Policy forum: Indigenous forest rights at a crossroads? A critical look at Indonesia’s planned forestry law amendment

Indonesia’s ongoing fourth amendment of Forestry Law No. 41/1999 represents a critical juncture for indigenous forest rights, amplified by the country’s commitment at the 30th Conference of the Parties (COP 30) to recognize 1.4 million hectares of customary forests. This policy forum examines the structural challenges facing this reform through empirical evidence from five case studies. Our analysis reveals current recognition frameworks, including governance paradoxes, historical amnesia, elite capture, ontological exclusion, and the prioritization of business concessions over constitutional rights. These cases demonstrate recurring patterns of jurisdictional conflicts, political economy pressures, and ontological mismatches that transcend regional specificities. The analysis contends that the amendment must transition from symbolic to substantive recognition by integrating historical justice, post-recognition governance, and legal pluralism. Without addressing these structural issues, Indonesia risks perpetuating the very inequalities the constitutional court sought to remedy, while undermining its international climate commitments. The amendment thus represents a critical test of political will: whether the state will continue privileging procedural compliance that manages inequality, or courageously pursue the substantive justice needed to make forest conservation and community rights genuinely mutually reinforcing.

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