Participatory Village Land Use Planning (PLUP) in Papua, Indonesia: Challenges and Opportunities

Understanding local wisdom in land management is one of the key towards sustainable development in rural area of Papua, Indonesia.This is important into overcome conflicting interests over land uses in, where development plan were met with traditional culture. In this area, more than often failure to understand local perception over land use, leads to horizontal conflict that were difficult to resolve. We worked with the communities in Papua, the Wambena village in Jayapura and the Zanegi village in Merauke, to develop participatory land use plan at village level. Together, we conducted a participatory processes consisted of three systematic steps: inventory of traditional land use management system, discussion of common vision toward the future and development of village land use plan.