• Function: Executive Director
• Company: Kaleka

Bernadinus Steni is a lawyer who has been working for 20 years to support Indigenous peoples’ and smallholder farmers’ rights to land and promote better policies for sustainable jurisdictions. Together with Kaleka, Steni has been working on a jurisdictional approach in several districts, particularly Seruyan of Central Kalimantan Province, which is a pilot for RSPO’s jurisdictional certification. He also works on the Fakfak of West Papua Province jurisdictional approach, which addresses the challenge of transitioning the indigenous-based commodity of nutmeg towards forest conservation.

Steni has expertise in policies of land tenure, access to justice, institutional development, spatial planning, and sustainability. Steni has experience in drafting national policies, including national safeguards policies, indigenous peoples’ rights, environmental protection and management, and local regulations for Indigenous peoples’s rights, especially in West Papua Province, supporting government policies in Seruyan District to enable independent smallholder farmers certified by RSPO, facilitating farmers to have their land rights recognized by the government.

He has published extensively in these areas of expertise.