Pig Feast Exposed: Indonesia’s New Colonialism Devours Papua's Forests and Indigenous Souls

JAKARTA — In the dense rainforests of South Papua, where Indigenous communities have sustained rituals of feasting and reciprocity for generations, a different kind of feast is underway. Bulldozers backed by state power and corporate capital are carving out vast plantations for rice, sugarcane and biofuels under the banner of national food security. A new investigative documentary has torn open the debate, framing it not as progress, but as colonialism rebranded for the 21st century.

“Pig Feast: Colonialism in Our Time,” directed by veteran investigative journalist Dandhy Dwi Laksono and anthropologist Cypri Jehan Paju Dale, has circulated since April 2026, triggering cancellations, police interventions and grassroots screenings from remote Papuan villages to university halls in Java and overseas forums in New Zealand, Australia and the United States. The film documents the razing of primary forests — tens of thousands of hectares already cleared in Merauke and surrounding districts — for national strategic projects that critics say prioritize elite profits over Indigenous survival.

At its core is the story of the Marind and Auyu peoples, whose ancestral lands are being rezoned and concessioned with little genuine free, prior and informed consent. Rivers are polluted, hunting grounds vanish, and traditional pig feasts — communal rituals that bind society — become bitter metaphors for outsiders gorging on Papuan resources. The military’s expanded role in securing these projects adds another layer of tension, with reports of heightened surveillance and restrictions on dissent.

What makes the film particularly explosive is its unflinching look at divisions within the Catholic Church, a moral authority in much of Papua. While some bishops, including Archbishop Petrus Canisius Mandagi of Merauke, have endorsed development in the name of humanitarian progress, many Indigenous parishioners have responded with the “Red Cross Movement” — erecting giant red crosses on threatened lands as silent, powerful symbols of mourning and nonviolent resistance. The documentary forces the Church to confront whether its social teachings, including those in Laudato Si’, can tolerate ecological destruction and displacement framed as inevitable modernization.

Indonesian authorities have reacted nervously. Screenings have been disrupted or canceled on grounds of “security risks,” yet the restrictions have only amplified the film’s reach through underground networks and international attention. Filmmakers report personal risks, echoing broader patterns of intimidation faced by journalists and activists covering Papua.

Government officials defend the projects as essential for national self-sufficiency in food and energy, part of an ambitious push that could convert up to 2.5 million hectares. Environmental monitors, however, warn of one of the world’s largest ongoing deforestation fronts, with massive carbon emissions, biodiversity loss and threats to Indigenous ways of life already materializing.

“Pig Feast” does not offer easy answers. It holds up a mirror to Indonesia’s development model in its restive eastern frontier, asking whether economic integration must come at the expense of dignity, forests and cultural survival. As screenings multiply and international awareness grows, the real question lingers: In the rush to feed the nation, who is truly invited to the feast — and who is on the menu?

(Sources: UCA News, RNZ, Mongabay, HRW, Indoleft, Mighty Earth, Jubi Media – May 2026)