On what's working

Data-driven advocacy is one of the most effective tools available, and the absence of data is one of the most serious barriers.

Auriga's core methodology is data-driven advocacy: using geographic information, maps, and technical documentation to make the case for protecting natural resources and the communities that steward them. In the context of PIACI peoples, Timer says that this approach has not yet produced concrete results because the basic information needed to even begin does not exist. The O'Hongana Manyawa, people living in isolation in North Maluku, are not mapped, their numbers are unknown, and their territorial boundaries have never been documented.

What Auriga has done is begin building the conditions for that documentation. In April 2026, Auriga held a major gathering in the forest of more than a hundred elders and youth from contacted clans of the O'Hongana Manyawa that it hopes will produce the first territorial map and the first written document in the O'Hongana Manyawa language.

Cross-regional exchange can accelerate change beyond what domestic advocacy alone can achieve.

Timer describes initiating a conversation with the SIRGE Coalition about how South American experience could inform protections for the O’Hongana Manyawa, which expanded into a broader cross-regional dialogue. For Indonesia, this marked a significant milestone: the first time the country participated in an international civil society convening focused on the rights of PIACI and the designation of their territories as off-limits to industrial extraction. In parallel, Auriga has been advocating for the inclusion of Indigenous Peoples’ and Local Community territories in government criteria defining permissible areas for future nickel mining.

On barriers

The most fundamental barrier is invisibility, and in Indonesia, it starts with the absence of even basic information.

Indonesia does not know how many isolated communities exist, where they are, or how they are organized. This invisibility is not incidental; it is the condition that makes extractive encroachment possible. Without maps, population data, and documented territorial boundaries, there is no evidentiary foundation for legal or policy protection, and no way to make the case to governments or investors that these territories are off-limits. Mapping is protection. Indonesia's Indigenous rights movement has spent most of its energy advocating for recognition of Indigenous peoples in general — a battle still far from won — leaving the more specific category of isolated peoples with almost no dedicated attention. The arrival of large-scale nickel mining in O'Hongana Manyawa territory has changed that calculus abruptly: the threat level is now acute enough that a more specific approach can no longer be deferred, and the absence of basic documentation has become an urgent vulnerability rather than just a knowledge gap.

On the intersection of climate and PIACI rights

For an environmental organization, Indigenous peoples are not a separate agenda; they are one of the most proven solutions.

Auriga's entry point into PIACI rights is explicitly environmental: Indigenous and local communities are among the most effective practitioners of sustainable natural resource management. Their territories contain primary and secondary forests in better condition than surrounding areas, precisely because extraction has not reached them. The tragedy, as Timer frames it, is that the intact condition of these territories is now making them targets: because surrounding areas have been depleted, the remaining mineral deposits are concentrated in Indigenous territories. Recognition of IPLC-managed territories, if translated into policy and practice, would significantly increase protected forest cover in Indonesia, with direct consequences for climate outcomes.

On consolidating PIACI as a global category

Indonesia has a long way to go, but progress can move faster than expected when the right coalition comes together.

Indonesia has not yet formally defined isolated indigenous peoples as a distinct legal or policy category, but Timer sees reason for cautious optimism. What Indonesia most needs is knowledge exchange with South American counterparts who are further along. He describes inviting South American participants to visit Sulawesi to meet with Indigenous communities, and argues that direct field exchange would be far more valuable than high-level convenings. "The exchange should go directly to the practical level,” he says. “We will then gain a lot of inspiration, or even remind us of things we've forgotten."

On the funding landscape

Funding for Indonesia's isolated peoples movement needs to grow, but Indonesian advocates need to build international presence first.

International funding for Indigenous peoples' protection has been concentrated in South America, where the movement is more developed and visible. Indonesian organizations have not yet built the international presence needed to attract equivalent support. This points to a real sequencing challenge: Indonesian organizations need resources to build international presence, but international resources are unlikely to flow until that presence is established.