Seminar | New agrarian reform policies in Indonesia | Noer Fauzi Rachman

Abstract
Expansion of the mining industry, plantations, forest concessions for industries, and infrastructure projects for national economic development have led to land grabbing at a large scale, leading to conflicts. In Indonesia, many of these large scale land conflicts remain without proper solutions. This situation is complicated because land tenure is regulated by a complex combination of formal and informal, state and traditional arrangements, and highly sectorized in land managing institutions. Joko Widodo, the President of the Republic of Indonesia, and progressive government officials have been taking the lead to launch and implement new agrarian reform policies to address this problem. The President has invited several scholar-activists to participate directly in this policy process. One of these scholar-activists is Noer Fauzi Rachman. In this seminar he will elaborate on the current developments in agrarian reform policies, and describe how scholar activists work ‘from within the government’ promoting a new agrarian reform program, customary forest recognition, and social forestry schemes.

Speaker
Noer Fauzi Rachman is an agrarian reform-movement activist, author and lecturer. He holds a PhD in Environmental Science, Policy and Management from University of California, Berkeley. He worked as a special advisor for the Head of the Presidential Staff Office in Indonesia (2015-2018). As government advisor for land policy, he has been engaged in designing the Indonesian President’s Program on Agrarian Reform, initiating the legal recognition of customary forest, and advancing social forestry program in Indonesia.

Registration
The seminar is organized by the Van Vollenhoven Institute, Leiden University and KITLV. Please register if you wish to attend: [email protected].

Photo: the photo is taken from Joko Prianto’s facebook. The picture tells the situation when farmers form Kendeng filed a lawsuit to review the administrative court decision to stop cement operation in their area.