Indonesian parliament passes agrarian reform law — Mongabay
Indonesia’s parliament on September 22 approved a law regulating agrarian reform, aimed at resolving long-running land conflicts, restoring land rights and redistributing land plots. The document also provides for limits on land concentration, although the final text of the law has not yet been made public.
As Mongabay reports, Indonesia’s House of Representatives approved the law after the government and lawmakers agreed on the bill the day before. According to the Agrarian Reform Consortium (KPA), 3,234 agrarian conflicts were recorded in the country in 2015–2024, covering 7.4 million hectares and affecting 1.8 million households.
A new body for reform
One of the law’s key provisions is the establishment of the Agrarian Reform Implementation Institution (LPRA), which will report directly to the president. According to parliament, it will be responsible for planning, implementing and monitoring the reform, as well as resolving agrarian conflicts. A separate supervisory board is to ensure public participation, transparency, accountability and the effectiveness of the reform.
The KPA welcomed the adoption of the law and the creation of a specialized body. Parliament stated that the reform should cover not only the issuance of land certificates but also changes to the structure of land ownership. Farmers, landless people, Indigenous peoples, women and low-income communities were named among the priority groups.
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Concerns from civil society organizations
At the same time, a coalition of civil society organizations expressed concern about certain provisions. It believes that future government regulations will effectively determine the limits of permissible land ownership, while land belonging to state institutions or territories recognized as strategically important may be more difficult to reclaim or redistribute.
The coalition also questioned the LPRA’s impartiality in disputes involving government bodies or state-owned enterprises. Muhammad Isnur, head of the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation, stressed the need for an independent mechanism for appealing decisions and judicial oversight.
According to Katadata, criminal sanctions are limited to abuses involving land designated for agrarian reform. For certain violations, the maximum penalty may reach eight years in prison or a fine of up to 200 million Indonesian rupiah. The civil society coalition fears that the conditions envisaged in the draft law to protect people defending land rights, including the requirement to act “in good faith,” could, without clear criteria, leave overly broad discretion to law enforcement officers.
