The Request alleges that the Project is causing serious environmental and social harm to the community. It claims the Project is exacerbating unresolved land and boundary disputes, and delayed recognition of the community as Indigenous Peoples. The Project aims to incentivize reduced deforestation and forest degradation in East Kalimantan, through payments for verified emission reductions (ERs) and to ensure distribution of these payments under an agreed Benefit Sharing Plan (BSP).
The community identifies as Indigenous Peoples and considers that it meets the criteria under the relevant Bank’s safeguard policy. The Request alleges that the Project fails to recognize the community’s land rights and their customary land use, undermining cultural practices such as forest rituals and rotational farming resulting in livelihood losses. It further alleges that the Project “replaces Indigenous-led forest governance with a market-based, commercial-actor-driven model,” commodifying forests as carbon assets and marginalizing Indigenous stewardship systems “under the guise of sustainable management.” The Request claims the BSP “entrenches structural discrimination” by denying direct access to benefits, as ‘reward allocations’ are reserved for recognized Indigenous communities and ‘performance allocations’ require partnerships with government or concession holders.
The Request states that the consultations for the Project were “inadequate, misleading, coercive, and discriminatory from the outset.” It adds that the consultations misrepresented the Free Prior Informed Consent (FPIC) process as it pertained to their community. The Request claims the Project makes minimal effort to ensure that women’s participation in consultations, benefit-sharing, or grievance processes reflect their needs and cultural roles.
Finally, the Request states that since raising concerns, the community has faced “veiled threats”, coercion and retaliation rather than meaningful engagement, despite having notified the Bank.
The Panel is currently reviewing the Request on its admissibility in accordance with its mandate and operating procedure.
