In West Papua, Indigenous communities are boycotting palm oil products, accusing major corporations of profiting from environmental devastation and human rights abuses. Beyond environmental damage, Indigenous leaders are fighting what they describe as an existential threat to their cultural survival. Large-scale deforestation has destroyed ancestral lands and livelihoods, with Indonesian authorities enabling this destruction by issuing permits on contested Indigenous territories. Local activists characterise this situation as ecocide and are building international coalitions to hold companies and government officials accountable.
What are the problems with palm oil?
n West Papua, one of the world’s richest biodiversity centres, oil palm plantation expansion is causing what we call ecocide. By 2019, the government had issued permits for plantations covering 1.57 million hectares of Indigenous forest land to 58 major companies, all without the free, prior and informed consent of affected communities.
The environmental damage is already devastating, despite only 15 per cent of the permitted area having been developed so far. Palm oil plantations have fundamentally altered water systems in regions such as Merauke, causing the Bian, Kumbe and Maro rivers to overflow during rainy seasons because plantations cannot absorb heavy rainfall. Indigenous communities have lost access to forests that provided food and medicine and sustained cultural practices, while monoculture crops have replaced biodiverse ecosystems, leading to the disappearance of endemic animal species.
How are authorities circumventing legal protections?
There’s unmistakable collusion between government officials and palm oil companies. In 2023, we supported the Awyu Indigenous people in a landmark legal case against a Malaysian-owned company. The court found the government had issued permits without community consent, directly violating West Papua’s special autonomy laws that require Indigenous approval for land use changes.
These actions contravene national regulations and international law, including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which guarantees the right to free, prior and informed consent. Yet despite clear legal violations, authorities continue defending these projects by citing tax revenue and economic growth. They are clearly prioritising corporate profits over Indigenous rights and environmental protection.
The government’s response to opposition is particularly troubling. There is a systematic pattern of human rights violations against people defending their lands. When communities protest against developments, they face arbitrary arrests, police intimidation and violence. Police frequently disperse demonstrations by force, and community leaders are threatened with imprisonment or falsely accused of disrupting development. In some cases, they are labelled as separatists or anti-government to delegitimise their activism and justify repression.
What tactics are proving effective for civil society?
Indigenous communities are employing both traditional and modern resistance approaches. Many communities have performed customary rituals to symbolically reject plantations, imposing cultural sanctions that carry significant spiritual weight in their societies. Simultaneously, they’re engaging with legal systems to challenge permit violations.
Civil society organisations like ours support these efforts through environmental impact assessments, legal advocacy and public awareness campaigns. This multi-pronged approach has gained significant traction: in 2023, our Change.org petition gathered 258,178 signatures, while the #AllEyesOnPapua social media campaign went viral, demonstrating growing international concern.
Despite these successes, we face an uphill battle. The government continues pushing ahead with new agribusiness plans, including sugarcane and rice plantations covering over two million additional hectares of forest. This threatens further environmental destruction and Indigenous rights violations. Supporters of our movement are increasingly highlighting the global climate implications of continued deforestation in this critical carbon sink region.
What specific international actions would help protect West Papua?
Consumer power represents one of our strongest allies. International consumers can pressure their governments to enforce laws that prevent the import of products linked to human rights abuses and deforestation. They should also demand companies divest from harmful plantation projects that violate Indigenous rights.
At the diplomatic level, we need consistent international pressure on Indonesia to halt large-scale agribusiness expansion in West Papua and uphold Indigenous rights as defined in national and international laws. Foreign governments with trade relationships must make human rights and environmental protection central to their engagement with Indonesia, not peripheral concerns.
Without concerted international action, West Papua’s irreplaceable forests and the Indigenous communities who have sustainably managed them for generations face an existential threat. This isn’t just a local issue: the destruction of one of the world’s most biodiverse regions affects us all.
(New York, May 29, 2025) – An escalation in fighting between Indonesian security forces and Papuan separatist armed groups in West Papua has seriously threatened the security of the largely Indigenous population, Human Rights Watch said today. All parties to the conflict are obligated to abide by international humanitarian law, also called the laws of war.
The security forces’ military operations in the densely forested Central Highlands areas have allegedly killed and injured dozens of civilians with drone strikes and the indiscriminate use of explosive munitions, and displaced thousands of Indigenous Papuans. The National Liberation Army of West Papua, the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement, has claimed responsibility in the killing of 17 alleged miners between April 6 and April 9, 2025.
“The Indonesian military has a long history of abuses in West Papua that poses a particular risk to the Indigenous communities,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Concerned governments need to press the Prabowo administration and Papuan separatist armed groups to abide by the laws of war.”
The fighting escalated after the attack on the alleged miners, which the armed group accused of being targeted soldiers or military informers. The Indonesian military escalated its ongoing operations, called Operation Habema, in West Papua’s six provinces, especially in the Central Highlands, where Papuan militant groups have been active for over four decades.
On May 14, the military said that it had killed 18 separatist fighters in Intan Jaya regency, and that it had recovered weapons including rifles, bows and arrows, communications equipment, and Morning Star flags, the symbol of Papuan resistance. Further military operations have allegedly resulted in burning down villages and attacks on churches. Papuan activists and pastors told Human Rights Watch that government forces tend to treat all Papuan forest dwellers who own and routinely use bows and arrows for hunting as combatants.
Information about abuses has been difficult to corroborate because the hostilities are occurring in remote areas in Intan Jaya, Yahukimo, Nduga, and Pegunungan Bintang regencies. Pastors, church workers, and local journalists interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that Indonesian forces have been using drones and helicopter gunships to drop bombs. Civilians from the Korowai tribe community, known for their tall treehouse dwellings, have been harmed in these attacks, and have desperately fled the fighting. Displaced villagers, mostly from Intan Jaya, have sought shelter and refuge in churches in Sugapa, the capital of the regency.
The armed group has made allegations, which Human Rights Watch could not corroborate, that the Indonesian military attacks harmed civilians. It reported that a mortar or rocket attack outside a church in Ilaga, Puncak regency, hit two young men on May 6, killing one of them, Deris Kogoya, an 18-year-old student.
The group said that the Indonesian military attack on May 14, in which the military claimed all 18 people killed were separatist combatants, mostly killed civilians. Ronald Rischardt Tapilatu, pastor of the Evangelical Christian Church of the Land of Papua, said that at least 3 civilians were among the 18 bodies. Human Rights Watch has a list of the 18 killed, which includes 1 known child.
The daughter of Hetina Mirip said that her mother was found dead on May 17 near her house in Sugapa, while Indonesian soldiers surrounded their village. She wrote that the soldiers tried to cremate and bury her mother’s body. A military spokesman denied the shooting.
One evident impact of the renewed fighting is that thousands of Indigenous Papuans have been forced to flee their ancestral lands. The Vanuatu-based United Liberation Movement for West Papua reported that the military had attacked seven villages in Ilaga with drones and airstrikes, forcing many women and children to flee their homes. Media reports said that it was in Gome, Puncak regency.
International humanitarian law obligates all warring parties to distinguish at all times between combatants and civilians. Civilians may never be the target of attack. Warring parties are required to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and civilian objects, such as homes, shops, and schools. Attacks may target only combatants and military objectives. Attacks that target civilians or fail to discriminate between combatants and civilians, or that would cause disproportionate harm to the civilian population compared to the anticipated military gain, are prohibited. Parties must treat everyone in their custody humanely, not take hostages, and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.
The Free Papua Movement has long sought self-determination and independence in West Papua, on the grounds that the Indonesian government-controlled “Act of Free Choice” in 1969 was illegitimate and did not involve Indigenous Papuans. It advocates holding a new, fair, and transparent referendum, and backs armed resistance.
The conflict areas, including Intan Jaya, are on the northern side of Mt. Grasberg, spanning a vast area from Sugapa to Oksibil in the Pegunungan Bintang regency, approximately 425 kilometers long. Sugapa is also known as the site of Wabu Block, which holds approximately 2.3 million kilograms of gold, making it one of Indonesia’s five largest known gold reserves. Wabu Block is currently under the licensing process of the Indonesian Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.
“Papuans have endured decades of systemic racism, heightening concerns of further atrocities,” Ganguly said. “Both the Indonesian military and Papuan armed groups need to comply with international standards that protect civilians.”
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