The Green State as an Indigenous Political Imaginary: Ecological Sovereignty and Papuan Epistemologies

In response to the accelerating global ecological crisis, the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) has advanced the vision of a Green State — a sovereign political entity grounded in environmental stewardship, customary law, and Indigenous cosmology. 

This proposal is not merely a reaction to ecological degradation but a radical re-articulation of statehood itself, inspired by the ancestral knowledge systems of the Melanesian peoples who have inhabited the Papuan landscape for millennia.

Contrary to the dominant Western conception of democracy—typically institutionalized through party politics, electoral competition, and majoritarian rule—Papuan political culture prior to colonial contact was characterized by participatory deliberation, consensus-based decision-making, and a deep interrelation between social and spiritual orders. Melanesian epistemologies do not compartmentalize the human, natural, and metaphysical realms; rather, they conceive of them as co-constitutive. Governance, therefore, entails accountability not only to living communities but also to ancestral spirits and the ecological world (Narokobi, 1983).

In traditional Papuan societies, major decisions are reached through the consultation of three fundamental constituencies: the 'spiritual faction', embodied by healers and ritual specialists; the 'women’s and children’s faction', represented by maternal figures; and the 'men’s faction', led by elders and customary chiefs. These groups do not function as interest-based political actors but as relational categories ensuring that all domains of life are represented. Importantly, decisions are made not through antagonistic debate or numerical majority, but through deliberative consensus—a political modality emphasizing harmony, relational responsibility, and long-term sustainability (Wairiu et al., 2012).

This worldview is materially inscribed in the architecture of Papuan villages. Typically, five central houses structure communal life: one devoted to the worship of God and ancestral spirits; one for the spiritual healer; one for men; one for women and children; and a communal meeting house where collective decisions are made. These spatial arrangements are not merely functional but express an ontological order in which the sacred, social, and ecological are inseparable.

The ecological dimension of Papuan political thought is particularly salient in the Green State proposal. Nature is not externalized as "resource," but internalized as kin and ancestor. The earth is conceived as a living mother, and any form of environmental destruction—whether through extractivism, militarized development, or corporate exploitation—is experienced as a violent rupture of moral and cosmological order. Consequently, environmental justice is not a peripheral concern but foundational to the legitimacy of any political order (Escobar, 2008; Shiva, 2005).

In envisioning a Green State, Papuans are articulating an alternative model of sovereignty—one that refuses the colonial legacies of territorial domination and capitalist extraction. Instead, it offers a relational, place-based paradigm of governance rooted in Indigenous ecological knowledge, customary law, and participatory ethics. This vision resonates with broader currents in Indigenous resurgence movements globally, which challenge the hegemony of Eurocentric political forms and assert the viability of Indigenous governance systems as responses to both environmental collapse and historical injustice (Simpson, 2017; Smith, 1999).

The Green State, therefore, should not be seen merely as a cultural or environmental initiative, but as a transformative political imaginary—one that foregrounds the epistemological and ethical contributions of Indigenous Papuans to global debates on democracy, sustainability, and decolonization.

References

Escobar, A. (2008). Territories of Difference: Place, Movements, Life, Redes. Duke University Press.

Narokobi, B. (1983). The Melanesian Way. Institute of Pacific Studies.

Shiva, V. (2005). Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace. South End Press.

Simpson, L. B. (2017). As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance. University of Minnesota Press.

Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Zed Books.

Wairiu, M., Nunn, P., & Tei, N. (2012). "Climate Change and Indigenous Knowledge Systems in the Pacific Islands." UNESCO Science Report.