Legal Legal Protection for Indigenous Peoples over Forest Areas amidInvestment Utilization Conflicts

Abstract

Forests, as areas of life and sources of livelihood for indigenous peoples in Indonesia, often clash with policies granting utilization permits for forestry and plantation investments. Although constitutionally the rights of indigenous peoples have been guaranteed under Article 18B paragraph (2) of the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia and reinforced by Constitutional Court Decision Number 35/PUU-X/2012, the implementation of legal protection still faces various obstacles. This research aims to analyze the legal protection arrangements for indigenous peoples over forest areas, identify obstacles in their application when conflicts arise with investment permits, and formulate appropriate improvements to legal regulations. The type of research employed is normative legal research using statutory, conceptual, and comparative legal approaches. The findings reveal that the recognition of indigenous peoples remains partial and conditional, there is overlapping authority in forest management, weaknesses exist in the evidentiary system for proving customary rights, and access to dispute resolution for indigenous peoples remains limited. This research concludes that effective legal protection requires full recognition of customary rights, harmonization of all sectoral regulations, and acknowledgment of local wisdom-based evidence in judicial processes.