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

8.2 Land use management

The efficient allocation of land resources is a central aspect of agricultural and social development in Indonesia. This necessary allocation is, however, made more difficult by the fact that Indonesia is so spread out, and by the information basis which is still unsatisfactory.

There is no coordinated programme for land use management in Indonesia. A systematic securing of agricultural land which is highly suitable for agricultural utilization in contrast to other utilization forms does not exist. Forest areas come under the Forestry Department and their classification was introduced in the early 1980s with the "Forest Land Use by Consensus". Priority uses of land are established here.

Apart from some exceptions, non-forest areas are under the BPN. Amongst these exceptions are areas under the Ministry of Mines [FN 314] as well as areas under the Ministry of Transmigration and Forest Squatter Resettlement.

In many regions, activities on the land overlap. Thus it is that conflicts in these places occur again and again since land or resource claims are always announced by different interest groups. Shifting cultivators lay claim to rights to areas which have been assigned to commercial timber concessionaires for a long-term period by the MoF. Further conflicts arise out of claims from shifting cultivators to areas which are earmarked by the Ministry of Transmigration and Forest Squatter Resettlements as transmigration areas. Conflicts are also pre-programmed by the increased demarcation of National Parks and the simultaneous limiting of the resource rights of the local people. There are no clear rules for "vacant" land. It is often regarded by the government as unused sites and thus as state land whereas the areas is used by the local communities, either temporary or permanent, for gathering specific forest products, or as reserve land, and thus regarded as "their" land.

Various settlement concepts have been put into action by the GOI in rural areas in recent years. At the end of the 70s, PIR (Perkebunan Inti Rakyat) programmes for settling transmigrants were carried out. These programmes were supplemented with new programmes at the beginning of the 90s. Amongst these were the so-called HTI-Trans programme and the PHR-Trans programme. 284,000 ha of forest land were set aside for the HTI Transmigrasi programme in 1992 / 93, 57,000 ha were set aside for 1993 / 94, and 34,000 ha in 1994 / 95.[FN 315]

PHR-Trans projects were planned for the settlement of "perambah hutan" (so-called forest squatters) by the Ministry of Transmigration and Forest Squatter Resettlement. Pilot programmes for the transmigration of 1.7 million "perambah hutan" were to be carried out in East and West Kalimantan, amongst other places, in which 4 ha of land on individual farms were to be reforested, and 2 ha were to be used for cash crops. These projects are supposed to be carried out on former HPH (hak pengusahaan hutan) areas in production and conversion forests.

There are also no coordinated programmes for land use management in urban fringe areas. Through the division of properties and unregulated construction, unplanned conversion from agricultural to non-agricultural utilization takes place. Various land development and settlement concepts are put into action as land management techniques.

One concept for the improvement of urban development on rural land in selected urban fringe areas is the "Guided Land Development" (GLD). The GLD is supposed to get the Government to provide the necessary infrastructure in the form of roads, water supply and sewage, and thus to guide the land development before private urban development begins. The layout of the plans ought to take place in consultation with the landowners and the local officials (kepala desa).

Too often there is a lack of clear information about land both in rural and urban areas. Various activities for the improvement of the situation are being undertaken in this area. With this, the Indonesian-German Project LUPAM is supporting the introduction and dissemination of new technology for an efficient allocation of scarce land resources in the areas of land use mapping, GIS, monitoring and land allocation.[FN 316]

A further concept, rural and urban land consolidation, will be extensively discussed in the next section.