Indonesia has great natural wealth but many of its citizens live in extreme poverty. Democratic progress has been made since the resigation of former president Suharto in 1998, but many civil society organisations feel that far too little progress has been made towards sustainable management of the country's resources, and ensuring that Indonesia's diverse communities have a real say in decisions which affect their future.
By Yuliana Langowuyo, director of SKPKC Fransiskan Papua, who has been visiting the community in Susun Village at least once a month since 2011 to carry out research and provide assistance.
Guest article by GRAIN. This article was first published in January 2014 on GRAIN’s website, www.grain.org
DTE 98, March 2014
Sudarmin Paliba stands on a hillside, looking down through row upon row of oil palm trees. "This is where we had our fruit trees, and at the bottom we grew paddy rice," he says.
We have between now and 12th December 2013 to urge the EU Governments to put forward a strong proposal on how to fix the failing biofuels policy.
If you live in the EU, please help us to support the calls from Indonesia by contacting your Energy Ministers and Prime Ministers/Presidents, by email, phone, letter or Twitter asking them to:
gn [dot] apc [dot] org
