Two new reports expose the serious injustices caused to indigenous peoples, local communities and smallholders by the way oil palm plantations are being developed in Indonesia. The two studies show how the lives of tens of millions of Indonesians affected by the oil palm sector are blighted by laws, policies and practices which systematically limit their rights and prioritise the interests of estate companies, often backed by foreign investors. The first study (Promised Land: Palm Oil and Land Acquisition in Indonesia Implications for Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples by Marcus Colchester, Norman Jiwan, Andiko, Martua Sirait, Asep Yunan Firdaus, A. Surambo and Herbert Pane [2006] Forest Peoples Programme, Sawit Watch, HuMA and ICRAF, Bogor ), based on a detailed legal analysis and field surveys of 6 oil palm operations in 3 provinces, was carried out by Sawit Watch, Forest Peoples Programme (FPP), HuMA and the World Agroforestry Centre. According to the report, Indonesia has already established over 6 million hectares of oil palm plantations, mainly in cleared forests, and regional plans provide for a further 20 million ha. Most of this area is the customary land of indigenous peoples and local communities. The study shows how Indonesian laws and land acquisition procedures provide these peoples with very weak protections. In the name of the ‘national interest’, communities are being forced to give up their lands against their will and without getting adequate compensation. As a result, conflicts between oil palm plantations and local communities are widespread and growing.

The second study (Ghosts on our own land: oil palm smallholders in Indonesia and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil by Forest Peoples Programme and Sawit Watch, Bogor [2006]), again by Sawit Watch and the FPP and based on workshops and interviews with smallholders from several estates in East and West Kalimantan, was undertaken to assess how the new standard of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil fits smallholder realities in Indonesia. The study shows how local farmers, forced to relinquish their lands to plantations, only get back small proportions of their lands as oil palm smallholdings and then find themselves encumbered by substantial debts, which they take up to 20 years to pay off. Farmers complain of low prices, unclear financial arrangements, poor infrastructure, inadequate training and serious social problems on the estates. Their situation is clearly at odds with the RSPO standard. There are about 4 million smallholders and their families on these estates in Indonesia, it is estimated [Ghosts on our own land: oil palm small-holders in Indonesia and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil by Forest Peoples Programme and Sawit Watch, Bogor (2006)]. Unable to comply with international standards which require respect for customary rights, Indonesia is likely to lose market share to oil palm producers from other countries unless the laws, policies and practices which frame the development of the oil palm sector are revised.