Peasant Rights and the Struggle for Climate Justice in  Indonesian Degraded Peatland

Myrna Asnawati Safitri; Dermawati Sihite; Muhammad Yusuf

doi:10.19184/jseahr.v9i1.50756

Authors

Myrna Asnawati Safitri Faculty of Law Pancasila University, Indonesia
Dermawati Sihite Faculty of Law Lambung Mangkurat University, Indonesia
Muhammad Yusuf Peatland and Mangrove Restoration Agency, Indonesia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.19184/jseahr.v9i1.50756

Keywords:

Climate change, peatland, peasants, right to food, UNDROP

Abstract

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other Peoples Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) recognizes and protects the dignity of peasants for their contributions to food production and climate change mitigation and adaptation. For Indonesia, signing UNDROP complements its international commitments to human rights and environmental protection, particularly climate change. Indonesia has ratified the Paris Agreement, which includes climate change mitigation in peat ecosystems as one of its agendas. At the regional level, Indonesia supports the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration and the ASEAN Transboundary Haze Agreement. The Indonesian government has established a zero-tolerance policy towards peatland burning. This policy has resulted in legal vulnerability for peasants who have a tradition of burning peatlands for agriculture. This article examines the influence of laws and policies to control forest and land fires as a form of climate change mitigation in protecting peasants' rights to food and a better environment. In particular, it discusses community-based and participatory approaches to peatland ecosystem restoration implementation in Indonesia and how they relate to the provisions of UNDROP. The research underpinning this article used a participatory legal research method involving the authors in policy making. The authors collected data and analysed laws and policies concerning peatland restoration and peasants' protection. The participatory observation was carried out on agricultural innovation practices and the legal empowerment of the peasants. This article concludes that although UNDROP is not used as a reference in forming peatland restoration policies, some activities have demonstrated the fulfilment of several UNDROP provisions

Keywords: Climate change, peatland, peasants, right to food, UNDROP

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Antara, “Jokowi: Tegakkan Hukum Pembakaran Hutan Tanpa Kompromi” (2021), online: .

Arbuckle Jr, J Gordon, Lois Wright Morton & Jon Hobbs, “Understanding Farmer Perspectives on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation: The Roles of Trust in Sources of Climate Information, Climate Change Beliefs, and Perceived Risk” (2015) 47:2 Environment and Behavior 205–234.

Ardiyanto, Syaifullah Yophi & Tengku Arif Hidayat, “Pola Penegakan Hukum Terhadap Pelaku Pembakaran Hutan dan Lahan” (2021) 1:3 PAMPAS: Journal of Criminal Law 79–91.

ASEAN, “ASEAN Haze and Peatland Programmes” (2014), online: .

Badan Restorasi Gambut (BRG), Gambut Basah adalah Anugerah: 5 Tahun Kinerja BRG, by Badan Restorasi Gambut (BRG) (BRG, 2020).

Clarke, Donal & Jack Rieley, “Strategy for Responsible Peatland Management 2019” (2019), online: International Peatland Society <https://peatlands.org/document/strategy-for-responsible-peatland-management-2019/>.

Cottyn, Hanne, Eric Vanhaute & Esther Beeckaert, “Peasant frontiers as a research strategy: peasant resilience and the reproduction of common land rights” (2022) 37:1 Continuity and Change 43–68.

Duru, Jemima, Joseph Aro & Rachael Ebunoluwa Oladipo, “The effects of climate change on the livelihood of rural women: a case study of Ilorin South, Nigeria” (2022) 46:1 Bulletin of the National Research Centre 165.

Dworkin, Shari L et al, “What community-level strategies are needed to secure women’s property rights in Western Kenya? Laying the groundwork for a future structural HIV prevention intervention” (2013) 26:6 AIDS Care 754–757.

Edelman, Marc, “Linking the Rights of Peasants to the Right to Food in the United Nations” (2012) 10:2 Law, Culture and the Humanities 196–211.

Edelman, Marc, What is a peasant? What are peasantries? A briefing paper on issues of definition (2013).

Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), Global report on food crises. In Food Security Information Network (Issue September), by Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) (2019).

Glover, David & Timothy Jessup, eds, Indonesia’s Fires and Haze: The Cost of Catastrophe | ISEAS Publishing (ISEAS / IDRC, 2016).

Hergoualc’h, K et al, Managing peatlands in Indonesia: Challenges and opportunities for local and global communities, by K Hergoualc’h et al (Bogor: Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), 2018).

Houh, Emily M S & Kristin Kalsem, “Theorizing Legal Participatory Action Research: Critical Race/Feminism and Participatory Action Research” (2015) 21:3 Qualitative Inquiry 262–276.

Hultgren, Andrew et al, “Impacts of climate change on global agriculture accounting for adaptation” (2025) 642:8068 Nature 644–652.

Jewitt, S L et al, “Indonesia’s contested domains. Deforestation, rehabilitation and conservation-with-development in Central Kalimantan’s tropical peatlands” (2014) 16:4 International Forestry Review 405–420.

Joshi, Anuradha, Marta Schaaf & Dina Zayed, “The use of legal empowerment to improve access to quality health services: a scoping review” (2022) 21:1 International Journal for Equity in Health 136.

Khakim, Mokhamad Yusup Nur et al, “Peatland subsidence and vegetation cover degradation as impacts of the 2015 El niño event revealed by Sentinel-1A SAR data” (2020) 84 International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 101953.

Kompas, Tom, Tuong Nhu Che & R Quentin Grafton, “Global impacts of heat and water stress on food production and severe food insecurity” (2024) 14:1 Scientific Reports, online: <https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-65274-z>.

Kurnianto, Bambang Tri, “The Future of Agriculture in Indonesia: Facing Climate Change and Globalization” (2024) 2:04 West Science Agro 171–177.

La Via Campesina, “Peasants at the frontline of the climate struggle share testimonies” (10 January 2024), online: <https://viacampesina.org/en/2024/01/peasants-at-the-frontline-of-the-climate-struggle-share-testimonies/>.

Lapkin, Andrii, “The problems of access to justice in rural areas (on the example of Ukraine)” (2019) 68 SHS Web of Conferences, online: <https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20196801018>.

Lokhandwala, Zainab, “Peasants’ Rights as New Human Rights: Promises and Concerns for Agrobiodiversity Conservation” (2022) 12:1 Asian Journal of International Law 105–120.

Maziya, Mbongeni et al, “The Perceived Impact of Climate Change on the Livelihoods of Smallholder Farmers in Kwazulu-Natal Province, South Africa” (2024) 16:7 Sustainability.

Murniati, Ktut & Abdul Mutolib, “The impact of climate change on the household food security of upland rice farmers in Sidomulyo, Lampung Province, Indonesia” (2020) 21:8 Biodiversitas Journal of Biological Diversity.

Nugroho, Arief, “Olah lahan gambut tanpa bakar, tekan laju kebakaran hutan dan lahan” (28 October 2020), online: Ekuatorial <https://www.ekuatorial.com/2020/10/olah-lahan-gambut-tanpa-bakar-tekan-laju-kebakaran-hutan-lahan/>.

Nunez, Denise González, “Peasants’ Right to Land: Addressing the Existing Implementation and Normative Gaps in International Human Rights Law*” (2014) 14:4 Human Rights Law Review 589–609.

Nurhidayah, Laely et al, “Community-Based Fire Management and Peatland Restoration in Indonesia” in Annisa Triyanti et al, eds, Environmental Governance in Indonesia (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2023) 135.

Osaki, Mitsuru et al, “Peatland in Indonesia” in Mitsuru Osaki & Nobuyuki Tsuji, eds, Tropical Peatland Ecosystems (Tokyo: Springer Japan, 2016) 49.

Page, S E & A Hooijer, “In the line of fire: the peatlands of Southeast Asia” (2016) 371:1696 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 20150176.

Pagnani, Tiziana, Elisabetta Gotor & Francesco Caracciolo, “Adaptive strategies enhance smallholders’ livelihood resilience in Bihar, India” (2020) 13:2 Food Security 419–437.

Purnamasari, Deti Mega, “Banyak Kriminalisasi Masyarakat Adat dengan Tuduhan Pembakaran Hutan”, KOMPAS.com (9 December 2019), online: <https://nasional.kompas.com/read/2019/12/09/16081631/banyak-kriminalisasi-masyarakat-adat-dengan-tuduhan-pembakaran-hutan>.

Purnomo, H et al, “Forest and land fires, toxic haze and local politics in Indonesia” (2019) 21:4 International Forestry Review.

Rondhi, Mohammad et al, “Assessing the Role of the Perceived Impact of Climate Change on National Adaptation Policy: The Case of Rice Farming in Indonesia” (2019) 8:5 Land 81.

Roy, Arabinda, Sanjeev Kumar & Mostafijur Rahaman, “Exploring climate change impacts on rural livelihoods and adaptation strategies: Reflections from marginalized communities in India” (2024) 49 Environmental Development 100937.

Schaaf, Marta et al, “‘We all have the same right to have health services’: a case study of Namati’s legal empowerment program in Mozambique” (2020) 20:1 BMC Public Health 1084.

Serikat Petani Indonesia (SPI), Sejarah Kelahiran Deklarasi Perserikatan Bangsa-Bangsa tentang Hak Asasi Petani dan Orang-orang yang bekerja di pedesaan: Perjuangan Serikat Petani Indonesia dalam Mendorong Perumusan Hak Asasi Petani dari Tingkat Lokal sampai Global, online: <https://spi.or.id/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Sejarah-Lengkap-UNDROP.pdf>.

Syahza, Almasdi et al, “Peatland Policy and Management Strategy to Support Sustainable Development in Indonesia” (2020) 1655:1 Journal of Physics: Conference Series, online: <https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1655/1/012151>.

Tamasiga, Phemelo et al, “Amplifying climate resilience: The impact of social protection, social cohesion, and social capital on public support for climate change action” (2024) 10:1 Sustainable Environment, online: <https://doi.org/10.1080/27658511.2024.2361568>.

Thakur, S B & A Bajagain, “Impacts of Climate Change on Livelihood and its Adaptation Needs” (2019) 20 Journal of Agriculture and Environment 173–185.

Thornton, Philip K et al, “Climate variability and vulnerability to climate change: a review” (2014) 20:11 Global Change Biology 3313–3328.

Tualle, Muchlas Dharmawan et al, “Living through crises due to successive commodity booms and busts: Investigating the changing peasants’ farming style in rural Indonesia” (2023) 7:1 Forest and Society 95–115.

Uda, Saritha Kittie, Lars Hein & Elham Sumarga, “Towards sustainable management of Indonesian tropical peatlands” (2017) 25:6 Wetlands Ecology and Management 683–701.

Vandenbogaerde, Arne, “Localizing the Human Rights Council: A case study of the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants” (2015) 16:2 Journal of Human Rights 220–241.

Vi Agroforestry & We Effect, Climate Justice, (Stockholm: Vi-skogen : We Effect).

White, Ben, Colum Graham & Laksmi Savitri, “Agrarian movements and rural populism in Indonesia” (2023) 23:1 Journal of Agrarian Change 68–84.

Wirya, Albert et al, “Expanding the role of paralegals: supporting realization of the right to health for vulnerable communities” (2020) 20:1 BMC International Health and Human Rights 8.

World Bank, The Cost of Fire: An Economic Analysis of Indonseia’s 2016 Fire Crisis, by World Bank (The Word Bank, 2016).