Indonesia: Merauke Food Estate Project draws UN scrutiny over indigenous rights and environmental concerns
"UN calls out Indonesia’s Merauke food estate for displacing Indigenous communities" 24 June 2025
JAKARTA — United Nations rights officials have raised the alarm over alleged human rights abuses and environmental destruction linked to a massive plantation project in the Indonesian district of Merauke.
Special rapporteurs to the U.N. human rights commission sent separate letters to the Indonesian government and a key project developer, PT Global Papua Abadi (GPA), dated March 7, 2025, over allegations that they had displaced Indigenous communities, cleared forests without consent, and deployed military forces to quash dissent.
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According to the letters, co-signed by nine U.N. special rapporteurs, the project has allegedly violated Indigenous peoples’ rights by not properly consulting them and thus failing to obtain their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC).
The rapporteurs warn that “more than 50,000 Indigenous people living in 40 villages around and within the project area will be directly affected by its implementation.”
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Since the start of the food estate project in 2010, more than 109,000 hectares (269,000 acres) of peatland, forest and savanna have allegedly been cleared without the Indigenous communities’ consent and without strategic environmental assessments, the U.N. letter said. This deforestation risks sparking cycles of drought and flooding, loss of biodiversity, disruption of carbon sinks, and cutting off primary food and cultural resources for the Indigenous communities.
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The U.N. letter also raised serious concerns over the deployment of five infantry battalions and armed militias to enforce the project, as they’ve been accused of intimidating and silencing any opposition to the project.
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Residents have also reported manipulation of signatures and coercion by military personnel to suppress resistance, the U.N. noted in its letter.
All these reports of intimidation, criminalization and threats against community leaders and environmental defenders who voiced concerns about the food estate project are deeply concerning, the U.N. special rapporteurs wrote.
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Project developer Global Papua Abadi has to date not issued a public response to the U.N. allegations — a silence that civil society groups say exemplifies the wider impunity enjoyed by corporations operating in Indigenous territories.
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