Forest management policy in Indonesia is approaching a crossroads. Over the past twenty years, the timber industry has generated important foreign exchange for the government, helping to offset a $50 billion external debt. By the end of the 1980s, forestry products were valued at $3 billion annually, primarily from timber (
FN 19). In addition, the nation's vast forest lands have provided a reservoir of arable land that can absorb the country's growing population. Consequently, Indonesian planners often react defensively when criticized for their forest utilization policies. At the same time, there is a growing realization among policy-makers that many current practices are unsustainable. As demonstrated in the two East Kalimantan case studies, forests located near urban areas and road networks, as well as those in isolated sites far upriver, are vulnerable to increasing pressures. In the area around Datarban, the primary forests have largely been transformed to secondary forests, scrub, and Imperata grass over the past thirty years. Despite the four hundred kilometer distance upriver and relative isolation of Diak Lay, timber operations are having a similar impact there.Unless better management controls are introduced in both Datarban and Diak Lay, competition for resources will continue to stimulate uncontrolled extraction practices which result in resource degradation. The absence of long-term tenure stability in Datarban has undermined attempts of the community to develop a stable infrastructure or encourage resource-use patterns that can endure. Instead, the degradation of the once rich forest ecosystem and the pollution of watercourses has caused out-migration. While the Kutai and Dayak residents have at- tempted to develop informal agreements governing local land use, without any authority from the government -- and in the face of well-financed government development programs and commercial operations -- they have been unable to control access or protect their resources.
The Indonesian government is well aware that many timber concessionaires violate felling and extraction regulations. In response, it has revoked approximately one hundred concession licenses. Furthermore, government programs are underway to encourage migrants to utilize more sustainable farming methods. Current forest management policies seek to replant up to 50 million acres of deforested land. However, as former Environment Minister Emil Salim notes, given practical funding levels, this goal will require sixty-five years to achieve (
FN 20). Present policies do not yet reflect the great potential of Indonesia's degraded forests to regenerate naturally. If protected by communities from further disturbance, much of the nation's rainforest could recover its biological and economic productivity. In both Datarban and Diak Lay, it is apparent that Dayak communities have both ecological knowledge based on generations of experience and strong motivations to manage the environment sustainably. In both villages, non-timber forest products are important in generating both cash and subsistence goods. If these products are to be harvested sustainably, community forest management groups will need to be assured that they have exclusive rights to such benefits. The desire to secure their homelands, which are increasingly threatened by outside interests, provides indigenous people of East Kalimantan with powerful incentives to protect forest resources from further degradation.In addition, foreign tourists are increasingly interested in exploring Indonesia's natural heritage and observing its remarkable diversity of flora and fauna. While the timber industry has been generating $3 billion annually, tourism profits have recently reached $4 billion per year and are growing rapidly. While timber harvesting and uncontrolled migrant farming may generate a declining stream of income for a few years before seriously undermining the local ecological and economic functions of a rainforest, ecotourism, non-timber forest product harvesting, and long-term rotational farming and gardening provide options for sustainable growth industries that will help ensure the environment is preserved into the future. Processed rattan products from Southeast Asia alone are currently valued at nearly $3 billion annually, and a wide range of medicinal, food, fiber, and construction products are beginning to find new markets (
FN 21).East Kalimantan currently has millions of hectares of disturbed forest land. The majority of the territory in the province has experienced timber exploitation, forest fires, and clearing for agriculture. Many of these activities have decreased vegetative cover, spurred soil erosion and driven a process of degeneration resulting in a continuing loss of productivity. If the province is to escape a scenario whereby much of its land is reduced to unusable waste, it will need to immediately establish better management systems based on effective access controls. While a small proportion of the affected area may be converted for settlements, industry, and plantations, vast regions may be best utilized by allowing the remaining forest to regenerate. Given the limited field staff in the Ministry of Forestry, communities provide a major social and institutional resource for stabilizing forest use. These studies show that Dayak communities in particular possess a store of ethnobotanical wisdom regarding the forest ecosystem which can be applied to the problems of rehabilitating degraded environments. Furthermore, communities like those in Datarban, Diak Lay, and Ben Hes fear for the future of their environment and are already motivated to cooperate and take action.
However, communities will need the support of both local and national governments to gain the authority to protect and manage natural forests. The government must formulate policies which support community user groups and develop operational guidelines and tenure mechanisms to create partnerships with local people. As one senior Indonesian official notes, "Whatever the tenurial arrangement to be implemented, the objectives remain the same, to improve the prosperity of the communities while ensuring forest sustainability (
FN 22).While the formulation of local use agreements and microplans with communities will require new capacities on the part of local government, growing environmental concerns among villagers are resulting in grass-roots initiatives to solve local resource problems. Certain communities, such as the Dayak of Damai and Diak Lay, are already discussing the creation of management proposals, and are ready to invest their time in developing and enforcing rules and regulations to prevent resource misuse. Governments will discover willing partners in many areas if they can identify ways to respond effectively to community needs by supporting local initiatives. To do this, they will need to listen closely to voices and lessons emerging from the field.
The concerns of Wehea Dayak tribal elders in Diak Lay and Ben Hes reflect a desire to organize and coordinate access controls to their ancestral homelands and thereby establish a process of sustainable resource development. The initiatives of the Benuaq Dayaks in Datarban indicate that local communities are often motivated to stabilize land use and protect forest resources to ensure their long-term productivity. At least some of the migrant communities of East Kalimantan also have a vested interest in protecting the ecological integrity of their new homes. The communities and research teams have established the potential for naturally regenerating forest ecosystems which have been disturbed by timber exploitation, fires, and unsuitable agricultural practices. This report summarizes the teams' findings from the first phase of diagnostic research. Over the next two years, the Indonesian research teams hope to assist these communities, the provincial government, and the Ministry of Forestry in exploring how collaborative management systems for their forests might be operationalized. The teams would like to exchange their learning with other action research programs with similar objectives, both in Kalimantan and in other parts of the world. For further information regarding the Indonesian research program, please write to:
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Dr. Oekan Abdoellah Dr. Abubakar M. Lahjie |
Ir. Sopari S. Wangsadidjaja, Chief |
1. World Bank, Indonesia Forest, Land and Water. Issues in Sustainable Development (Washington, D.C: Asia Regional Office, 1989); Report No. 7822-IND.
2. "Forestry: A Saw Point for Ecology," Far Eastern Economic Review," 19 April 1990, p. 60.
3. Indonesia Department of Forestry, "Project for the Development of Forestry Data and Information Systems, 1986-87.'
4. "Forestry: A Saw Point for Ecology," p. 60.
5. Atlanta/INPROMA, Wood Raw Material Supply, vol. 3 of the Wood Processing Industry Sector Study (Hamburg/Jakarta, 1987).
6. World Bank, Indonesia Forest, Land and Water, p. 3.
10. Nancy Lee Peluso "'The Political Ecology of Extraction and Extractive Reserves in East Kalimantan, Indonesia," Development and Change, 1992.
11. Collaborative research by forest ecologist Mark Leighton and remote-sensing analyst Jean-Paul Malingreau has identified logged over areas as subject to much hotter burns due to the abundance of slash on the forest floor; as a result, there is a much higher death rate among affected canopy trees.
12. Andrew P. Vayda and Ahmad Sahur, "Forest Clearing and Pepper Farming by Bugis Migrants in East Kalimantan: Antecedents and Impact," Indonesia, no. 39 (April 1985).
14. Cynthia Mackie, T.C. Jessup, A.P. Vayda, and Kuswata Kartawinata, "Shifting Cultivation and Patch Dynamics in an Upland Forest in East Kalimantan, Indonesia," Impact of Man's Activities on Tropical Upland Forest Ecosystems; Man and Biosphere Project, 1986; Michael Dove, "Swidden Systems and Their Potential Role in Agricultural Development: A Case Study for Kalimantan," Prisma 21 (1986): 81-100.
15. Departemen Kehutanan, "Social Forestry: Tengkawang Development Project, Kalimantan Barat"; unpublished project report, 1991.
17. See Nancy Lee Peluso, "Networking in the Commons: A Tragedy for Rattan," Indonesia 35 (April)-. 95-108.
18. Recent archeological studies of the Mayans of Guatemala indicate that they practiced highly sustainable and productive farming in the rainforests for hundreds of years by using strategies similar to those of the Dayaks of Diak Lay. A primary characteristic of Mayan agriculture appears to have been the use of small, polyculture plots with long rotations and wide tree corridors between the fields. Since these traditional systems have been abandoned, modem farmers practicing monoculture on large fields have experienced a rapid loss in topsoil and fertility. Report presented on CNN Future Watch, 13 March, 1993.
19. Steven Erlanger, "Indonesia Takes Steps to Protect Rain Forests," New York Times, 26 September 1989, p. C4.
21. Jenne H. de Beer and Melanie J. Mcdermott, The Economic Value of Non- Timber Forest Products in Southeast Asia (Amsterdam: Netherlands Committee for IUCN, 1989), p. 7.
22. Sopari S. Wangsadidjaja and Agus Djoko Ismanto, "Research Needs for Enhancing Peoples' Participation in Indonesian Production Forest Management" (Honolulu: East West Center Writers' Workshop, 1991).
Atlanta/INPROMA. 1987.
"Wood Raw Material Supply." Vol. 3 of the Wood Processing Industry Sector Study. Hamburg/Jakarta.
Beer, Jenne H. de, and Melanie J. Mcdermott. 1989.
The Economic Value of Non-Timber Forest Products in Southeast Asia. Amsterdam: Netherlands Committee for IUCN.
Departemen Kehutanan. 1991.
"Social Forestry: Tengkawang Development Project, Kalimantan Barat." Unpublished project report.
Dove, Michael. 1986.
"Swidden Systems and Their Potential Role in Agricultural Development: A Case Study for Kalimantan." Prisma 21: 81-100.
Erlanger, Steven. 1989.
"Indonesia Takes Steps to Protect Rain Forests." New York Times, 26 September.
"Forestry: A Saw Point for Ecology." 1990.
Far Eastern Economic Review, 19 April.
Lahjie, Abubakar M. 1992.
Laporan Perkembangan: Diagnostic Study of Community Forest Management Options in East Kalimantan. Samarinda: Mulawarman University.
Mackie, Cynthia; T. C. Jessup; A. P. Vayda; and Kuswata Kartawinata. 1986.
"Shifting Cultivation and Patch Dynamics in an Upland Forest in East Kalimantan, Indonesia." Impact of Man's Activities on Tropical Upland Forest Ecosystems. Washington, D.C.: Man and biosphere Project.
Peluso, Nancy Lee. 1992.
"The Political Ecology of Extraction and Extractive Re- serves in East Kalimantan, Indonesia." Development and Change.
N.d. "The Ironwood Problem: (Mis) Management and Development of an Extractive Rainforest Product."
Vadya, Andrew P., and Ahmad Sahur. 1985.
"Forest Clearing and Pepper Farming by Bugis Migrants in East Kalimantan: Antecedents and Impact." Indonesia, no. 39 (April).
Wangsadidjaja, Sopari S., and Agus Djoko Ismanto. 1991.
"Research Needs for Enhancing People's Participation in Indonesian Production Forest Management." Honolulu: East West Center Writers' Workshop.
World Bank. 1989.
Indonesia Forest, Land and Water: Issues in Sustainable Development. Washington, D.C.: Asia Regional Office. Report No. 7822-IND.