ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the general findings of a small-scale empirical study undertaken across several provincial capitals in Indonesia during the months of May, June and July 2014, entitled ‘UN-REDD+ impacts on indigenous women in Indonesia’, referred to as the Indonesian study. An additional field visit to a ‘closed’ United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (UN-REDD+) project site in Central Kalimantan took place in February 2015.
The aim in presenting the Indonesian study’s general findings mediated through the direct voices of the study’s participants, is to provide a platform, unvarnished by author privilege of authentic on-the-ground views on the projects under study. The most salient general finding to emerge from participants in both Central Kalimantan and Central Sulawesi is the poverty, and necessity, of adat recognition (customary community) via secure tenure that requires implementation of the Indonesian Constitutional Court’s landmark ruling. Decision 35/2012 was a major victory for adat communities; however, participant after participant interviewed in the Indonesian study reinforced that the ruling has had no effect on the ground. What is now needed to enforce the decision, they maintained, are regulations implemented at the national, provincial, district and sub-district levels of government.
