Prabowo's Plan for Palm Oil Self-Sufficiency

January 26, 2026 | 05:12 pm

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - After seeing digital documents shown by Tempo, Albertus Tenggare and Ambrosius Tenggare immediately recalled the increasingly frequent roar they had heard in recent months from the skies above Boven Digoel Regency, South Papua. "No wonder helicopters keep flying overhead," Albertus said.

That Friday afternoon, November 28, 2025, Albertus and Ambrosius went to check on Wataron, their clan's customary forest, located on the western side of the Trans-Papua highway linking Boven Digoel and Merauke. The Tenggare clan, led by Albertus, has held a participatory map of its 3,000-hectare ancestral land for the past three years, which came out about the same time as the issuance of Boven Digoel Regional Regulation No. 2/2023 on the Recognition and Protection of Indigenous Communities' Rights. The Tenggare are part of the Wambon Kenemopte sub-tribe, commonly known as Mandobo.

The document shown to Tempo was a digital map referring to Forestry Minister Decree No. 591/2025. The decree signed by Minister Raja Juli Antoni reclassified 486,940 hectares of forest in the regencies of Merauke, Mappi, and Boven Digoel. According to a copy of the decree, the change was made "to support the acceleration of development in national food, energy, and water self-sufficiency zones." Forest areas overlapping with Wataron were among those redesignated as "other use zones" (APL).

Albertus' wooden house stands on the eastern edge of Wataron, beside the Trans-Papua Highway connecting Boven Digoel and Merauke. Ambrosius' hut sits directly across the road. There, they have cleared a plot roughly the size of two volleyball courts to plant chilies and fruit trees. "Just up to here, no further," Albertus said, pointing to the boundary between their fields and the forest.

Read the Complete Story in Tempo English Magazine

The Chaotic Budgeting of the Merauke Food Estate

8 jam lalu

Warning Signs in Papua's Fertilizer Project

1 hari lalu

BMKG: Beware of 6-Meter Extreme High Waves off Java Coasts

4 hari lalu

Fact Check: Is Trump Moving 1 Million Israelis to Papua?

5 hari lalu

List of Plane Crashes Across Indonesia in Last Five Years

6 hari lalu

TPNPB-OPM Claims to Have Shot Down Indonesian Military Aircraft in Yahukimo, Papua

9 hari lalu

Papua Lawmaker Rejects Prabowo's Palm Oil Plan, Military Projects

11 hari lalu

Agriculture Ministry Expands Rice Field Program to Papua

14 hari lalu

A Look Back at Prabowo's Cabinet Reshuffles in 2025

21 hari lalu

Papua Fisherfolk Village Project Set to Finish This Month

22 hari lalu