Indonesia's Papuan tribes fight palm oil deforestation: Video
Indigenous Papuan tribes staged a protest on July 22 in front of the Supreme Court in Indonesia's capital, submitting a petition to safeguard their customary forests from deforestation driven by palm oil companies.
"We filed this petition because we want all the palm oil concessions to be revoked. Because these investments are pure business, unlike other government projects. So we firmly reject palm oil plantation investments in Papua,” Hendrikus Frengky Woro, a community leader from South Papua, told AFP.
Despite a moratorium on plantation permits imposed by President Joko Widodo in 2018, the total area of palm oil plantations in Indonesia has continued to grow. The latest land mapping survey indicates that the plantations now cover 17.3 million hectares, up from 14.32 million hectares in 2018, according to Reuters.
