Developing Papua sustainably needs meaningful dialogue

Palm oil is an effective development agent for poverty alleviation, employment opportunity, improvement of quality of life and access to primary health and education services. Papua as the most deprived region in Indonesia needs the development opportunity, which palm oil can offer.

The availability of land, favorable weather and good biophysical characteristics hold great potential for the industry to ease off Papua’s reliance on federal funding for development.

As the least developed area with environmental significance, Papua has been targeted as the hotspot for both palm oil development as well as antipalm oil campaigns.

Extensive campaigns against palm oil development in Papua are underway. The issue of high carbon stock and customary rights are being used as these are issues that the campaigners know are supported by antipalm oil lobbies.

By naming and shaming investors in Papua with threats of financial risk to any company working in the region, none of the industries are spared from Non-governmental organization (NGO) attacks as the mining and sugarcane industries are similarly blackened with allegations of deforestation and land grabs.

The antipalm oil campaigners offer no help to the poor people in Papua but yet leave no avenue for local stakeholders to discuss the development needs in Papua. This can be seen by campaigners Mighty Earth of the United States and Aidenvironment of Europe, who rejected an invitation by community leaders and local governments for a meaningful discourse last year.

As a result, the development of oil palm plantations in Papua remain at a snail’s pace as investors consider it as risky of being targeted by the international NGOs. Some concessions are put on hold for development awaiting “non-regulatory” consent while other companies have opted to abandon their concessions. This is a ridiculous position for Papua to be in as development is hijacked by groups who bring no funds to help the impoverished peoples in the region.

Palm oil is one of the most effective means for distribution of wealth, especially in Papua with the implementation of smallholders scheme whereby the landholdings of smallholders will provide new incomes for the indigenous people under the government-set scheme.

On the environmental side, the government together with the stakeholders can adopt an integrated landscape conservation through spatial planning and thorough assessment and designation of conservation areas and development areas. In Papua, the government needs to introduce new land use plans based on land cover, ecosystem services and biodiversity as the key parameters for conservation areas on one hand with biophysical suitability and socioeconomic development needs on the other hand.

Rather than attacking the investors, environmental groups with honest intentions should join the discourse on conservation and restrictions on palm oil development at the preliminary stages while it is at the planning stages by the government. The engagement of civil society is critical to validate the sustainability criteria and parameters for determining best land use planning in its infancy.

The motives of campaigners who refuse to join in meaningful discourse but yet are happy to challenge official zoning plans must be questioned.

Since President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is so adamant about accelerating development in Papua, the ministries and government agencies responsible need to take up this challenge to coordinate efforts to develop Papua in a sustainable manner that preserves its most important biodiversity areas even as it develops.

For that purpose, the government needs to take new initiatives to invite all stakeholders concerned about Papua, including international social and environmental NGOs, indigenous Papuan representatives, the industry and local governments to sit down together to agree on a set of criteria and parameters for areas designated for development, including palm oil and areas that have to be preserved intact.

The forum will take all considerations on environmental conservation needs from civil society and development opportunity from industry and concerned stakeholders as the baseline for decision making. On the concessions, the forum will assess all the permits and concessions areas and recommend mitigation actions. The resulting criteria and proposal for the new land use map must be used as the basis for granting new permits for any concessions, including palm oil development.

With this inclusive forum, the civil societies and antipalm oil campaigners can better channel their resources towards conservation and indigenous rights. On the other hand, the industry as well as the government can also learn about the markets and value chains demands, while addressing the development needs of Papua.

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Robert Hii is the editor of CSPO-Watch.com, a certified sustainable palmoil watch, and Edi Suhardi works for a palm oil company. The views expressed are their own.