Indonesian indigenous community challenges world bank carbon program over land rights violations in borneo rainforest

Deep in the heart of Borneo’s remaining rainforest corridors, the Dayak Bahau Indigenous community of Long Isun is waging a critical battle that highlights the troubling intersection of climate finance and Indigenous rights. Despite inhabiting their ancestral lands along the upper Mahakam River for generations—long before Indonesia existed as a nation—this community finds their existence reduced to mere administrative codes on government maps, with no recognition of their sacred groves, ancestral burial sites, or traditional governance systems.

In November 2025, representatives from Long Isun filed a formal grievance against the World Bank’s Emission Reduction Program in East Kalimantan province, marking the culmination of over a decade of resistance efforts. The community argues that the international climate finance project violates their fundamental rights by ignoring unresolved territorial conflicts and failing to obtain genuine free, prior, and informed consent before implementing carbon reduction activities on their traditional lands.

The case exposes a troubling pattern where Indigenous communities who have successfully protected forests for centuries are systematically excluded from climate initiatives designed to preserve those same ecosystems. While companies arrive with government-approved permits that override traditional land governance, international carbon programs now treat these landscapes primarily as sources of emission reductions rather than recognizing the rights of their Indigenous stewards.

This grievance represents more than a legal challenge—it’s a test case for whether global climate finance mechanisms can operate ethically while respecting Indigenous sovereignty. The outcome could set crucial precedents for how international environmental programs engage with Indigenous communities whose traditional practices have proven most effective at forest conservation.