Ulrich Löffler, (1996):
Land Tenure Developments in Indonesia

3.3.2 Land Use

Forest areas

In presenting the classification of forest land, the quantitative data for the various uses of forest land have already been explained. However, not all areas of land which fall under the jurisdiction of the Forestry Department are forested. It is reported from Sumatra that 30 % of all land belonging to the Forestry Department is deforested, and that 15 % of all rubber in Sumatra is now on Forestry Department land.[FN 70]

In addition, areas of land with a slope of over 45 % have been classified as production forest but which ought to be classified as protection forest. According to a report made by the WORLD BANK [FN 71], "resolving conflicting views and objectives about forest classification will be a major task of Government over the next decade" since

• forestry categories have been drawn up without detailed knowledge of slope and forest conditions,
• local cultivators have been incorporated within Forestry Department boundaries
• agricultural needs or land suitability have not been taken into account in defining conversion categories.[FN 72]

Commercial utilization rights in the form of concessions for so-called production forests are granted to private and semi-State businesses. Since the end of the 60s, the number of concessions and the extent of licensed areas of land has risen sharply and today takes in virtually the entire amount of production forest in Indonesia. In 1992, a total of 579 concessions were granted with a total area of 60,345,000 ha This is equal to about 94 % of the entire areas of forest which have been declared production forest. It is estimated that concessionaires carry out logging on 800,000 ha per year.[FN 73]

With this, forest land with natural forest will be considered productive and forest land with grass, scrub or "sparse" natural forest and "bare land" is considered less productive. According to the Ministry of Forestry, there were already approximately 25,177 million hectares "unproductive forest lands" outside Java in 1984 [FN 74]. HTI [FN 75] were allowed to set up on these "unproductive or less productive forest lands" which must have a low average commercial stem volume of less than 20 m3. However, ISWANTO is of the opinion that these regulations are not sufficient to prevent productive natural forests from being turned into plantations.[FN 76]

During REPELITA IV, 68,700 ha were brought under HTI schemes. In the time period 1989 / 90-1993 / 94, the planting of 1.5 million ha under HTI schemes was planned. Of that, the planting of 597,354 hectares had been realized by October 1992. As the MoF sees it, a total of 6.2 million ha of HTI will be established in the long run, and there are plans to develop 1.25 million ha between 1994-1999. [FN 78]

Agricultural areas

Some 70 million ha of a total of around 192 million ha of land are used for agricultural purposes and settlements. In the following table 1, the land use for 1989 is given:

Table 1: Indonesia: Land utilization, 1989 (million hectares) [FN 79]

Source: BPS (1990c).

Indonesian agriculture relies heavily on three different land types:

• dry land for non-wet land rice and food crops, orchards, fruits and vegetables
• estates
• wet land rice farms.

About 3.6 million ha of the wetland rice farms (of that around 3 million ha in Java) are well irrigated and highly productive. The remaining rice fields are rain-fed rice lands and tidal swamp rice lands with a much lower productivity. About 300,000 ha of well irrigated rice farms on Java are presently used for sugar cane. More than 10 million ha are used for estates, but one must distinguish between:

• smallholders’ estates, mainly for the cultivation of rubber, coffee and coconuts
• highly market-oriented and large scale plantations mostly run by state-owned companies.