Local job creation is a top priority for an indigenous community in Indonesia since rights to a portion of the lands they have occupied for generations are now formally recognized, according to news website MongaBay.
The Kasepuhan people were granted stewardship over their lands in 2017 by the Indonesian government, which was following up on a ruling made in 2013. At that time, Indonesia’s Constitutional Court removed indigenous peoples’ customary forests from state control.
“Now we have this clarity, it’s easy to start making plans for the next five or 10 years,” Engkos Kosasih, who aims to put the Karang forest on the map for ecotourism, told MongaBay.
Kosasih and other local youth want to attract visitors from nearby Jakarta and boost coffee production as a means of creating jobs.
Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo, who is running for re-election in April, says the government has issued certificates for 27,000 square kilometers out of a planned 127,000 square kilometers of land, MongaBay reports.
Read more at MongaBay:
With the legal rights to their forest secure, an indigenous community plans for the future
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