Indigenous land loss in West Papua

West Papua rarely makes headlines, despite sitting at the centre of one of the most consequential land grabs of the 21st century. The Indonesian-controlled territory, home to around 4 million Indigenous Melanesian people, contains vast reserves of minerals, timber and fertile land. Over the past few decades, these resources have become the target of an aggressive development push, one that has brought plantations, mines and military force deep into Indigenous territory.

The roots of today’s crisis lie in the way Indonesia secured control over West Papua. In 1969, a UN-acknowledged process known as the ‘Act of Free Choice’ was carried out to determine the territory’s political future. Rather than a one-person, one-vote referendum, Indonesian authorities selected just 1,024 Papuans, less than 1% of the population, who voted unanimously to agree to Indonesian control under conditions widely reported to involve intimidation. While the UN formally acknowledged the outcome, the process has never been accepted by many Papuans, who refer to it as the ‘Act of No Choice.’ The result laid the foundation for decades of political marginalisation and land dispossession.

For years, Indigenous land loss in Indonesia has unfolded gradually. According to Professor David Whyte, Professor of Climate Justice at Queen Mary University of London, what distinguishes the current moment is speed. Palm oil plantations are now expanding in West Papua faster than in many other parts of Indonesia. Massive projects such as the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate in the south, covering over 7 million acres, are transforming forests, wetlands and customary land into export-oriented production zones. These are not small-scale developments: Merauke is the largest deforestation project currently underway anywhere in the world.

This expansion is framed by the Indonesian government as lawful development. Licences are issued, impact assessments filed, consent forms signed. On paper, projects claim compliance with international standards on Indigenous rights. On the ground, those standards collapse. Law in West Papua does not protect Indigenous land; it enables its transfer. In militarised regions, consent is often extracted through pressure, division within communities, or the presence of armed forces. Resistance is treated not as disagreement, but as a security threat.

Professor Whyte was involved in the  Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal on West Papua, held at Queen Mary University of London in June 2024. Over several days, judges heard detailed testimony linking extractive projects to state violence. Witnesses described massacres carried out by Indonesian security forces following protests against mining, palm oil plantations and infrastructure expansion. Evidence presented documented extrajudicial killings, forced displacement, torture and the criminalisation of peaceful dissent. The judges concluded that there was credible evidence supporting the charges. Indonesia rejected the tribunal, stating it did not recognise its authority, but its findings were formally submitted to the United Nations. NGOs including Amnesty International supported the process, and UN human rights mechanisms now cite its conclusions. As a tribunal of opinion, its power lies in record-making: once evidence exists in public, denial becomes harder.

The scale of harm documented is severe. Currently more than 100,000 Indigenous Papuans are internally displaced, many since 2019. New Mandala recorded approximately 400 deaths in Nduga Refugee camps alone linked to conditions such as hunger, disease and lack of medical care. Amnesty International documented 128 unlawful killings between 2018 and 2024, conducted by government-funded security forces. Peaceful protest is routinely criminalised, with hundreds imprisoned under treason laws for acts as simple as raising the Morning Star flag, the flag which symbolises West Papuan independence.

Environmental destruction translates directly into everyday hardship. At the Grasberg mine, one of the largest gold and copper mines on earth, an estimated 300,000 tonnes of toxic tailings are dumped into river systems every day, contaminating water across more than 130 square kilometres. Fishing routes have become unusable; sago forests have died off. Palm oil plantations replace biodiverse landscapes with monocultures, wiping out local food sources. At BP’s Tangguh liquefied natural gas facility, villages have been relocated and traditional fishing grounds restricted, forcing communities to abandon livelihoods tied to the coast.

These outcomes are not accidental. Mining and plantation concessions are frequently connected to military and police interests, with security forces receiving payments to guard corporate operations. Violence and extraction move together. Repression limits resistance, while isolation keeps West Papua largely absent from international scrutiny.

Responsibility does not end with the Indonesian state. Foreign corporations, investors and governments that benefit from West Papua’s resources are part of the same system. As new extractive frontiers emerge, including nickel mining linked to renewable energy supply chains, pressure on Indigenous land is set to increase further.

West Papua is not invisible because evidence is lacking. It is invisible because access is restricted, journalists are blocked, and international attention drifts elsewhere. The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal did not end dispossession, but it disrupted silence. That disruption matters. Awareness is not symbolic here; it is one of the few tools capable of slowing a process that thrives on being unseen.

Further information and opportunities to engage with organisations working in this area are listed below:
https://chuffed.org/project/115895-star-mountains-west-papua-humanitarian-relief-fund
https://www.papuapartners.org/about
https://biomeconservation.org/project/indonesia-papua/

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