The event was co-sponsored by Franciscans International and Forum Asia.
The discussion focused on the grave human rights and environmental implications of Indonesia’s Merauke National Strategic Project in South Papua Province, also known as the Merauke Food and Energy Development Zone, and the operations of the Grasberg Mine, the world’s largest combined copper and gold mine.
Peter Prove, director of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA), spoke on how the Special Economic Zone by Indonesia’s Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, designated in 2023 as a Merauke Food and Energy Development Zone, spans approximately two million hectares—an area nearly half the size of Switzerland—within Merauke Regency, which covers 4.5 million hectares in total.
The project includes large-scale sugarcane plantations, a sugar factory, a bioethanol development initiative, and the creation of one million hectares of new rice fields. If fully implemented, it risks becoming the largest deforestation project in the world.
Two West Papuan Indigenous women, Dorthea Wabiser, who works for a civil society organization called Pusaka Bentala Ratyak; and Rode Wanimbo, from the Evangelical Church of Indonesia and West Papua Council of Churches, reflected on how they are advocating for Indigenous People’s rights and environmental justice in West Papua.
The Merauke project area overlaps with 858 hectares of natural forests and peatlands that support unique biodiversity, some found nowhere else on earth. The region is also home to thousands of Indigenous West Papuans whose customary lands and livelihoods are directly affected.
Land clearing began in May 2024 and has already resulted in the destruction of customary forests and critical ecosystems. Peatland degradation and forest loss are expected to significantly increase carbon emissions, contributing to global climate change while degrading local air quality.
The side event raised awareness of the massive scale of the Merauke National Strategic Project and the human rights and environmental impacts at local and global levels.
Speakers urged the government of Indonesia to immediately suspend the project pending a comprehensive re-evaluation to ensure compliance with its international human rights and environmental obligations.
“The issue here really is to see how do these obligations in the field of international human rights law directly concern the type of issues we are discussing today,” he said, also highlighting the issue of access to justice.
In central Papua, the trade of metals from the Grasberg Mine is producing severe environmental harm through widespread deforestation and river pollution, with an estimated 200,000 tonnes of toxic mining waste dumped into local rivers every day. For the Indigenous West Papuan communities living downstream, the consequences are severe. Rivers once central to fishing and transport have been choked with sediment. Forests they relied on for hunting have vanished under mounds of waste. People suffer from skin diseases and serious health conditions due to heavy metal contamination in the water they use daily for drinking, cooking, and bathing.
Stéphanie Caligara, an attorney specializing in international human rights law and strategic litigation with a particular focus on corporate accountability, spoke about how extremely profitable this mine is. “It is actually the biggest gold reserve on the planet, and the second biggest copper mine in the world,” she said. “It produces very valuable commodities, especially in the area where we find ourselves—where we looking to transition as soon as possible to a green economy and where we need these metals.”
“Access and transparency”, said CCIA Director Prove in his closing remarks. “This is what we need from the Indonesian Government. We renew our call for Indonesia to issue invitations to the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council to visit West Papua to examine these issues”, he said.
Jayapura, 5 March 2026. Marind Indigenous people from the south of West Papua today filed a legal challenge against a 135-kilometre access road planned to facilitate a government National Strategic Project (PSN) to convert their tropical forest, savannah and wetlands into rice paddies and commodity plantations in Merauke district.
The five plaintiffs, Simon Petrus Balagaize, Sinta Gebze, Liborius Kodai Moiwend, Kanisius Dagil, and Andreas Mahuse, arrived at the at the Jayapura State Administrative Court in traditional Marind dress, accompanied by West Papuan youth and student groups carrying banners reading “Save Indigenous Papuans’ Forests” and others in Indonesian, including one translating to “Customary Land is not Terra Nullius — Resist Colonialism.” Before entering, the plaintiffs performed a traditional prayer ceremony, smearing white mud on their bodies in mourning for the ongoing destruction carried out in the name of the PSN.
“We are filing this lawsuit because we are grieving. We have lost our land, our mother, the place where we find our food. We were born on this land, but now it is hard to find food because the forest is being torn apart. Investors entered without permission, like thieves, and tore the forest apart with excavators. We erected traditional blockades but they ignored them. We spoke out against them but we are afraid, because the military worked there and brought their firearms,” said Marind woman Sinta Gebze, one of the five plaintiffs.
Indonesia’s Prabowo-Gibran administration says the 135km road is designed to support its food and energy estate plans (PSN) for South Papua province. The road runs alongside a rice paddy project in Wanam, Ilwayab District, led by the Ministry of Defence in partnership with PT Jhonlin Group owned by South Kalimantan mining businessman Andi Syamsudin Arsyad.
The road cuts through Indigenous customary forest from Wanam village to Muting, and construction has proceeded in violation of the law from the outset. The first 56 kilometres have already been cleared, and phase two is now being overseen by the Ministry of Public Works and Housing through several state-linked construction companies.
“This 135-kilometre road project reflects the chaos of the PSN regime that began under Joko Widodo and has continued under Prabowo Subianto. Land clearing began illegally in September 2024, before any environmental feasibility documents existed. The Merauke Regent’s environmental permit was only issued in September 2025, and we believe it was issued to retroactively justify violations that had already taken place,” said Tigor Hutapea, a member of the Merauke Solidarity Advocacy Team at Pusaka Bentala Rakyat Foundation.
Not only is it procedurally flawed, the permit is also invalid in that it ignores the rights of affected Indigenous communities who have actively opposed the project. “On the international stage the Indonesian government declares its commitment to peace, but its PSN project is generating conflict within West Papuan communities on the ground. A PSN backed by the military only entrenches the threat of violence and trauma for the Papuan people,” said advocacy team member Emanuel Gobay of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI).
Sekar Banjaran Aji, also a member of the legal team and Forest Campaigner at Greenpeace Indonesia, added: “While roads destroyed by the disastrous floods in Sumatra are still in urgent need of repair, the government is instead clearing forest in Merauke for a road that will primarily serve to accelerate the seizure of Papuan lands. Destroying forests during a climate crisis is not a shortcut to food and energy self-sufficiency. Instead it drives us toward the loss of those forests and the Indigenous knowledge they contain.”
This lawsuit at the Jayapura State Administrative Court is one part of a wider struggle. West Papua’s Indigenous communities are simultaneously challengingPSN-enabling provisions of the Job Creation Law at the Constitutional Court, while in their villages they continue to erect traditional blockades in protest.
Notes to Editor:
Photos and videos from the court case lodgement are available for use.
Contacts:
Sekar Banjaran Aji, Greenpeace Indonesia, +62 812-8776-9880
Tigor Hutapea, Pusaka Bentala Rakyat, +62 812-8729-6684
Igor O’Neill, Greenpeace Indonesia, +61 414-288-424
