REDD+ Alert: How the World Bank’s jurisdictional REDD+ pilot in East Kalimantan discriminates against indigenous peoples

The East Kalimantan Jurisdictional Emissions Reduction Program (EK-JERP) is the first of World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility-Carbon Fund (FCPF-CF) pilots in Indonesia and lays the blueprint as to how Results-Based Climate Finance initiatives will be rolled out across the archipelago. The experience of the Dayak Bahau underscores the risk the pilot may be entrenching and aggravating Indonesia’s impairment and nullification of indigenous peoples’ rights.

This briefing provides a critical analysis as to why in its current form, the EK-JERP discriminates against indigenous peoples and does not respect their rights.

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One key pillar of the program, the Benefit Sharing Plan (BSP), which establishes the eligibility criteria for being a beneficiary of the EK-JERP, for example, acts as an inadequate mechanism for communities to access program benefits. Evidence of the efforts of the Dayak Bahau of Long Isun to gain recognition as an indigenous peoples demonstrates the serious challenges to achieving rights recognition in East Kalimantan, one of the central components of the EK-JERP.

The failure of the EK-JERP to uphold indigenous peoples’ rights became the subject of a complaint to the World Bank’s Grievance Redress Service, filed by the Dayak Bahau, which requested that the EK-JERP act as a catalyst for law and policy reform and acceleration of land titling and realization of self-governance rights. Since its submission, the Indonesian State has compounded rights violations, threatening and intimidating the Dayak Bahau of Long Isun and its advocates to (1) withdraw the complaint and (2) consent to the EK-JERP. The increased risk of reprisal has, to date, not been adequately addressed by the GRS and more resolute action by the World Bank is required to remedy these violations.