Indonesia’s military is taking a leading role in plans to convert more than 2 million hectares of wetlands and savannah into rice farms and sugarcane plantations in a part of the conflict-prone Papua region that conservationists say is an environmental treasure.
The military’s involvement has added to perceptions it is increasingly intruding into civilian areas in Indonesia and prompted a warning it will bring bloodshed to Merauke, the region slated to become a giant food estate. It’s an area of easternmost Indonesia that has largely avoided violence during the decades-long armed conflict between Indonesia and indigenous Papuans seeking their own state.
The plans are part of the government’s ambitions for the nation of 270 million people to achieve food and energy self-sufficiency. They highlight the tension globally between the push for economic development in lower-income countries and protection of the diminishing number of pristine ecosystems.
Taken together, the sugarcane and rice projects for Merauke represent at least a fifth of a 10,000 square kilometer (38,600 square mile) lowland known as the TransFly that spans Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Its name comes from the Fly River – a squiggle on the otherwise straight line on the map that marks the border of the two countries on the island of New Guinea.