A Canada-based website’s listing of Indonesian islands for sale has reignited fears of privatization, long linked to conflicts between companies and coastal communities.

On June 18, 2025, listings appeared for several islands in Indonesia’s Anambas archipelago, in Riau Islands province, on the site Privateislandsonline.com. Indonesia’s Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries has denied the validity of the listings, pointing out that national laws prohibit the sale of islands to foreign entities. The ministry confirmed that four of the listed islands are in Anambas — Rintan, Mala, Tokong Sendok and Nakob — while others appearing on the site are located in East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara and Bangka-Belitung provinces. The government has since blocked the site for internet users in Indonesia, although it remains accessible elsewhere around the world (including in Indonesia, through VPN).

The ministry says the listings were most likely offers for foreign investment, not outright sales. It said commercial use of islands is legal if businesses have the right permits, though strict limits would still apply. For instance, developers may only use up to 70% of a small island’s area, with at least 30% of that portion reserved for green space, effectively limiting control to 40%.

Nusron Wahid, the Indonesian minister for land and zoning, said foreign parties could only obtain land use rights, not ownership, under Indonesian law. He added the Anambas islands in question lie within areas zoned for development, not forest land. Seliu Island in Bangka-Belitung is similarly classified, while Panjang Island in West Nusa Tenggara lies within a conservation zone, according to the minister.

This is the latest in a series of cases where Indonesian islands have been marketed to private international buyers. In 2022, shares of Bali-based developer PT Leadership Islands Indonesia (LII) were auctioned off via Sotheby’s Concierge Auctions in New York. The Indonesian company holds the rights to develop tourism facilities in the Widi Islands in the archipelagic province of North Maluku. Environmentalists warn that such privatization often causes land disputes and social conflict between companies and coastal communities.

“We’ve seen this tendency from the government to push for permit issuance to private companies in an effort to increase non-tax revenue,” Erwin Suryana, the program and network deputy at the local NGO People’s Coalition for Justice in Fisheries (KIARA), said in an online discussion on June 26.

Erwin said the fisheries ministry in 2024 launched a website called “Small Islands Investment Application” to assist with issuance of commercial permits for islands smaller than 2,000 square kilometers (770 square miles) and for the recommendation of similar permits for islands smaller than 100 km2 (39 mi2). The fisheries ministry is charging foreign investors up to 30.8 million rupiah per hectare annually (about $1,900 per km2, or $4,900 per mi2) for small island use, with lower rates for domestic investors, under a 2021 regulation aimed at boosting investment and generating non-tax revenue.

Erwin said many instances of the privatization of small islands and coastal areas have threatened the livelihoods of fishers, who have found themselves no longer able to access the fishing areas surrounding the islands. He said allowing private entities to control up to 70% of an island would in practice include the offshore area, citing the recent case of the illegal cordoning of coastal areas off the northwestern outskirts of Jakarta. A prominent property developer had installed a bamboo “fence” in the sea running 30 km (19 mi) and blocking fishers’ access, while coastal farmers lost land and residents now face eviction, even though authorities have deemed the fencing illegal.

“The government has also diversified the ways it opens access for investors to control land; not only through land ownership rights, but through various mechanisms that allow private entities to gain control over an island,” Erwin said.

Yonvitner, a fisheries professor at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, said overlapping zoning rules have complicated the management of Indonesia’s small islands. Land areas fall under regional spatial plans, while marine zones follow separate zoning rules. While the fisheries ministry regulates island use, businesses can still obtain land management rights through local governments or the agrarian ministry.

Yonvitner said legal entities could control islands through investment or partnership schemes, allowing them to secure financing or use the land as collateral, often without proper oversight. In cases like Anambas, shifting ownership and unclear jurisdiction have made it difficult for the government to monitor who’s in control, enabling investors to act with impunity when certification checks are weak, raising the risk of asset loss.

“There’s a long trail of lost assets, both islands and land, in Indonesia due to shifting investment ownership,” Yonvitner said as quoted by local news outlet Tempo.

As of June 2025, fisheries watchdog KIARA had recorded 254 small islands privatized for various purposes, including sale, mining, conservation, tourism, private ownership, and aquaculture. Various actors, both domestic and foreign, are suspected of engaging in the privatization of small islands, including former government officials, businesspeople, local individuals, and companies across sectors such as real estate, according to the group.

KIARA reported that as of the end of 2024, Indonesia has officially named and mapped 17,830 islands across the archipelago. But thousands of small islands remain unnamed and without registered coordinates.

Susan Herawati, KIARA’s general secretary, said Indonesia’s border islands are vital to defining the country’s maritime sovereignty, and their loss or foreign ownership could shrink the nation’s territorial waters. She called for the government to shift its view that uninhabited islands are “empty,” as many of them are actively used by fishers for shelter, drying fish, and traditional fishing in surrounding waters.

“Don’t let fishermen and fisherwomen be tourists on their own islands,” Susan said.

Basten Gokkon is a senior staff writer for Indonesia at Mongabay. Find him on 𝕏, @bgokkon.

See related reporting:

Indonesian ‘island auction’ to go ahead despite concerns over permits

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