Lesthia Kertopati

And government will try to also give them a new way of life.

Usually, these tribal groups in Papua have a nomadic way of life.

But with the

new program from the government, they were, quote unquote, forced to be farmers while it's not their way of life.

And that's why without the knowledge of being a farmer, you can't really cultivate a land into a fertile farm.

So what happened next is the farm that had been set out in Papua usually failed in the end.

The government said it's for big farms of like corn, sugarcane, rice field.

But Papua is not actually suitable for that kind of crops.

Our reports a few years back, mostly the farms that have been set out in Papua, it's failed.

Because Papuan forest is not for farming like in Java or Sumatra.

And Papua forest is a very old forest and it's really hard to grow it back.

Because Jaffa and Sumatra now is already full of farmlands and therefore the government try to find potentially more farms into another islands in Indonesia.

One of them is Papua.

Well, aside of land conflicts that happen with the local indigenous people, the deforestation also factors in climate change that happen in Indonesia.

So we have longer dry seasons and when it's in the rainy season, there will be like flooding and there's no forest to hold off the landslides.

So more landslides happening.

They've been resisting for decades.

In three regions of southern Papua, they erect more than 1,800 Red Cross, symbolizing their resistance.

The movement, it's called the Red Cross Movement, and the action is carried out by the indigenous people of Awiyu community and Muyu as well, Malinanim and Yei community.

They erected this big cross across their land, so people would not come in usually.