"Papuans head to Indonesian court to protect forests from palm oil," 28 May 2024

Indigenous activists from the Indonesian province of West Papua have held traditional ceremonies outside the country’s Supreme Court in Jakarta calling for their traditional land and forests to be protected from palm oil plantations...

[Henrikus "Franky"] Woro [an Awyu Indigenous man], filed an environmental and land rights lawsuit in the Papuan capital of Jayapura challenging the plan by a Malaysian-owned palm oil company to clear tens of thousands of hectares of previously untouched West Papuan forest, including traditional Indigenous land...

The Awyu have also intervened in appeals taken by two other palm oil companies against a decision by the minister of environment and forestry to cancel permits that it had previously issued for them to clear Indigenous lands...

The Supreme Court is the communities’ last chance to defend their customary forest and generations of ancestral heritage...

The Moi Indigenous community, meanwhile, is fighting to protect thousands of hectares of customary forest that has also been earmarked for palm oil. The company involved had its permits revoked amid community opposition but lower courts later ruled in favour of the planter...