Benny Wenda

The tropical forests of West Papua, along with those of the Congo and the Amazon, are the lungs of the Earth. For centuries, indigenous communities have preserved the delicate balance of these ecosystems; the forest is their home, their source of sustenance, and a fundamental part of their cultural identity. Today, these indigenous peoples assert their role as guardians of the forest, highlighting the legacy of knowledge accumulated over centuries while denouncing the often-violent intrusions of public and private organizations into their territories.

In this session, Benny Wenda advocates for the role of West Papua's indigenous communities as custodians of the rainforest and presents the Green State Vision, a project that aims to make West Papua the first green country in the world. A key voice of Papuan resistance against the violence and genocide of the Indonesian state, Wenda denounces deforestation, mass resource extraction, and territorial loss as direct threats not only to the survival of ancestral peoples but also to that of the global community.