as if it were in a war zone. “It’s like a horror for the community,” he said.
“People are not able to speak up for their rights. There are so many people who want to talk, but there is no support because they are afraid of the apparatus. There are too many soldiers.”
[Reprinted from REDD Monitor.]
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