Conservation, REDD+ and the struggle for land in Jambi, Indonesia

Abstract

The Hutan Harapan project in Jambi is implemented within Indonesia’s first private ecosystem restoration concession. Ongoing disputes over land access and control challenge the project implementation. Drawing on field work conducted in 2012 and 2013 this paper analyses how smallholder access land and how different authorities and discourses are used by smallholders to legitimate land claims. We argue that the Harapan case shows that marginalized smallholders and indigenous groups are able to establish powerful actor coalitions across scales. Actor coalitions provide smallholders the ability to maintain land claims within the protected Hutan Harapan. La Via Campesina and its Indonesian branch Serikat Petani Indonesia use the Hutan Harapan conflict as a showcase to criticize REDD+ at global venues such as UN climate change conferences.

Keywords

• Land conflicts
• Forest Conservation
• Peasant movement
• REDD+
• Indonesia