State fishing village plan in Indonesian Papua sparks Indigenous opposition

Indigenous leaders in Indonesia’s South Papua province have rejected a government plan to build a state-backed fishing settlement on their ancestral land, highlighting growing tensions between national development programs and customary land rights in the country’s easternmost island.

Members of the Wiyagar tribe say the proposed Red and White Fishers’ Village (KNMP) in Sumuraman, a remote coastal area in Mappi district, is being advanced without proper consultation with traditional landowners. The project forms part of a nationwide initiative to develop hundreds of “modern” fishing settlements to boost marine productivity and coastal livelihoods.

“We oppose the designation of Sumuraman as a Red and White Fishers’ Village because the people of the Wiyagar tribe do not work as fishers there,” Alowisius Boi, a coordinator of the coalition Solidarity for the Environment and People in South Papua, said as quoted by local media.

Local Indigenous organizations and youth groups say the government has treated Sumuraman as unoccupied land, even though it has been held under the customary tenure of Wiyagar families for generations.

Community representatives say they weren’t informed when officials from the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries conducted surveys in early March, and they accuse authorities of meeting with people they don’t recognize as legitimate landowners.

The dispute also reflects deeper complexities in Indonesian Papua, where decades of migrant influx from other parts of Indonesia, overlapping land claims, and weak recognition of customary land boundaries often complicate state development projects. Wiyagar leaders say families from the neighboring Asmat ethnic group were allowed to settle in Sumuraman in the early 1990s for social reasons, but stress that this permission did not transfer ownership of the land.

Government officials say the proposed fishing village is part of a broader plan to modernize Indonesia’s fisheries sector. Facilities under the program typically include cold storage, fuel depots, and cooperatives, all intended to connect small-scale fishers to regional markets. Authorities say similar pilot projects have significantly increased incomes in other regions.

President Prabowo Subianto has made the fishing village program a central plank of his maritime development strategy, with a target of building more than 1,000 such settlements by 2026. By the end of the decade, the government expects to have 5,000 such villages.

The initiative is focused largely on eastern Indonesia, where infrastructure gaps and poverty rates remain higher than the national average despite vast marine resources, according to the fisheries minister, Sakti Wahyu Trenggono.

The controversy also highlights broader debates regarding how marine-oriented development projects are implemented, said Stephanie Juwana, co-founder and director of the Indonesia Ocean Justice Initiative (IOJI).

While the fishers’ village initiative is intended to empower small-scale fishers, Stephanie said such “blue economy” projects could result in what she called “blue injustice” — where top-down planning disregards local livelihoods and cultural systems. In such cases, she said, development meant to improve coastal economies can instead marginalize the very communities it aims to support.

Stephanie pointed to the Ocean Equity Index, a framework used to evaluate whether marine development is fair and inclusive. The index highlights two key principles: procedural equity, which requires meaningful community participation in decision-making, and recognitional equity, which calls for respect for local identities and customary governance systems. She said the Sumuraman case appears to fall short on both counts, as Indigenous landowners report being excluded from early planning and say their social and cultural contexts were not considered in the project’s design.

“This situation should serve as an opportunity for the government to reflect on the implementation of the KNMP program, especially given its large scale and the budget allocated to it,” Stephanie told Mongabay. “Without improvements in how the community is engaged and how local diversity is acknowledged, the program risks not only being ineffective but also reinforcing the very inequalities it aims to address.”

For the Wiyagar tribe, the issue is not only economic, but also cultural and legal in nature. Tribal members say the proposed site doesn’t support a traditional fishing livelihood and warn that infrastructure projects such as a planned bridge and other developments could further threaten their land and environment.

“This land has been inhabited by the Wiyagar tribe as its rightful owners for generations; it is not vacant land, but rather customary land passed down by the Wiyagar tribe’s ancestors,” Alowsius said as quoted by local media. “As this heritage has been passed down from our ancestors to the present day, any development plans must involve us as the holders of customary rights.”

Observers point out that the way the project is being implemented contradicts Article 60 of Indonesia’s coastal management law, which guarantees the rights of coastal communities to participate in decisions affecting their territories. They also point to constitutional provisions and agrarian legislation that require the state to recognize and protect customary land rights and to secure community consent before development can proceed.

Activists also warn that large-scale fisheries and coastal projects in Indonesian Papua have often been accompanied by other extractive industries, including shrimp aquaculture and mining, raising fears of cumulative environmental and social impacts. In this context, they argue that the Sumuraman case reflects broader concerns about how development programs are planned and implemented in Indigenous territories.

“So, once again, it can be said that the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries has failed and tends to act as a predator toward Indonesia’s traditional fishers,” Susan Herawati, secretary-general of the People’s Coalition for Fisheries Justice (KIARA), a national NGO, told Mongabay.

The standoff highlights the broader challenge Indonesia faces in balancing its ambitious development agenda with the protection of Indigenous rights, particularly in Papua, where customary land claims are long-standing but often lack formal legal recognition. As the government ramps up investment in fisheries and coastal infrastructure, disputes such as the one in Sumuraman are likely to become a critical test of how the state manages Indigenous consent and land governance in resource rich frontier regions, observers warn.

The controversy is further intensified by the government classifying the fishing village project as one of strategic national importance, or PSN — a designation that has drawn widespread criticism in recent years for letting developers wield extensive eminent domain rights to take land. Across Indonesia, large infrastructure, plantation, and industrial projects fast-tracked under this framework have been linked to land conflicts, environmental damage, and allegations of human rights abuses. Investigations have found that PSN projects have affected more than 100,000 families and more than 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of land, with Indigenous communities in Papua reporting cases of forced displacement, intimidation by security forces, and limited consultation.

Critics say the PSN designation allows developments to move forward with fewer regulatory hurdles and weaker public participation requirements, effectively prioritizing economic growth while undermining protections for customary land rights and fragile ecosystems.

Basten Gokkon, senior staff writer for Indonesia at Mongabay, contributed to this reporting. Find him on 𝕏 @bgokkon.

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