Tidligere på året vandt de oprindelige folk i Indonesien en stor sejr om deres rettigheder til oprindelig skov. En rettighedsgruppe har nu lovet at kortlægge de over 30 millioner hektar skov, der endnu ikke er kortlagt, og som efterlader området sårbar over for fortsat rydning, skriver miljøsitet Mongabay.
An indigenous peoples’ rights group has vowed to map millions of hectares of customary land in Indonesia, an ambitious target it hopes will help protect indigenous forests from encroachment by palm oil and pulp and paper concessions.
Last May, indigenous peoples in Indonesia won a major victory regarding their rights to customary lands, after a landmark ruling by the country’s Constitutional Court declared state control of customary forests unconstitutional.
The ruling theoretically puts 40 million hectares of forest in the hands of indigenous communities. However, over 30 million hectares of customary forests are not yet mapped, leaving communities vulnerable to land grabbing by companies for plantation expansion or other development projects.
“We have already mapped seven million hectares of land, but that took us 15 years,” said Abdon Nababan, the secretary general of the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), a group representing 17 million indigenous people in Indonesia.
“We need to take advantage of new mapping tools like GPS and 3D mapping to accelerate the process of mapping the more than 30 million hectares we have left to document,” he added, speaking at the Global Conference on Participatory Mapping of Indigenous Territories in Sumatra earlier this week.
Læs videre på http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0828-dparker-mapping-indonesia-customary-forests.html
