- ICCA Symposium

ICCAs in Indonesia symposium, CIFOR premises, Bogor, 13-14 October

Over sixty people from Indonesia and across the world attended the symposium which included presentations from eleven case studies from various parts of Indonesia, as well as case studies from The Philippines, India, Iran, Panama, Italy and Senegal, and an ICCA overview. Presenters brought together a wide breadth of voices, from non-governmental, non-profit, community and indigenous people’s organisations to government officials and researchers. Besides presentations and interactive question and answer sessions in plenary, the Symposium comprised a panel discussion and animated working groups and reporting sessions.

The purpose of the Symposium was to explore the current status of and the prospects, options and opportunities for ICCAs in Indonesia and– if appropriate– to provide initial stimulus and support to a broad alliance of organizations and people willing to engage in follow-up activities. The Indonesian government has recently affirmed that it will prioritize the needs of its forest communities, it will “recognize, respect, and protect Adat (customary) rights” and it will implement legislation rarely implemented in the past decade dealing with community forestry and village forests. At a recent meeting in Lombok, the government agreed to work closely with civil society and indigenous peoples to develop and implement a new national strategy to grant significant land rights to the communities living in and around the archipelago’s estimated 130 million hectares of forest. Moreover, the Indonesian government is in the process of revising its law on biodiversity conservation, and the concept of CCAs (Community Conserved Areas) has been introduced as a new governance type in addition to government-based protected area schemes. Both commitments indicate a hopeful future for indigenous peoples’ and local community rights to natural resources in Indonesia.

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