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The existence of indigenous peoples in Indonesia who have been marginalized for a long time in the state process, finally find away after the issuance of the Constitutional Court Decision No. 35/PPU-X/2012 concerning customary forests, which simply emphasizes that indigenous peoples are legal subjects and holders of rights to their customary areas located in forest areas (customary forests). This decision changes the provisions of the Forestry Law by separating customary forests as part of state forests. However, this decision has not resolved all the problems of recognizing the rights of indigenous peoples in managing their customary forests. Recognition of customary forests must go through administrative procedures in the form of the formation of local legal products. The problem faced is the variety of types of regional legal products which sometimes do not clearly define indigenous peoples and their customary territories. Issues surrounding customary forests, customary territories and their indigenous peoples still need to be explored to be able to provide the best benefits for the community and environmental sustainability so that the available recognition instruments can be targeted at customary forests which are their rights and needs, not just a desire to control. The complexity of the subject and object of customary rights that must be protected has become a lively debate to this day. This paper dissects the trap of complex recognition of indigenous peoples made possible by three things. First, the parties are trapped in a debate about the concept of indigenous peoples which is indeed general in nature; secondly, this problem is exacerbated by parties who barely have a proven instrument in the process of recognizing customary communities and customary forests; and third, conflicts of interest between the parties by carrying out their perspective agendas. This paper was compiled in order to lessons, evaluate and self-criticize the recognition of Indonesia's customary forests in the period 2016 to 2021.

Keywords: Customary Forest, Indigenous Peoples, Recognition.