Perpres No. 32 Tahun 2018 — formally titled Peraturan Presiden Nomor 32 Tahun 2018 tentang Badan Otorita Pengelola Kawasan Pariwisata Labuan Bajo Flores — is the presidential decree that created BPOLBF (Badan Pelaksana Otorita Labuan Bajo Flores) and designated the Parapuar development zone. President Joko Widodo signed it on 5 April 2018; it was promulgated four days later on 8 April 2018. As of the latest entries in the JDIH Kemenkeu and peraturan.bpk.go.id databases, the decree carries no amendment, revision, or revocation.
That single document — fewer than forty articles long — is the entire legal origin of the authority that now holds HPL (Hak Pengelolaan) title over roughly 129.6 hectares of hillside above Labuan Bajo, offers nineteen investment lots to private developers, and runs the Weekend at Parapuar event series that drew over a thousand visitors to the 360-degree viewpoint in June 2026. Everything traces back to it.
What Problem Was the Decree Solving?
By 2018, Labuan Bajo had already been named one of Indonesia’s next national tourism priorities. The Komodo National Park gateway had real demand, a functioning airport, and a growing international hotel market. What it lacked was a single coordinating body with the authority to plan and develop land outside the national park in a controlled way.
The existing regulatory apparatus — Kabupaten Manggarai Barat government, NTT provincial agencies, multiple national ministries — was fragmented. Large-scale tourism infrastructure projects require land-rights decisions (ATR/BPN), forest-use approvals (KLHK), investment facilitation (BKPM), and tourism licensing (Kemenpar) to move in sequence. Without a body that could sit above all of them while speaking their language, coordination stalled.
Perpres 32/2018 created BPOLBF as that body. It is housed under the Ministry of Tourism rather than any regional government, which gives it national-level authority without being a ministry itself.
The Two-Layer Mandate
The decree grants BPOLBF two distinct and legally separate functions. Civil-society analysts and the Wikipedia Indonesia entry summarizing the Perpres both describe this as a dual koordinatif/otoritatif (coordinative/authoritative) structure.
Coordinative Mandate: Eleven Kabupaten Across Flores
The coordinative layer covers a much wider geography than Parapuar. BPOLBF is empowered to coordinate tourism development across eleven kabupaten on the Flores island group. This does not give it land rights or licensing authority over those areas — it is a planning, facilitation, and cross-ministry coordination role. Think of it as a permanent project-management office for Flores tourism, with the ability to pull the relevant ministries into the same room.
In practice this layer matters mainly for infrastructure and transport investment — new airport routes, inter-island connectivity, regional promotion budgets — rather than for investors looking at specific development lots.
Authoritative Mandate: The ~400 Ha Core Zone in Hutan Bowosie
The second layer is where the investment opportunity lives. Perpres 32/2018 grants BPOLBF authoritative (otoritatif) powers over a specific core area inside Hutan Bowosie (Nggorang Bowosie), the forested hills immediately above Labuan Bajo town in Kecamatan Komodo, Kabupaten Manggarai Barat. This area is consistently described in BPOLBF and BKPM promotional materials as approximately 400 hectares.
The 400-hectare figure appears repeatedly in official and semi-official sources — the BKPM “Parapuar Gateway” article, the 2023 Jakarta Post advertorial, and Antara reporting citing then-BPOLBF head Shana Fatina. It is used as a planning or promotional figure. No publicly accessible cadastral or regulatory document has been found that formally confirms “400 ha exactly” with a measured boundary. Treat it as a planning envelope, not a precise cadastral area.
Within that envelope, BPOLBF holds a Hak Pengelolaan (HPL) certificate for Zone 1, covering approximately 129.6 hectares. The HPL certificate was issued on 12 September 2023 and physically handed over on 15 September 2023 at the Parapuar site, by Deputy Minister of ATR/BPN Raja Juli Antoni alongside Deputy Minister of Tourism Angela Tanoesoedibjo.
A Number That Has Confused Many Readers
Antara’s English-language reporting on the HPL handover referred to “129,609 hectares.” That figure has circulated in secondary coverage ever since. It is a decimal-format transcription error: the Indonesian numeric convention uses a comma as a decimal separator, so “129,609 ha” in Indonesian means 129.609 ha — confirmed by Windonesia.com’s rendering “about 129.6 ha” and the Wikipedia Indonesia BPOLBF entry’s “129.60 ha” (with a 20.05% planned utilization rate cited for that HPL area). 129,609 hectares would be roughly 1,296 square kilometers — three times the land area of Bali. The actual Zone 1 HPL is a 129.6-hectare parcel. When you encounter this figure in third-party publications, correct accordingly.
How the HPL Sits Within Land Law
Hak Pengelolaan is a land-management right held by a state body, created under the broader framework of PP 18/2021 on land rights. The HPL holder — BPOLBF — does not “own” the land in any commercial sense. The underlying land remains state land (tanah negara). What BPOLBF holds is the right to manage, utilize, and grant derivative rights to third parties.
Those derivative rights are what investors actually acquire. In a standard HPL arrangement, a developer signs a cooperation agreement with the HPL holder and then obtains an HGB (Hak Guna Bangunan) on top of that HPL, which grants the right to build and operate for a defined term. PP 18/2021 sets general HGB durations of 30 years plus a 20-year extension plus a further 30-year renewal as background law, though the specific term for any Parapuar lot is subject to direct negotiation with BPOLBF. No public document has confirmed the lease term that BPOLBF actually offers — investors must verify this directly.
The six cooperation schemes BPOLBF formally offers include Sewa Aset (asset lease), Pinjam Pakai, KSP (Kerja Sama Pemanfaatan), BGS/BSG, KSPI, and KETUPI. The exact instrument applicable to any given lot depends on the lot’s designation and the investor’s proposed structure. The dedicated HPL land-rights explainer on this site walks through each scheme in more detail.
If you are already at the stage of evaluating a specific lot and want an introduction to independent Indonesian land-law specialists familiar with HPL-on-top-of-HPL mechanics, reach out via our enquiry form — or WhatsApp if that is faster. No payment changes what we publish; if you proceed with a specialist introduction and that professional wishes to pay us a referral, they may do so at no extra cost to you.
The Bowosie Documentation Gap
For Perpres 32/2018 to take effect as a land-rights instrument, the forested area had to move through a multi-step regulatory process: KLHK (Ministry of Environment and Forestry) had to issue a forest-release decree (SK pelepasan kawasan hutan) before ATR/BPN could register the HPL.
That KLHK SK — the document number, date, and precise scope of the forest release — has not been publicly identified in any accessible media report, NGO publication, or government database entry. This is a genuine documentation gap, not an omission on this site’s part. Civil-society reporting by Floresa.co and Sunspirit for Justice and Peace, and detailed analysis published on omong-omong.com, all discuss the Bowosie conversion at length without producing the KLHK SK reference. Neither BPOLBF’s public communications nor ATR/BPN’s announced remarks at the September 2023 HPL handover cited the SK number.
The gap matters for due diligence. The validity of the HPL certificate as “clean and clear” — the phrase used by Deputy Minister Raja Juli Antoni at the handover — rests in part on that underlying forest-release step having been properly executed and documented. Investors undertaking formal due diligence on any of the nineteen lots should request the KLHK SK reference from BPOLBF directly and verify it against the official KLHK forest-area portal.
For a full account of the contested history of Bowosie — four kampung communities claiming customary use, physical confrontations during 2022 land-clearing, and the ongoing unresolved status of those claims — see the dedicated Bowosie candor piece on this site.
What the Decree Does Not Cover
Perpres 32/2018 establishes the authority and its mandate. It does not itself set lot pricing, cooperation terms, environmental impact requirements for individual lots, visitor-carrying capacity rules, or fiscal incentives. Those emerge from downstream regulation and BPOLBF’s internal cooperation documents, none of which is currently publicly available in full.
One point frequently misunderstood by investors comparing zones: Parapuar is not a Kawasan Ekonomi Khusus (KEK). The KEK fiscal regime under PP 40/2021 — income-tax reductions, PPN/PPnBM facilities, customs and excise exemptions — does not apply here. BPOLBF offers coordination and land facilitation, not a KEK-style incentives package. The incentives reality-check piece on this site covers this in full.
Key Facts at a Glance
- Signed
- 5 April 2018
- Promulgated
- 8 April 2018
- JDIH/BPK status
- In force; no amendment or revocation listed (as of June 2026 query)
- Citation
- Perpres No. 32 Tahun 2018 (peraturan.bpk.go.id/Home/Details/77913)
- HPL Zone 1 certificate issued
- 12 September 2023
- HPL Zone 1 handed over
- 15 September 2023
- HPL area (Zone 1)
- ≈129.6 ha (often mis-rendered as “129,609 hectares” in English-language reports)
- Total planning envelope
- ~400 ha (promotional/planning figure; cadastrally unconfirmed)
- KLHK forest-release SK
- Not publicly identified — genuine documentation gap
- Investment lots on HPL
- 19 lots across four zones (Cultural, Leisure, Wildlife, Adventure)
- Fiscal incentives (KEK)
- None — Parapuar is not a KEK
How to Use This Document in Your Research
Perpres 32/2018 is the starting point for understanding the body you are dealing with and the legal source of its authority over Parapuar. Three follow-on documents matter most for due diligence:
First, the KLHK forest-release SK (specific number and date) — this verifies the land was legally released from forest status before HPL registration. It is not publicly available; request it from BPOLBF.
Second, the HPL certificate (sertifikat HPL) issued by ATR/BPN in September 2023 — this confirms the registered area and any conditions attached to BPOLBF’s management rights.
Third, the specific cooperation or HGB instrument for your target lot — the document that defines your rights, the operative term, renewal conditions, and exit provisions.
None of these are in the public domain in complete form as of mid-2026. Qualified Indonesian land-law counsel is not optional at this stage. To connect with independent legal specialists who work in this regulatory space, use our enquiry form — we can make introductions without charging you anything, and on the same candid, editorial terms as the rest of this site.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Perpres 32/2018 actually say about BPOLBF’s authority?
The decree establishes BPOLBF as an authoritative body under the Ministry of Tourism with two layers of power: coordinative planning authority across eleven kabupaten on Flores, and direct management rights over approximately 400 hectares of land in Hutan Bowosie above Labuan Bajo. The authoritative layer underpins the HPL land title and the 19-lot investment structure at Parapuar. The decree has no publicly listed amendment or revocation as of June 2026.
Why does the figure “129,609 hectares” appear in English-language reports about Parapuar?
It originates in Antara’s English wire reporting and is a decimal-format transcription error. Indonesia uses a comma as a decimal separator, so the original “129,609 ha” in Indonesian means 129.609 hectares — approximately 129.6 ha. That is the correct area of BPOLBF’s HPL Zone 1 certificate, confirmed by multiple Indonesian secondary sources. The figure 129,609 hectares is physically impossible: it would represent an area roughly three times the size of Bali.
Is the KLHK forest-release decree for Bowosie publicly available?
No. The specific SK number and date of the KLHK decision releasing Bowosie forest land for the Parapuar development zone have not appeared in any accessible government database, news report, or NGO publication reviewed for this site. BPOLBF declared the HPL “clean and clear” at the September 2023 handover, but the upstream KLHK documentation remains a genuine public gap. Investors conducting formal due diligence should request this document from BPOLBF directly.
Does Perpres 32/2018 give BPOLBF the power to sign cooperation agreements with private investors?
The decree creates the authority and its management mandate over the zone. Actual cooperation agreements for lots at Parapuar are governed by derivative instruments — the HPL-based cooperation terms negotiated between BPOLBF and individual investors. The specific legal instrument (HGB-on-HPL, BOT, or utilization agreement), tenure, and renewal conditions are not publicly documented and must be negotiated directly with BPOLBF’s investment and cooperation division.
Has Perpres 32/2018 been amended or replaced since 2018?
Not as of the latest JDIH Kemenkeu and peraturan.bpk.go.id status entries, which show no revocation, amendment (perubahan), or superseding regulation. The decree remains the operative legal basis for BPOLBF. Monitor the JDIH entry at peraturan.bpk.go.id/Home/Details/77913 for any future status change.