HUMAN RIGHTS “Why Our Land?” Oil Palm Expansion in Indonesia Risks Peatlands and Livelihoods WATCH “Why Our Land?” Oil Palm Expansion in Indonesia Risks Peatlands and Livelihoods Copyright © 2021 Human Rights Watch All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 978-1-62313-909-4 Cover design by Rafael Jimenez Human Rights Watch defends the rights of people worldwide. We scrupulously investigate abuses, expose the facts widely, and pressure those with power to respect rights and secure justice. Human Rights Watch is an independent, international organization that works as part of a vibrant movement to uphold human dignity and advance the cause of human rights for all. 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For more information, please visit our website: http://www.hrw.org JUNE 2021 ISBN: 978-1-62313-909-4 “Why Our Land?” Oil Palm Expansion in Indonesia Risks Peatlands and Livelihoods Summary ......................................................................................................................... 1 Recommendations ........................................................................................................... 6 To the Government of Indonesia .............................................................................................. 6 To the Ministry of Agrarian and Spatial Planning/National Land Agency .................................... 6 To the Ministry of Agriculture, including the Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) ................. 7 To the National Police .............................................................................................................. 8 To PT Sintang Raya and Other Indonesian Oil Palm Plantation Businesses ................................ 8 To All Companies, Local and International, Sourcing Palm Oil from Indonesia ........................... 9 To Donor Governments, the European Union, and Other International Bodies .......................... 10 To International Financial Institutions, the United Nations, and Other International Aid Agencies .............................................................................................................................................. 10 Methodology .................................................................................................................. 11 Description of Communities .................................................................................................... 12 Seruat Dua ....................................................................................................................... 13 Mengkalang Jambu .......................................................................................................... 14 Olak Olak ........................................................................................................................ 14 I. Background ................................................................................................................ 16 Indonesia’s Transmigration Program ....................................................................................... 16 Land Rights for Transmigrants ................................................................................................. 18 Indonesia as the Top Palm Oil Producer .................................................................................. 19 Large-Scale Draining of Indonesia’s Peatlands for Palm Oil ..................................................... 21 Government and Industry’s Insufficient Efforts to Address Environmental Risks of Oil Palm Plantations ............................................................................................................................. 24 Palm Oil Certification ............................................................................................................. 26 II. Findings: Abuses against Transmigrant Communities in Kubu Raya Regency, West Kalimantan .................................................................................................................... 29 Palm Plantation Company: PT Sintang Raya in Kubu Raya ........................................................ 30 Disregard for Land Rights of Transmigration Communities ....................................................... 33 Inadequate Consultation and Compensation (Seruat Dua and Mengkalang Jambu) ........... 33 Loss of Land Without Effective Redress (Olak Olak) ........................................................... 39 Economic Displacement and Deprivation of Livelihood............................................................ 43 Increased Pests and Saltwater Intrusion Decrease Crop Yield ............................................ 47 Harassment, Arrests and Prosecutions of Protesters and Land Rights Activists ........................ 50 Key National Legal Processes and Responsibilities of Plantation Companies ........................... 57 Acquiring Permits ............................................................................................................. 57 Duties to Consult Communities Prior to Acquiring Permits ................................................. 58 III. Human Rights Obligations and Responsibilities ........................................................ 61 Climate Change and Human Rights ........................................................................................ 62 Right to Property and Prohibition of Arbitrary Dispossession .................................................. 64 Right to an Adequate Standard of Living .................................................................................. 65 Right to Participation .............................................................................................................. 65 Right of Access to Information ................................................................................................ 67 Rights to Freedom of Expression, Association, and Peaceful Assembly ................................... 68 Right to an Effective Remedy .................................................................................................. 68 Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................... 71 Summary Peatlands are the largest terrestrial carbon store on earth, storing more carbon than all other vegetation types in the world combined. But once peatland is destroyed it releases carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas driving climate change, into the atmosphere. Worldwide, damaged peatlands are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, annually releasing almost six percent of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions. The protection of peatlands is therefore a key component of global efforts to address the climate crisis. Peatlands in Indonesia store an estimated 80 billion tons of carbon, equivalent to approximately 5 percent of all carbon stored in soil globally. At one time, Indonesia housed approximately 50 percent of the world’s total tropical peatlands, but that is rapidly diminishing as large-scale cultivation of these lands for oil palm plantations increases. The Indonesian government promotes increased production of palm oil—the edible vegetable oil derived from the fruit of oil palm trees—but does not ensure that domestic companies involved in various stages of palm oil production—from oil palm cultivation to refinery—comply with national law, and with the national palm oil certification mechanism. The government has failed to abide by its obligations regarding human rights and climate change and introduce effective regulatory oversight over domestic companies. Oil palm plantations are expanding in Indonesia, undermining the rights to an adequate standard of living, property, and other human rights of rural communities living on or near land converted to use for oil palm plantations. This has fostered hundreds of land conflicts, including in communities formed over decades-old government-sponsored transmigration (trans-country resettlement). The harm of expanding oil palm plantations does not just impact the people in these communities. The lack of protection of land rights of local communities who use the peatland for their livelihoods while leaving it largely intact, allows large-scale commercial agriculture to contribute to serious harms to the global climate. As peatland is converted to use in commercial agriculture, Indonesia is permitting the widescale destruction of one 1 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | JUNE 2021 of the most important carbon sinks in the world, hampering efforts to reduce carbon emissions to avert the worst-case outcomes of global climate change. Indonesia's transmigration program is one of the largest population resettlement schemes in the world, moving millions of families from densely populated to less-densely populated islands throughout the Indonesian archipelago. Many of these families resettled in forests, including forested peatlands. Over time, the government has granted concessions for oil palm and other plantations in these same areas. Some of these plantations have expanded into community areas with minimal or no consultation or compensation, impacting communities’ access to land and the environment they depend on for their livelihood, resulting in economic