Eco-Rights is a rarely talked about issue in West Papua but it certainly affects indigenous landowners. It is our view that the rightful owners of West Papuan lands have all the ownership rights to their lands, and any attempt by the local government of the Indonesian government in Jakarta to deprive them of that right must be considered as a gross violation. Recent analysis states that West Papua is 90% inhabited with rich natural resources, yet the people have been watching their lands taken away at the best of the Indonesian government.
According to Mongabay News, between 2010 and 2016, lands taken from indigenous people were cleared for palm oil plantation and the benefit of foreign corporations such as Nestle, McDonald’s, etc. are paying substantial amount of money to the Indonesian government to clear and develop huge swath of lands destroying their fragile ecosystems.
For decades, lands with rich minerals were stripped from their rightful owners and used for the benefit of the Indonesian government. For instance, the Grasberg Mining. This mining had produced hundreds of billions of dollars to the mining company and its investors in the United States, Australia, and the Indonesian treasury, and yet landowners remained poor and saw little benefit from this mining operation. They are left to deal with the pollution of their water systems, dirty air, and destroyed farmlands and rivers. Here are some of the major foreign corporations operating out of West Papua:
