Talking Indonesia

Over recent years, concerns about Indonesia's food security have seen a sharp increase in industrial-scale agriculture across the country, including into the forests of West Papua. At the same time, the environmental and social ramifications of monocropping, particularly palm oil, are becoming well-known. Are the customary rights of indigenous peoples being respected in negotiations over land for agribusiness? What exactly is "sustainable palm oil"? And what are the impacts of palm oil plantation expansion on the forests and peoples whose culture and livelihoods are inextricably linked to the forests? In Talking Indonesia this week, Dr Jemma Purdey speaks to anthropologist Dr Sophie Chao, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Sydney’s School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry and an honorary postdoctoral fellow at Macquarie University, about her research with the indigenous Marind peoples of Merauke district in West Papua. Dr Chao previously worked for indigenous peoples rights orga