JAKARTA — A campaign calling for the protection of Indigenous peoples’ customary forests in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua has gone viral, with the campaign’s poster shared nearly 3 million times on Instagram. The poster contains a link into an online petition that calls for the revocation of an oil palm concession threatening to clear the ancestral forests of the Awyu tribe (also spelled Auyu). As of June 7, the petition has garnered more than 225,000 signatures, exceeding the campaigners’ initial goal of 200,000 signatures and nearing the new goal of 300,000. A video of a demonstration by the Indigenous Papuans outside Indonesia’s Supreme Court has been widely shared on social media as well. Made by the nonprofit WeSpeakUp.org, the video has been viewed more than 3.9 million times and shared nearly 15,000 times on TikTok. The campaign uses the hashtag #AllEyesonPapua, a riff on the #AllEyesonRafah hashtag used as a rallying cry to draw attention to Israeli attacks on civilian refuges in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. @wespeakuporg Hutan adatnya mau dibabat, Suku Awyu dan Suku Moi akan sulit cari makan, emisi karbon yang dilepas juga akan banyak banget #selamatkanhutanpapua #selamatkanhutanadatpapua #standwithawyu #standwithmoi #wespeakup #wespeakuporg #maribersuara #fyp #fypシ゚viral #fyppppppppppppppppppppppp ♬ suara asli – WeSpeakUp.org – WeSpeakUp.org The Papua campaign aims to raise awareness of the risk to tribal forests from clear-cutting inside four oil palm concessions in Boven Digoel and Sorong districts. The four companies plan to establish more than 140,000 hectares (346,000 acres) of plantations — an…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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