Abstract
The expansion of oil palm plantations in Papua province, Indonesia, involves the conversion of forests, among other land types in the landscapes, which are a source of clan members’ livelihoods. The way in which this expansion occurs makes it necessary to understand the factors associated with why companies look for frontier lands and what externalities are generated during both the land acquisition and plantation development periods. Using a spatial analysis of the concession areas, along with data from household surveys of each clan from the Auyu, Mandobo, and Marind tribes who release land to companies, we find that investors are motivated to profit from timber harvested from the clearing of lands for plantations, activity that is facilitated by the local government. Land acquisition and plantation development have resulted in externalities to indigenous landowners in the form of time and money lost in a series of meetings and consultations involving clan members and traditional elders. Other externalities include the reduced welfare of people due to loss of livelihoods, and impacts on food security.
Highlights
New Guinea is a large island off the continent of Australia, covering an area of 786,000 km2 inhabited by indigenous Melanesians [1]
The allocation of large size areas to investors is made possible by the district’s need to attract as many investments as possible to earn income and fill the financial gaps between what can be met by its own income as Pendapatan Asli Daerah (PAD) and expenditure by government for development, as well as local government salaries and others
We found that indigenous people were not homogeneous entities in economic terms
Summary
New Guinea is a large island off the continent of Australia, covering an area of 786,000 km inhabited by indigenous Melanesians [1]. The island is covered by extensive primary dryland and swamp forests [2,3]. Lands where these forests are found are held under customary title and law, and are controlled by clans and families of indigenous peoples, whose status is recognized by the two countries’ constitutions [4,5]. These groups are diverse and are not well known or understood by outsiders. On both sides of the island, these lands have been the target of large-scale foreign investment plantations for many years [6,7]
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