Mining, land and community rights in Indonesia

Indonesia's immense mineral reserves hold out the promise of economic development for people in many of Indonesia's poor and remote regions. But the mineral deposits tend to be found on land used for generations by rural populations for livelihoods - farming, forest product collection, even small-scale mining - and/or zoned by the state for forest protection. These are often marginal peoples, and although they may have developed systems of property rights over the centuries, they usually lack formal, state-recognised title to their land. Disputes over land use and (non-)recognition of land rights have been a distinctive feature of projects to exploit Indonesia's rich mineral resources.