A Papua court ruling, is a win for local governance and against national governments. All over the world, most remaining wildernesses are not devoid of human population to the contrary, most of these areas are inhabited by indigenous people.
What does indigenous people mean? Well in most contexts it means people who arrived and settled before European colonisation. What has become increasingly clear is that the explorers that we learn about are rarely the first humans to arrive in newly discovered countries. Indonesians and Norwegians are both known to have crossed large oceans and settled on newly discovered lands.
Often these native people have lived in harmony in the local ecosystem for thousands of years.
This is why indigenous rights are so important. It is however important that this is done right – indigenous lands becoming places with casinos is not the idea.
In this instance, two palm oil companies sued after their lease was invalidated. The combined area is not small, being bigger than New York city. This clears the way for Indigenous groups who used to live within this area, to reclaim their former lands.
Indonesia has a particularly hard path to walk. Made up of thousands of different islands, with vast areas of rainforests, it is hard for the central government to make good decisions.
We as consumers need to make this easier, by reducing our consumption and therefore requiring less resources
