by Teuila Fuatai | Mar 2, 2025 | 0  | 7 min read

For more than 60 years, the Indigenous people of West Papua have sought independence from Indonesia. It’s estimated that more than 500,000 civilians have been killed in the struggle, while thousands more have fled the region. 

Rosa Moiwend is from Merauke in the southeast of West Papua, which borders Papua New Guinea. Colonial administrations have repeatedly tried to secure land in Merauke, with land grabs dating back to the Dutch regime, West Papua’s first colonial occupier. 

Today, Merauke is the site of the Indonesian government’s National Food Strategic Project, which will see the destruction of more than two million hectares of native Merauke forests and wetlands. The authorities say the huge project will provide food and energy for all of Indonesia — but for the Indigenous Malind people who live there, it’s a disaster about to happen. 

Here, Rosa talks to Teuila Fuatai. 

Our land is well known for its wildlife, especially the fish and meat you can hunt.

It’s a vast area, which is covered by wetlands, savannahs, forests and mangroves. According to UNESCO, our land has some of the largest and healthiest wetlands in the Asia-Pacific region. It’s also home to an incredibly diverse range of species.

Of course, my people have always known this.

Those still living in Merauke continue to rely on our natural resources for sustenance. In the swampy areas, you can catch fish and fresh water shrimp. We also harvest sago from the forest, and keep crops.

The different local clans, collectively known as the Indigenous Malind Anim people, have a special system to ensure food is distributed to everyone. For example, with the sago forest, one clan or family will come for a week, build a base or camp, and then harvest a few trees. If there’s a lot of trees to be harvested at once, then all the clans work together. It’s the same for hunting. The men go as a collective, with dogs and guns. Whatever the group comes back with is shared among the clans.

This system has been in place for generations. But as the Indonesian authorities and companies have come with their developments and plans over the years, that way of life and our connection to the land has been threatened and, in some places, broken.

Some of our sacred sites in the forests have been destroyed to make way for roads and infrastructure projects. Rather than go around them, developers have chosen to bulldoze their way through because it’s more economical. Parts of the forests have also been cut off entirely for development projects.

All of this has devastating impacts.

People say that Malind people are very poor, that not many of us are educated or go to school. I believe these challenges, and the poverty our families experience, are directly related to the destruction of our land and our connection with it.

For Malind people, areas of the forests and wetlands are sacred because they are inhabited by the dema or atua, our ancestral spirits who guard the land and villages. Because of that, we’ve always respected and preserved these areas. We believe the presence of the dema results in abundant and fertile harvests, which ensures, for example, that the fish and large-sized shrimp are plentiful.

Destruction of these sacred sites is akin to killing the dema, and that has severed our people’s connection with our ancestral spirits. The dema, the protectors of our land and lives, have departed due to the harm caused by human greed. Without them, our lifecycle and wellbeing as people is incomplete.

This is a trauma that has accumulated over generations.

Even before Indonesia took over in the 1960s, the Dutch administration was displacing our people and way of life through transmigration. This involved bringing Indonesian people to West Papua, to places like Merauke, to work and live. When Indonesia claimed control, transmigration simply resumed under the Suharto regime.

The occupiers bring their people, take our lands, teach their way of life, and say their people are citizens. It’s been particularly devastating for Malind people because much of what’s been confiscated over the years has been fertile land, which our people rely on to source and grow food.

Now, in 2025, we are confronted with the National Food Strategic Project. The Indonesian government plans to clear more than two million hectares of forests, wetlands and grasslands in Merauke for sugarcane and palm oil plantations, and rice fields. It has already started excavation work.

The government says the project will help Indonesia, which has a population of 270 million, achieve energy and food self-sufficiency.

In Merauke, we’ve heard this kind of talk before. For us, it’s not just wrong and disrespectful — it doesn’t make any sense.

In 2010, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono launched the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate. More than one million hectares of land was set aside for a food and energy estate. The project ultimately failed because of the condition of the land and the fact that the local people rejected it.

Those who are familiar with Merauke know the land requires a lot of work for any large-scale agricultural farming.

First, a lot of Merauke is wetlands. When it rains, people have to get around the wetland areas using a little canoe because it gets so swampy.

Second, Merauke has a rainy and dry season, and each presents uniquely different environments.

The dry season is often compared to the northern part of Australia. During this part of the year, it doesn’t really rain and Merauke is very dry. The rainy season is the exact opposite. Everyone in Merauke knows that during this time, you don’t go around with a motorbike or car because you’ll end up getting stuck in the mud. Heavy vehicles and machinery also get bogged down.

The climate and extreme terrain make it difficult to grow crops like rice and sugar cane. The Indonesian authorities saw that in 2010 when the food estate failed.

The current project is basically a repeat of that. It targets the same location, people, and area of land. In fact, the Indonesian government has promoted it for the same purposes as the 2010 project. Specifically, authorities anticipate a significant increase in food production through huge rice fields, the development of sugar cane plantations for ethanol biofuel, and oil palm plantations for palm oil production.

All of this, according to the Indonesian government, is not only a solution to its country’s food and energy crisis, but also part of addressing the climate crisis.

For me, these are false solutions.

You can’t destroy the forest and wetlands, which have multiple purposes in the local ecosystem, and say that this helps to address climate change. You also can’t promote such a large project as being pro-environment without undertaking a comprehensive environmental impact study — and we’ve seen no evidence of that to date.

Another red flag is the involvement of the Indonesian Army.

In November, 2000 soldiers arrived in Merauke “to provide assistance to the community” for the project. Indonesian authorities say the soldiers are there to help promote food security and fill labour gaps related to the project.

Despite that, human rights advocates and media reports have already highlighted human rights violations linked to the project and clearing of land. In particular, concerns have been raised about the heavy military presence and its impact on Malind people, who are still suffering from the destruction and violence inflicted on their land and communities through previous Indonesian initiatives.

Unsurprisingly, there have also been practical failures in the project’s early stage.

It’s now the rainy season in Merauke. Two thousand excavators have already been brought in from China to prepare the land. Temporary ports have been constructed, roads have been built, and the land has also been excavated to construct a water channel.

Last December, I learned that companies had evacuated workers due to flooding. That’s linked to the excavation of the land. Merauke is flat, so the wetland areas act as a barrier from the sea during heavy rain. Clearing and excavating the land to make way for crops removes protection for inland areas and significantly heightens the flooding risk.

The development simply doesn’t make sense. For the Indonesian government to claim otherwise is dishonest. And the misinformation doesn’t stop there.

Since the project’s inception, Indonesian authorities have repeatedly claimed that it is using “empty land”.

This statement was made by Hashim Djojohadikusumo, one of the government ministers overseeing the project. He’s also President Prabowo Subianto’s brother and a top Indonesian businessman. He claimed that 60 percent of land in Merauke is empty.

That framing is totally incorrect.

Just because we don’t physically live on a specific piece of land, doesn’t mean it can be defined as empty.

There are areas in Merauke which we use for hunting, fishing and harvesting food, but where people don’t necessarily have their homes. We also have our sacred places in the forest and wetlands, which, out of respect, we don’t enter.

The land is our life and identity, and all of it must be respected. Indonesia simply refuses to recognise or understand that.

It’s why all the tribes of Merauke are united against this project. Every village has put out statements rejecting it. We’ve also created an Indigenous Malind Anim legal forum to organise and mobilise our people.

If the Indonesian government has its way, the area we’ve always called home, where we’ve lived and hunted for thousands of years, will cease to exist.

We know our land, and the ocean around it, is rich in natural resources. Despite our objections, and our rights and place as West Papuans, as Indigenous people, Indonesia wants to exploit all of it. To them, we are an inconvenience.

We have had enough.

West Papua is not Indonesia. West Papua is Melanesian, it’s Pacific, and it’s being occupied by Indonesia. And we will stand up for our place and rights.

Indonesia must understand that we are our own people. For us, the right solution is self-determination. Free West Papua.

Rosa Moiwend is a West Papuan human rights activist from the Gebze Moyu clan of the Malind Makleuw Anim in Merauke. She is a member of the Melanesian Land Defense Alliance and a Pacific rights campaigner for the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG).

As told to Teuila Fuatai. Made possible by the Public Interest Journalism Fund.