- Indigenous groups in Indonesia are petitioning the country’s Constitutional Court to invalidate parts of a 2024 conservation law, arguing it could allow the government to designate ancestral lands as conservation areas without communities’ consent and threaten their customary land rights.
- The court case comes a year after the court denied a judicial review of the law’s legislative process, despite dissent from two justices.
- The latest legal challenge focuses on provisions allowing the creation of “preservation areas”, which the groups say could restrict communities’ access to their lands and undermine traditional forms of conservation.
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indigenous groups in Indonesia have made a legal challenge to parts of a new conservation law. The groups say it could allow the government to designate their ancestral lands as conservation areas without their consent and threaten their land rights.
The Coalition for Equitable Conservation, which comprises the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), civil society groups and representatives of Indigenous and local communities, filed the lawsuit on July 8, 2026.
The case seeks to overturn provisions of Indonesia’s 2024 conservation law that the groups say threaten the rights of communities living on ancestral lands, community-managed areas, coastal regions, small islands and conservation zones.
The new petition follows the Constitutional Court’s rejection of a separate procedural challenge to the law in July 2025, prompting the coalition to pursue a substantive review of the disputed articles.
During a hearing on Aug. 6, 2026, the Constitutional Court was due to hear arguments from the government and the House of Representatives (DPR), which drafted the 2024 law. However, Chief Justice Suhartoyo postponed the hearing until Aug. 24 after both the government and the parliament said they were not ready to present their positions.
The petitioners expressed their disappointment with the delay.
“The government and the DPR’s failure to present their statements before the Constitutional Court demonstrates a disregard for the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities, who are currently awaiting explanations from both institutions regarding the preservation area provisions that could ultimately dispossess them of their territories,” said Surti Handayani, legal counsel for the petitioners, as quoted by local media.
According to local media, Fikerman Saragih, another lawyer representing the coalition, said the government and lawmakers were dragging out the court proceedings. He said the delay was a contrast to what he described as the rushed and largely closed-door passage of the legislation.
A history of legal challenges
When the Constitutional Court rejected the groups’ 2025 procedural challenge to the law’s legislative process, it ruled that parliament had complied with legal requirements in passing the legislation because legislative documents had been publicly available, the law had been drafted with clear objectives and lawmakers had consulted conservation groups and Indigenous representatives during the deliberations.
But the ruling was not unanimous: Constitutional Court members Chief Justice Suhartoyo and Justice Saldi Isra dissented, arguing the law had been deliberated behind closed doors without sufficient transparency or meaningful public participation. The two justices said those procedural flaws rendered the legislative process unconstitutional and that the petition should have been granted, at least in part.
Both judicial reviews reflect the Indigenous peoples’ ongoing fight to defend their rights in Indonesia, where state-designated conservation areas often overlap with customary territories. It is not uncommon for members of Indigenous communities to face prosecution and even imprisonment for living in and managing their ancestral lands.
The Indigenous groups’ case
Critics say the 2024 conservation law continues to sideline communities. Instead of recognizing the rights of Indigenous peoples to manage their lands, it potentially criminalizes their traditional practices — despite scientific evidence that Indigenous peoples are among the most effective stewards of nature.
In the current lawsuit, the coalition challenges several provisions of the law that it says could weaken the constitutional rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities by allowing the government to designate “preservation areas” without their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC).
The petitioners argue that the provisions create legal uncertainty by introducing a new category of conservation area that could be used to restrict access to or take control of Indigenous and community-managed lands, exposing residents to possible criminal penalties or loss of their customary rights.
According to lawyers for the coalition, the law misapplies the international concept of Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (OECMs), which recognize conservation carried out voluntarily by Indigenous peoples and local communities. Instead, the law allows the state to impose conservation obligations on rights-holders rather than recognizing their existing stewardship.
The coalition also asserts that the provisions depart from international biodiversity standards that recognize Indigenous and community-managed territories as area-based conservation, and violate constitutional guarantees of legal certainty, the rule of law and the protection of Indigenous peoples’ traditional rights.
It says communities are already feeling the effects of the disputed provisions and accuses the government of designating Indigenous territories as conservation areas without the consent of affected communities.
The lawsuit cites the government’s publication of a map identifying potential preservation areas in protected forests in the southern province of East Nusa Tenggara, saying the proposed designations overlap with Indigenous and community-managed lands and were made without the FPIC of local residents.
Another example mentioned in the legal review is the Dalem Tamblingan Indigenous community in Bali, whose sacred customary forest has been designated by the government as a nature tourism park rather than recognized as customary land.
According to I Putu Ardana, who represents the Dalem Tamblingan community, the designation as a nature tourism park has brought more tourists and commercial interests into the sacred customary forest, raising concerns over outside access, potential state claims over the people’s land and restrictions on traditional religious practices.
“The conservation law has left us feeling deeply threatened, and it has disrupted our livelihoods,” Herman Sarira, a representative of the Pali Indigenous community in Tana Toraja, South Sulawesi, said in a news statement from AMAN.
Community members are now afraid to build houses because their ancestral lands have already been designated as conservation areas, he added.
He also told Mongabay Indonesia that he suspects the government wants to use lands claimed as preservation areas for programs like a geothermal project.
Challenging the government’s approach to conservation
Rukka Sombolinggi, secretary general of AMAN, said the conservation law reflects the government’s top-down approach to conservation, which fails to recognize Indigenous peoples as the primary stewards of nature.
“In fact, Indigenous Peoples are the best guardians of nature,” Rukka said in the news statement. “The reality is that many areas designated as national parks have been degraded, allowed to be converted into oil palm plantations, and even infiltrated by illegal mining. Meanwhile, the territories protected by Indigenous Peoples have remained intact.”
Susan Herawati, secretary general of the People’s Coalition for Fisheries Justice (KIARA), an NGO that is a part of the petitioning coalition, criticized the conservation law for threatening coastal communities and the inhabitants of small islands. By imposing the state’s model of conservation, the law risks eroding long-standing customary conservation practices in coastal areas — traditional systems that have long governed the sustainable use of marine resources, she said.
The government’s version of conservation serves primarily as a pretext for commodifying coastal landscapes for commercial purposes, including tourism and carbon trading, she said. For example, the government aggressively promotes conservation as part of its climate commitments through blue carbon initiatives, without meaningfully involving the communities most directly affected, she added.
“This shows that the state is not standing with the people,” Susan said. “This law is a gateway for investment and foreign capital.”
Syamsul Alam Agus, chair of the executive board of the Association of Defenders of the Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago (PPMAN), who also serves as a lawyer for the petitioners, urged the Constitutional Court to uphold its earlier principles of safeguarding customary rights, citing the landmark 2012 judgment that strengthened legal recognition of customary forests and territories.
“We hope the Constitutional Court justices remain consistent with their previous rulings,” he said.
Banner image: I Putu Ardana with the Jaga Wana (Forest Guardian) youth group. Image by Donny Iqbal/Mongabay Indonesia.
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Cite this article
Basten Gokkon (2026). Indigenous groups renew legal challenge to Indonesian conservation law. Mongabay Conservation news. DOI: https://doi.org/10.66709/news-326060
