Toward a Green Future Through the Concept of a Green State Vision -By Miftakhul Shodikin

The tolling of a church bell in Kampung Bariat breaks the stillness of a Papuan morning. Its resonance drifts gently through the remnants of customary forests that have withstood the advance of logging. A thin mist hangs low, clinging to the trunks of sago trees that stand like ancient sentinels—quiet witnesses to a landscape where culture, ecology, and the contested trajectories of law and development continue to converge.

Inside the simple wooden church, the pastor stood at the altar with his Bible. This Sunday, the pastor spoke about ecological repentance—the doctrine of acknowledging human errors, crimes, and injustices against the natural environment. He spoke of people who have forgotten that the earth is not merely an economic resource, but the womb of life. He spoke of rivers that flow, carrying not only water, but also the history and prayers of our ancestors.

“This land is not only a legacy from our ancestors,” he said softly,

“but also a trust for our children and grandchildren.”

Softly, the congregation listens to the pastor’s sermon, their quiet attention interwoven with the distant roar of chainsaws that tear through the air. Far beyond the church walls, vast stretches of land lie flattened in a pale brown expanse—the unmistakable traces of heavy machinery operating with relentless continuity.

Kampung Bariat, located in Konda District, stands as one among many customary villages in South Sorong that steadfastly defend their ancestral forest rights. For the Afsya sub-tribe, the forest is not merely a physical territory, but a living space where tradition, subsistence, and intergenerational knowledge converge and endure.

The pastor continues his sermon, his voice calm, almost dissolving into the wind that slips through the gaps of the wooden walls. He speaks of land as identity, as a spiritual domain, and as the foundation of future generations. Yet, he is also aware that from these Papuan highlands, his words will scarcely reach the ears of the State Palace.

At the State Palace of the Republic of Indonesia itself, President Prabowo, at the end of last year, delivered instructions to regional heads across Papua and the Executive Committee for the Acceleration of Special Autonomy Development. Within that framework, Prabowo ordered the planting of oil palms in the land of Papua.

With its vast expanses of land, Papua is perceived as possessing the spatial capacity to become a hub of energy production—one that could strengthen strategic reserves and reduce dependence on imports. This constitutes a central ambition of President Prabowo: the large-scale expansion of oil palm cultivation across the Papuan landscape.

Why Does President Prabowo Favor Oil Palm as a Strategic Commodity?

From a fiscal and geopolitical standpoint, President Prabowo’s oil palm agenda is not without rationale. Indonesia’s dependence on energy imports places a significant burden on the state budget, and diversification through biofuel constitutes a strategy widely adopted by developing economies. Yet, the fundamental issue lies not merely in policy intent, but in the architecture of the policy itself and its structural consequences.

Empirical realities on the ground reveal a far more troubling picture. The expansion of oil palm plantations in other regions of Indonesia has consistently demonstrated patterns of intensified agrarian conflict and unequal distribution of economic benefits. Ecologically, oil palm monoculture cannot substitute the complex functions of natural forests. Despite its formal classification as a “tree,” it fails to sustain comparable biodiversity, disrupts hydrological balance, and, as numerous studies indicate, contributes to increased carbon emissions due to land conversion.

From a juridical perspective, the central problem of “palm oilization” lies not merely in the issuance of business permits, but in the legitimacy of consent procedures. The principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), as recognized in international human rights law, requires that indigenous communities be consulted in a manner that is free, prior, and adequately informed before any project with significant impact is undertaken.

Papua’s Special Autonomy status is normatively designed to strengthen the role of indigenous peoples in natural resource governance. Accordingly, if oil palm expansion is pursued through a top-down approach with minimal local control, such policy risks contradicting the very spirit of autonomy it purports to advance.

In this light, development must not be reduced to a mere calculus of production and export. Rather, it must be situated within a framework of ecological justice and the recognition of indigenous rights—principles that are indispensable to ensuring both legal legitimacy and sustainable governance.

Decolonizing the Politics of Commodities

The ambition to position Papua as a hub of bioenergy production reflects a development paradigm still confined within the logic of commodity-driven politics—an orientation deeply rooted in the legacy of colonial economic architecture.

In the nineteenth century, the Dutch East Indies institutionalized the cultivation system (cultuurstelsel), structured around export commodities such as coffee, sugar, indigo, and tobacco. Land was systematically mapped as a unit of production, while forests, fields, and plantations were reduced to entries in the colonial trade ledger. As a colonial regime, it did not conceive of land as a socio-cultural entity—let alone as a bearer of customary rights—but rather as a fiscal instrument serving imperial interests.

This historical logic, in many respects, continues to resonate in Papua today. While forced cultivation has long been relegated to the archives of history, and no formal obligation remains to plant export crops for colonial quotas, the underlying dynamics of coercion have not entirely disappeared. When indigenous communities stand to defend the forests they have inherited across generations, pressure often re-emerges in more contemporary forms—less visible than the whip, yet no less forceful in its effect.

Invoked under the banners of “state vision” and “strategic national interest,” the release of customary forests can be readily justified as a necessity of development. It is at this juncture that a fundamental question arises: has the paradigm of development genuinely transitioned from colonization to decolonization, or have only the actors changed while the underlying logic remains intact?

The Green State Vision by the Free Papua Movement

While Prabowo remains preoccupied with his palm oil business, it is important to note that a different narrative is emerging on the international stage. It is not about barrels of biofuel. It is not about the oil and gas trade deficit. Rather, it is about forests as the foundation of the nation.

The United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) has introduced what they call the Green State Vision. The ULMWP is a political organization serving as a diplomatic umbrella for the Free Papua Movement (OPM) at the international level. In global forums such as COP26, they project Papua as a candidate for the “first green nation in the Pacific”—a nation whose future constitution will enshrine the protection of forests, indigenous communities, and sustainability as foundational principles.

These ideas are intertwined with the evolving discourse on ecocracy—a concept that places ecological interests as a normative principle in state governance. In ecocracy, the legitimacy of power is not measured solely by democratic procedures or economic effectiveness, but also by the state’s ability to maintain ecological balance for current and future generations.

In the Indonesian context, this discourse was elaborated upon by Prof. Jimly Asshiddiqie through the concept of a “Green Constitution.” In his interpretation, the 1945 Constitution actually possesses “green undertones,” particularly through Article 28H(1), which guarantees every person’s right to a good and healthy environment, and Article 33(4), which affirms the principles of sustainability and environmental awareness in the national economy. This means that, normatively, the environment has been positioned as part of the human rights framework and not merely as an object of policy.

More radical developments are evident in several other countries. The 2008 Constitution of Ecuador, for example, explicitly recognizes the rights of nature. Nature—Pachamama—is recognized as a legal subject with the right to be restored when damaged. Bolivia followed suit with the Law on the Rights of Mother Earth, which affirms that the earth has the right to life and regeneration. In France, the 2004 Environmental Charter (Charte de l’Environnement) was integrated into the constitutional block, providing a strong foundation for environmental protection as part of the republic’s constitutional principles.

Toward a Green Future for Papua

On the one hand, the Indonesian government is promoting the expansion of oil palm plantations in the name of energy independence and national strategic interests. On the other hand, there is a separatist political movement—through the ULMWP as an extension of the OPM—that frames itself as a defender of the forests, indigenous communities, and Papua’s ecological future. Of course, this situation creates a dangerous space for sympathy toward the state. When indigenous communities feel their land rights are threatened by national policies, while the OPM’s alternative narrative promises ecological protection and constitutional recognition, emotional and political allegiances can easily shift. A state that fails to deliver ecological justice risks losing moral legitimacy at the local level as well as its bargaining position on the international stage.

Although explained above, Prof. Jimly did mention that the post-amendment 1945 Constitution has a “green nuance” (green constitution). However, it should also be noted that Prof. Jimly himself outlines distinct stages in the constitutionalization of environmental protection:

1. Formal Constitutionalization refers to the stage at which environmental norms are explicitly enshrined within the constitutional text. Indonesia currently operates at this level, where the right to a healthy environment is recognized as a constitutional right of citizens. However, such formal recognition does not necessarily ensure substantive implementation.

2. Substantive Constitutionalization (Policy-Oriented) denotes a phase in which environmental principles do not merely exist in textual form, but actively guide the direction of public policy. France is often cited as a leading example, particularly through the Charter for the Environment (2004), which has been incorporated into its constitutional bloc. Within this framework, principles such as the precautionary principle and sustainable development exert binding influence over legislation and state policy.

3. Structural Constitutionalization represents the most advanced stage, wherein the constitution not only recognizes the human right to a healthy environment but also acknowledges the rights of nature itself, supported by institutional structures to safeguard them. Ecuador’s 2008 Constitution provides a prominent example, recognizing nature (Pachamama) as a legal subject endowed with the right to restoration when harmed. This approach transcends anthropocentric environmental protection, affirming an ontological recognition of nature as an independent legal entity.

Within this framework, Indonesia does indeed have a normative green foundation, but it remains at a formal level. When development policies actually drive the massive conversion of primary forests, a gap emerges between the text of the constitution and governmental practice.

The author’s personal perspective is grounded in the principle of the sovereignty of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI). Territorial integrity is a non-negotiable constitutional foundation. Papua is a legitimate part of the NKRI. Yet precisely because of this, the state must not ignore the dynamics of legitimacy at the grassroots level.

In other words, this issue is not merely a clash between nationalism and separatism, but a clash between development models and ecological justice. The government needs to assess this situation comprehensively and clearly. The Indonesian Constitution does indeed have a “green dimension”; it simply depends on the understanding of state officials and stakeholders.

Ultimately, all these debates come back to a simple scene in Bariat Village: the ringing of a church bell in the midst of a traditional forest that is steadily shrinking. The state must be present and listen to that voice, before the ringing turns into an echo of resistance—just as other Papuan people are resisting!