The role of planning document in managing land conversion: the case of indigenous forest conversion in boven digoel regency

Abstract Oil palm plantation activities have become one of the biggest contributors to Indonesia’s deforestation. One of the recent cases happened in Boven Digoel, Southern Papua where 36.000 hectares of indigenous forest is being converted for this development. Consequently, the Awyu tribe -Indigenous peoples reliant on forest resources for their livelihood- were displaced from their homeland. In order to demonstrate their resilience as a community, members of the tribe filed a lawsuit defending their rights of land ownership. It would be highly beneficial to the indigenous communities if their indigenous forests were formally recognised by the government through legal binding documents such as the Boven Digoel spatial planning document. Therefore, the study objective is to review the existing spatial planning document’s content. Methods used in this study are planning analysis by applying the data source triangulation. The result of the study indicates that Boven Digoel’s spatial planning document’s content has not integrated indigenous forests into their policies, which prevents Indigenous peoples from legally claiming their forest. This, in turn, gives outside parties an advantage to exploit the natural resources and harm the livelihood of the Indigenous peoples. The outcome of this study is gaining an understanding of the Indigenous people’s right of their Indigenous forest that should be integrated within spatial planning documents.