“Recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights over the land was severely eroded by policies on foreign and local investment laid down in the late 1960s to accelerate economic growth in Indonesia.” Bepalingen van Wetgeving (AB) said that customary law would be followed, along with institutions and community customs, as long as these were not contrary to the general principles of justice. The Dutch East Indies government also regulated land rights, initially restricting the leasing of lands belong to indigenous peoples. However, after the enactment of Agrarische Wet on April 9, 1870, investors from the Netherlands forced the government to take all the lands. Eventually, the Dutch government imposed Agrarische Besluit on July 20, 1870, which meant that customary land rights or hak ulayat of indigenous peoples were no longer in place and automatically owned by the government. to the extent that it is not contrary to national and state interests. There is recognition of the ownership and control over customary lands by indigenous communities and that third parties should secure recognitie – or the temporary transfer of customary land rights – each time they use customary lands. Unfortunately, the tenure system as written in the BAL is very different from the tenure systems that exist in indigenous peoples’ communities. BAL recognizes many kinds of rights except communal rights on hak ulayat. Recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights over the land was severely eroded by policies on foreign and local investment laid down in the late 1960s to accelerate economic growth in Indonesia. Following the issuance of these policies, the Indonesian government under the New Order regime issued two prominent sectoral policies with grave effects on indigenous peoples and their right to land. One of these is the Undang-undang Pokok Kehutanan (UUPK) or Basic Forestry Law (BFL) No. 5 of 1967 that defined 143 million hectares (ha) of land or about 70% of Indonesia’s land as state forests and that all of the resources therein belong to the state. The passage of the Basic Agrarian Law (BAL) in 1960 provided some relief because it recognized the existence of indigenous communities, particularly in Articles 3 and 5. Also issued was Government Regulation No. 21 of 1970 on Forest Concessions, which sought to regulate the rights of indigenous communities to take forest products so as not to interfere with forest concessions. Article 3 describes the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples over customary land, while Article 5 describes that the agrarian law that applies to the earth, water and air space is customary law, Another major policy issuance was the Basic Mining Law No. 11 of 1967, which considered all excavations in Indonesia as legal and that the 64 Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC)