Indonesia: East Kalimantan Project for Emission Reductions Results

An aerial view of the Lengasah River in the customary forest of the Dayak Bahau Umaq
Suling Long Isun community (Credit: Rainforest Action Network).

The Long Isun community’s history is deeply intertwined with the forests of East Kalimantan. For generations, they have lived along the upper Mahakam River, sustaining themselves through small-scale farming, fishing, hunting, and gathering forest products. Their land is not just a source of livelihood but the foundation of their identity, social structure, and spirituality. Every river bend, tree, and valley carries ancestral meaning. Their customary laws guide forest use, nurturing balance between people and nature, a system that has preserved the region’s biodiversity long before modern conservation programs existed.

Indonesia’s participation in the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) and its Emission Reduction (ER) Project reflects the country’s commitment to the global REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) framework. The ER Project in East Kalimantan, supported by the World Bank, aims to reduce carbon emissions by rewarding efforts to conserve forests and limit deforestation. The program is bound by the World Bank’s Environmental and Social Safeguards and Indonesia’s own SIS-REDD+ (Safeguard Information System for REDD+), both of which commit to respecting Indigenous rights, ensuring Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), and protecting customary land tenure.

However, the lived reality in Long Isun reveals how these safeguards have been systematically undermined. An existing boundary conflict between the community and PT. Kemakmuran Berkah Timber (PT. KBT) predates the ER Project, but has been worsened by its implementation. Since 1966, Long Isun has had a well-documented customary territory, yet successive government decrees and private concessions eroded these rights. In 2008, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry granted PT. KBT a concession covering 82,810 hectares—13,150 of which overlap with Long Isun’s customary land. Despite clear objections, this lack of recognition became particularly critical under the ER Project.

The Long Isun community has repeatedly sought recognition of its MHA status and customary territory but continues to face administrative delays and lack of government response. Their 1966 boundary documentation and oral histories have not been formally recognized in regional spatial planning, leaving them vulnerable to overlapping claims from private companies and state conservation zones. Ironically, the ER Project’s own design documents acknowledge the existence of tenure conflicts and the limited recognition of MHA communities as a key social risk. Yet, despite this admission, the project has failed to develop or implement adequate mitigation measures. There are no clear procedures within the project to facilitate recognition of Indigenous territories and resolve boundary disputes.

Throughout the phases of the project (2018-2025), the project’s focus has remained fixed on technical reporting, carbon accounting, and institutional compliance, rather than Indigenous participation and consent. The lived realities of the people whose forests make the project possible have been ignored. The very communities who have preserved these forests are now denied recognition as rightful stewards. Their participation in decision-making was tokenistic, often conducted without translation to Dayak Bahau or genuine consent. This situation exposes a profound contradiction that while the ER Project and the World Bank publicly champion equity and safeguard compliance, the on-the-ground experience in Long Isun demonstrates the opposite.

Community concerns and the impact of the project on the community

From the outset, the Long Isun Indigenous community has faced a project that was neither transparent nor just. The ER Project has unfolded without meaningful consultation or consent, embedding discrimination and structural violence into its design.

• Lack of Meaningful Consultation and Sham FPIC: Consultations with Long Isun were perfunctory, misleading, and exclusionary. Meetings were conducted in Bahasa Indonesia, not the community’s Dayak Bahau language, and only a few representatives were invited to token sessions later misrepresented as “Free, Prior and Informed Consent” (FPIC). When community members finally attended a meeting in August 2024, believing it was about their land rights, they discovered it was instead only a carbon fund socialization. Their attendance was fraudulently recorded as consent. Despite formally revoking the forged consent, the ER Project continued to count Long Isun’s forests in its carbon calculations, which resulted in restriction of forest access.
• Violation of Customary Rights and Cultural Heritage: By treating ancestral forests as state property for carbon accounting, the ER Project erased Long Isun’s customary ownership and cultural connection to their land. The community’s ability to perform sacred forest rituals and rotational farming practices, integral to their identity and survival, has been curtailed without recognition or compensation.
• Exacerbation of Land Conflict: The ER Project intersected with a long-standing boundary dispute involving PT KBT, a timber company, and the neighboring community of Naha Aruq. Instead of taking measures in resolving these conflicts, the Project deepened them by incorporating contested territories into its carbon calculations.
• Structural Discrimination in Benefit Sharing: Under the Benefit Sharing Plan (BSP), only legally recognized Indigenous groups qualify for direct rewards, excluding unrecognized communities like Long Isun. This forces them into partnerships with concessionaires, including PT KBT, whose executives sit within the Project’s governance structure, creating clear conflicts of interest. The system institutionalizes exclusion and retraumatizes communities already harmed by corporate and state actors.
• Delayed Indigenous Recognition: Long Isun’s lack of formal recognition as an MHA locks them out of benefits, legal protections, and tenure security. In Mahakam Ulu, none of the 50 villages have yet received recognition. Long Isun was the first indigenous community from Mahakam Ulu who applied for the MHA back in 2018. Without the MHA, Long Isun will not be able to access the benefits designated for recognized indigenous peoples in the Benefit Sharing Plan, and their lands can be given for concessions without their consent. The Project’s failure to address this systemic barrier has entrenched discrimination and perpetuated vulnerability.
• Forced Inclusion and Misuse of Village Funds: Even after revoking consent, Long Isun’s forest continues to generate carbon credits for state profit. Funds were deposited into the village account without the community’s approval.
• Threats to Livelihoods and Food Security: The ER Project has resulted in restrictions on customary practices such as swidden farming and controlled burning, central to food security and ecological balance, without providing alternatives.
• Fear, Retaliation, and Coercion: When Long Isun refused to attend consultations, local officials threatened to withdraw village funding, compelling participation under duress. Community members and allies faced intimidation, with officials warning that advocacy could “antagonize” local governments and block development funds. Such coercion nullifies any notion of “free” consent and violates the Bank’s safeguards against reprisals.
• Gendered Harms and Exclusion: Indigenous women, the backbone of forest stewardship and food security, were excluded from consultations and decision-making. Restrictions on forest use have undermined women’s livelihoods in foraging, farming, and weaving, while the absence of gender-sensitive grievance mechanisms left them without recourse. These impacts deepen gender inequality and contravene the Bank’s own gender and safeguard policies. Moreover, by labeling extractive activities as environmentally sustainable, the ER Project has effectively incentivized continued commercial exploitation under a “green” label, further marginalizing Indigenous women and deepening both gender and environmental inequities.

World Bank’s Contribution to Harm

In November 2020, the World Bank approved the ER Project with total funding of US$ 110 million. The funding is said to be distributed amongst relevant stakeholders in accordance with a pre-agreed BSP.

A portrait of members of the Long Isun Indigenous community in front of the traditional
Lamin of the Dayak Bahau Long Isun community (Credit: Rainforest Action Network).

Raising Concerns with the East Kalimantan Authority and the World Bank

Since the launch of the ER Project, the Long Isun community, supported by civil society organizations and Indigenous rights advocates, has repeatedly raised concerns over the lack of consultation, exclusion from benefit-sharing, and violations of customary land rights. These efforts have included formal letters, community meetings with district and provincial authorities, and direct communication with the World Bank’s project management team in Jakarta.

Despite these sustained efforts, the community’s calls for remedy and recognition have been met with prolonged silence, bureaucratic deflection, and fragmented responses.

Local Indigenous leaders have sought recognition under Indonesia’s Masyarakat Hukum Adat (MHA) framework. However, since their applications have faced indefinite delays. As a result, the legally unrecognized communities like Long Isun remain effectively excluded from fair participation in the ER Project’s BSP.

In 2021, community representatives raised these issues during the World Bank’s Benefit Sharing Plan consultation process, emphasizing that no Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) was ever obtained before their forests were included in the ER accounting area. Nevertheless, the Bank proceeded with project approval, citing the inclusion of “provincial-level consultations” as sufficient under its safeguard compliance framework. Despite repeated requests from the community for the Bank to facilitate meetings with PKTHA to resolve ongoing land boundary disputes and to address the delayed Masyarakat Hukum Adat (MHA) recognition process, no formal remediation has been initiated, and engagement with affected households remains limited.

Faced with the continued absence of accountability, the community and its allies are now considering escalating the matter to the World Bank’s Accountability Mechanism. Through this pathway, we hope to facilitate constructive discussions to address key concerns, including the lack of FPIC, absence of transparency, and the exclusion of unrecognized indigenous communities. The community’s priority is to achieve a fair resolution through a meaningful dialogue with WB and relevant government stakeholders.

Complaint to the Inspection Panel

After years of raising unaddressed concerns about the social, cultural, and environmental harms resulting from the inclusion of their customary forest in the ER Project, the Long Isun community, supported by Perkumpulan Nurani Perempuan, Accountability Counsel, and Forest Project People as advisors, formally submitted a complaint to the World Bank’s Inspection Panel on 3 November 2025. The complaint has been endorsed by the communities, and was developed through rigorous documentation, in-depth consultations, and direct input from affected households.

In the complaint, the communities raise the issues outlined above and demand the following (summary):

• Suspend Remaining Disbursements: The Bank must immediately suspend the final USD 89.1 million disbursement until its accountability mechanism concludes its complaint process. Continuing payments while violations persist would deepen harm, potentially irreversibly.
• Halt Project Activities in Long Isun Territory: All ER Project activities must cease immediately until the land conflict between Long Isun, Naha Aruq, and timber company PT. KBT is resolved, and Long Isun’s MHA recognition is finalized.
• Respect Long Isun’s Decision to Opt Out: The Bank and the government must remove Long Isun’s forests from benefit calculations and stop fund allocations and forest access restrictions made without consent.
• Acknowledge Harms and Ensure Remedy: The community demands formal recognition of these harms and corrective actions consistent with Bank policies.
• Revise the Benefit Sharing Plan (BSP): The BSP must be overhauled to guarantee equitable and direct benefits for Indigenous Peoples. Free from state or corporate control and to ensure benefit distribution does not exacerbate land disputes.

Case partners

Accountability Counsel is partnering on this case with Perkumpulan Nurani Perempuan (PNP) who works for gender justice, democracy and a sustainable environment for social justice. We also partner with the Forest Peoples Program (FPP), a non-governmental organization that works with forest people to protect their rights and their forest.