National Strategic Projects Trigger 115 Agrarian Conflicts by 2023

National Strategic Projects (NSPs) are a development policy of President Jokowi's era aimed at boosting growth and equitable welfare.

Projects included in NSPs encompass the development of road infrastructure, railway facilities, airports, ports, housing, oil refineries, smelters, and tourism areas.

However, the implementation of NSPs has triggered numerous land grab conflicts.

According to a report by the Agrarian Reform Consortium (KPA), at least 115 agrarian conflicts were caused by this policy between 2020 and 2023.

"The unilateral determination of NSPs and the absence of public participation in the determination, approval, and implementation of NSPs have made this project rife with violence and the latest methods of land grabbing and displacement of the people," wrote the KPA in their *2023 Annual Agrarian Report*.

"Moreover, the NSP scheme has included all categories of business projects, including mining businesses by foreign private companies, thus increasing and exacerbating the escalation of agrarian conflicts due to the acceleration of NSPs in various locations," they said.

The KPA compiled data on agrarian conflicts related to these NSPs from several sources, namely:

* Victims who reported agrarian conflicts to the KPA, either directly or through intermediaries;
* Reports from KPA members and networks;
* Field monitoring;
* Monitoring of mass media coverage;
* A database of conflicts in the agrarian emergency rapid response system; and
* Results of field investigations.

With limited organizational resources, the data compiled by the KPA may not represent all agrarian conflicts in Indonesia.

The KPA also only recorded cases of "structural agrarian conflict," namely land conflicts caused by public officials' policies, resulting in the threat and/or elimination of the constitutional rights of the community to agrarian resources.