The people of Indonesia & their culture, politics, economy and environment - Inside Indonesia: The peoples and cultures of Indonesia

Land

Photo essay: A protest for fair land reform

Mining and equitable development

A car drives along a concrete road among tall crop fields.

Mining dominates East Luwu GDP but development of agriculture underpins equitable development

Small-scale mining in Central Kalimantan

A car zooms by on a road in a barren landscape.

After reformasi, Kereng Pangi, Kalimantan became the site of a gold rush

Mining the land, mining people

A mining base, with a pipe running across the foreground and some wooden structures.

Irrespective of location or commodity, peasants now compete with multinational mining companies on the mineral-rich tracts of Indonesia

Multiplier effects on the Bombana goldfields

A photo of the front of a Toyota dealership.

Benefits ripple outwards but local government struggles to regulate the process

Food sovereignty and peasant activism

Farmers and would-be farmers in Lombok are fighting a land-rights battle against the tourism industry

The Sultan of development?

Return to the rules of the Palace” on a busy street in Yogyakarta - Cally Colbron

Succession within the Sultanate of Yogyakarta decides who will own vast tracts of land

An agrarian reform agenda for Jokowi

Community members in Central Kalimantan attempt to prevent the planting of palm oil on land they claim as their own - Save Our Borneo

Jokowi must accommodate customary rights lest his development agenda spur land conflicts

Wild West Batur

Resource stripping in Batur, Bali - Graeme MacRae

Beyond the tourism and real estate frontiers in Bali is a small branch of the global resource frontier.

Undercutting Kalimantan's future

Forest conversion in Kalimantan is a local, national and global concern

Land, ethnicity and politics

Direct local elections have led to new developments in the struggle for land rights in East Kalimantan

Too precious to mine

Central Java farmers refuse to get stuck in cement

Fighting over the land and forest

Century-old conflicts persist in the vast tracts of Indonesia that are designated as state forest

Land titles do not equal agrarian reform

Activists split with Indonesia’s government over whether land registration helps the rural poor

The trouble with oil palm

Conflicts between villagers and plantation companies in Sumatra are still unresolved

Idyllic rural Java is rapidly becoming urban. As a result, peasants are now less in conflict with landlords than with the state. This radically changes the way we think about the best way to organise for change, according to JUNI THAMRIN andVEDI HADIZ.

Taking on the timber tycoons

It's lonely in the Forestry Minister's office, says GERRY VAN KLINKEN.

Travels in West Timor

SIMON ANDREWARTHA discovers a quiet invasion by outsiders, even in the remotest villages.

Mamberamo madness

Millions of hectares of pristine tropical forest and thousands of indigenous people are at risk. FRANCES CARR outlines Habibie's 'techno dream' for Irian Jaya.

Land, church and state

Forestry business packaged in ecological concerns in Flores

Subscribe to Inside Indonesia

Receive Inside Indonesia's latest articles and quarterly editions in your inbox.

Lontar Modern Indonesia

A selection of stories from the Indonesian classics and modern writers, periodically published free for Inside Indonesia readers, courtesy of Lontar.