Jakarta – The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) has highlighted the culture of land ownership in Asia which has changed significantly and fundamentally in the last 70 years. Walhi Executive Director Zenzi Suhadi said the communal ownership systems for waters and land is heading towards privatisation.
"Where, the communal ownership system, for waters, land, has slowly but surely in the last 70 years moved towards privatisation", said Suhadi during a press conference in preparation for the Asia Land Forum (ALF) on Friday February 14.
The ALF will be held in Indonesia on February 17-21 and will be attended by 500 organisations from 15 countries, including organizations under the United Nations.
Suhadi said that the privatisation of land and waters has also occurred in Indonesia. In fact, civilisation, culture, and the social economy of society are very dependent on communal territorial areas.
In Indonesia, Suhadi said, communal areas such as waters, swamps, peatlands, including coastal areas are now starting to be privately owned. In this case, the ownership is in the hands of corporate groups.
"Like in Indonesia, communal areas, peat waters, swamps, and including coastal and marine areas are now forced to become part of the private ownership system. In this case, it is dominated by corporate groups", he said.
According to Suhadi, the fundamental problems in Indonesia today, such as the food, environmental and housing crises, are the result of past policy errors that separate society from its sources of livelihood.
Instead of correcting this mistake, the government continues to expand privatisation. Suhadi, for example, highlighted the government's way of overcoming the food crisis through food estates.
"It should be that the existing food crisis, housing crisis, be addressed by giving the people the opportunity to determine their lives through agrarian reform and so on", he said.
"But the policy decisions now being taken are directed towards fulfilling food supply in Indonesia that is directed towards production by corporations in the form of food estates", added Suhadi.
Agrarian Reform Consortium (KPA) representative Dewi Kartika explained that ALF will invite all parties to sit down together and discuss how to reorganise the agrarian system, land system and natural resource management.
According to Kartika, the forum will become a momentum for all stakeholders from countries in Asia to talk about fundamental issues. Moreover, Asia is currently the world's mainstay in terms of energy and labour supply.
"Well, in that context, in Asia of course we are experiencing many challenges and a critical phase marked by inequality in land ownership, land grabbing, and increasing agrarian conflicts", she said. (thr/fra)
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Walhi: Kepemilikan Daratan dan Perairan di Asia Menuju Privatisasi".]
