Indonesia T he Indonesian term ‘adat’ means ‘custom’ or ‘tradition’ and brings forth thoughts of order and harmony. In recent years, however, the same term has become associated with activism, protest and violence, especially in the movement to champion the rights of indigenous peoples (Davidson et al., 2010). The indigenous peoples’ movement in Indonesia emerged as a response for the accumulation of government negligence through the years, from the issuance of Forestry Basic Laws and Mining Basic Laws in 1967 to the policy on foreign capital investment in 1968 that drove many indigenous peoples away from their land. In 1999, Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara (AMAN)/National Alliance of Indigenous Peoples emerged to defend the rights of marginalized indigenous peoples. AMAN stated that, “If the state does not recognize us, then we do not recognize the state” (AMAN, 1999 as cited in Davidson and Henley, 2007). Condensed from Scoping Study of Indonesia Indigenous Peoples by Jaringan Kerja Pemetaan Partisipatif/ Network for Participatory Mapping (JKPP). For more details of the study, contact: erwin_tea@yahoo.com or jkpp@indo.net.id. 60 The movement continues to gather steam, especially following the victory of AMAN and two other IP groups against the use of the phrase ‘customary forest‘ – referring to the ancestral forests of indigenous peoples – as ‘state forest‘ Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC)