Land Grabs by Forest Energy Companies in North Gorontalo Spark Resident Outcry

A land dispute involving forest energy company PT Gema Nusantara Jaya (GNJ) is escalating in North Gorontalo, Indonesia, with local residents voicing strong grievances over alleged land seizures and inadequate compensation. In 2012, Marten Laita (pseudonym), a resident of Bubode Village, North Gorontalo, returned home to find his eight-hectare farm destroyed. Years of cultivation, including valuable crops like jackfruit, durian, cocoa, bananas, and cloves, had been bulldozed and replaced with industrial plants. GNJ, which obtained its concession permit in 2011, claimed the land was within its operational area. However, Marten stated he received no prior warnings, invitations for consultation, or clear explanations about the concession boundaries. He had only seen heavy machinery parked nearby the day before, only for them to enter and raze his farm while he was at the market selling his harvest. Other villagers reported hearing about compensation offers as low as Rp250,000 per hectare, an amount significantly less than the proceeds from a single harvest of cocoa or cloves, and which Marten himself never directly received. "This is what made the people of Bubode angry. That area was treated as if it were empty land, even though we had managed it for a long time," Marten recounted. Yones Bagu, another resident, experienced a similar fate when his two-hectare cornfield was flattened by heavy machinery. This resulted in a loss of up to Rp10 million, considering the Rp3 million–Rp5 million investment per hectare for seeds, fertilizers, and labor. In a single season, Yones could harvest 8-10 tons of corn per hectare, meaning his two hectares could have yielded 16-20 tons. This incident highlights the growing tension between land rights and development projects in the region. Source: Mongabay Indonesia