"Kalimantan Villagers Lodge Land Claim Against BHP Billiton Coal Project", 14 June 2015

Villagers in remote Central Kalimantan have lodged a claim for legal title to 1,000 hectares of land within BHP Billiton’s vast IndoMet coal project area under a new land rights scheme in the province. The residents of Maruwei, one of the closest villages to IndoMet’s “first stage” Haju mine, have mapped the boundaries of the 1,000-hectare area in question using GPS and computerized mapping systems, and submitted detailed documentation of the claim to the Central Kalimantan government...With the Haju mine due to start operating in August, Maruwei’s headman described the process of preparing the claim as a “race” to preserve this section of the community’s customary land, which is used for cultivating rice, rubber and crops. “When BHP comes, it will be a restricted area...So we have to race against BHP to claim this land under the Dayak Misik scheme.” Dayak Misik, introduced by the Central Kalimantan government in 2014, is a program that aims to recognize the customary land rights of the province’s indigenous Dayak inhabitants by delivering title for 10 hectares of land to every village for communal use and five hectares to each household...“We welcome mining as long as they respect our way of life, our livelihood, our customary land. When they don’t, we’ll fight to the end,”...[the headman] says.