Customary Rights; Cross Country Boundaries - Case from Yeinan, Merauke

When more than 30 leaders of Yeinan tribe siting in the seminary houses of Catholic Church in Merauke – Papua Provinces of Indonesia and talked about their rights I was amazed to know that about 10 of them are coming from Papua New Guinea the neighbor of Indonesia. Recognizing their brotherhood, same vision in protects their rights and solidarity to solve their society problems they have forget for their different of nationality and siting in harmony using their traditional Yeinan language discussed, inputted, clarified and verified the information of their tribe boundary.

Realizing the threat of Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) implementation to their ancestral land the community of Yeinan in 2012 were called for customary boundary mapping. They considered that the best way to shows their rights and make it recognized is by having a territories right maps. Maps and recognition that be strengthening with strong consensus on the community would become a strong pole for the Yeinan to fight against large scale MIFEE program that have now plan to capturing almost 90% of their customary land.

Responded to the community requested, a collaboration of Catholic Church justice and Peace units in Merauke (SKP KAM) with Participatory Mapping Networking (JKPP) and funding from Samdhana Institute since 2013 has initiated the customary boundary mapping of Yeinan. The mapping was conducted using large scale mapping approaches developed by the Native Land. Taking almost a year of facilitation the 1^st draft of Yeinan boundary maps was released and showed the tribes boundary is crossing the country boundaries. The 1^st draft shows that Yeinan rights are about 630,000 and about 200,000 ha of which are parts of Papua New Guinea (PNG) while the rest are Indonesia. 

Overlay maps of Yeinan with Papua Province - Indonesia administrative boundary maps. Source: Draft 1 Yeinan Maps

Yeinan case has bring us a critical lesson of customary rights are not recognizing the administrative boundary. Connection of culture and livelihood of society are cross official arrangement of citizenship or ID so understanding the clear culture and anthropological connection of people in Papua is crucial to develop a proper and low conflict natural resources management arrangement. When MIFEE program is expanded to the Yeinan ancestral land there are not only Merauke – Indonesia people whose claim and fight to protect their land but also their brother and sister from South Fly in Western PNG Province are joining them to claim for their rights in Indonesia.