Publication

This paper comments on the contradictions between customary land rights and forestry and oil palm investment and on social tensions associated with the influx of non-Papuans in the Indonesian Papua region of Boven Digoel. The paper explores the link between ethnic politics and administrative decentralization, discusses the social and political issue generated by logging and oil palm investment and sheds light on the security situation. The paper argues that administrative decentralization and natural resource investment include a risk of exacerbating local social and ethnic tensions.