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

9.3 Specific initiatives

a.) Initiatives in rural areas

Where village land use is concerned in many regions, all ownership systems have to be dealt with by the local people:

Therefore one cannot only concentrate on community approaches.

Approaches for development cooperation in rural areas could be planned in the following areas:

• Securing of ownership rights

The securing of ownership rights is a necessary but not always sufficient precondition for substantial agricultural and forestry production. The security of land ownership can be achieved with land registration. With this, the question arises of whether or not further privatization of land alone through the land registry or also through other pragmatic and less formal approaches is possible? It still must be made clear how communal rights are to be secured. Can, for example, the existing upper limit for land ownership lead to problems in land registry for shifting cultivators? And how should the rights of the local inhabitants to classified forest land be secured?

The procedures for individual land registrations should be made more simple and less costly. The institutional structures at the national, regional and local level for land registration ought to be improved.

Pilot efforts for community-based forest management such as the Participatory Forest Management Approach of the SFDP which secure long-term utilization rights should be initiated and supported.

• Respect for Adat Rights

A huge amount of land, forest land in particular, is under customary land rights. The awareness and recognition of these Adat rights have to be improved. Since many people live on land controlled by the Forestry Ministry, the Adat rights of these local people have to be respected. The current "sectoralist" approach should be replaced by an approach towards the needs of local communities. The resource use strategies of adat communities should be recognized so as to avoid the problems concerning "vacant" lands, for example. The local people’s land in forest areas should be reclassified because classified forest land is state land and this land cannot be registered by an individual.

A programme of acknowledgment of rights has been proposed in the Rancangan Peraturan Pemerintah Tentang Pendaftaran Tanah (The Bill of the Regulation on Land Registration). Landowners who do not have written proof of ownership or whose proof is no longer valid can obtain proof of their rights based on the control of land for 20 successive years given in good faith and unquestioned by the local adat community of the kelurahan involved or any other party.[FN 353]

• Inventory of options desired by the communal groups

Too little information is available about which land policy options are desired by the local people. Is there a natural development from communal to individual lands, when the economic value of the land or of the production of the land rises? To what extent is communal ownership of land desirable to the local people?

The communal group should have the freedom to choose from available options and should not be forced into an "individual" registration system.

• Encouragement of Participatory Law Making

For the participation of communal groups, etc. in the law making process, the making of written laws and regulations available and disseminating them in local languages should be encouraged. Encouraging community legal education programmes can empower the local people to know the formal laws and procedures and to be aware of their land rights. This would also be an important step for political recognition of the legitimacy of participation by all affected actors and interest groups. The Government must acknowledge that it should not be the sole arbiter of land policy. It should be ensured that the local communities, for instance, also have a say in policy decisions.

• Cooperation and network building

Cooperation and network building should be supported with governmental and non governmental institutions for capacity building for land tenure development: e.g. the Faculty of Law, Gadjah Mada University Yogyakarta, the Institut Pertanian Bogor and other Universities and research institutions, the Legal Aid Institute and individual Indonesian consultants could participate in such undertakings.

• Land and resource tenure documentation

A land tenure and resource documentation programme can not only increase public access to information but can also make land information available to decision makers at the regional and national levels. The documentation programme can undertake a survey of existing documents about land tenure matters in particular the "gray literature" at the various institutions. The existing documents (studies, laws and regulations - in particular at the province level), court reports can be collected and made available to the public. Studies and research work on land tenure aspects (for example an inventory of communal land rights) which will be carried out should be designed in such a way that compatible data will be produced.

When setting regional priorities, one should concentrate on the regions in Indonesia (e.g. Kalimantan) in which the main focal point of German technical cooperation in the field of agriculture and forestry is to be found and in which the beginnings in land tenure through networking with existing projects (e.g. SFDP, KUF, SFMP) are thus more likely to succeed.

• Improved transparency and comprehensiveness of the legal framework

The legal regulations in the BAL and the BFL as well as Government and other regulations are sometimes inconsistent and sometimes contradictory. Laws and regulation have to be reviewed and revised (for example the BFL) at the national and provincial levels. A consistent and transparent legal system should be created so that the regulations, provisions, directives etc. are also consistent with the legal framework.

The access to the regulating framework of Indonesian land law should be less difficult.

• Rural land consolidation

Land consolidation is a multi-functional and multi-sectoral activity for the improvement of production, conservation, resettlement, etc.. A rural land consolidation programme could be a possible model for a combined technical and financial cooperation programme. Support can be given in the fields of training, planning and management, legal aspects and regulations, technical execution (e.g. techniques for land valuation should be improved; for surveying and mapping, advanced equipment should be used; consideration of environmental aspects should be introduced), monitoring and maintenance, credit for new infrastructure and new farming systems (for further recommendations see the Workshop Proceedings of the International Workshop on the Implementation of Rural Land Consolidation).[FN 354]

 

b.) Initiatives in urban areas

The rapid urbanization process in Indonesia will lead to a growing number of people who are settling informally or illegally in the cities without basic infrastructure. The informal sector provides shelter for a huge number of people. Some government programmes exist to improve and upgrade informal settlements (KIP). But the legalization of tenure, which is a prerequisite for having access to formal housing finance institutions is hindered by complicated, bureaucratic and costly registration procedures. Pragmatic approaches related to the support of basic and most important functions of land management and municipal administration such as the registration and titling of land or the levying of fees and taxes have to be found. The introduction and support of the Land Information System can be helpful for the provision of information and improving the securing of tenure.

A Land Information System Pilot Project is being carried out in Semarang which supports the land titling / land use registration activities of the national Land Agency / BPN, the local property taxation of the Ministry of Finance, as well as Land Use Planning under the responsibility of Local Governments (indirectly including the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Public Works bodies).

For the settlement of the rapidly growing urban population, large scale land requirements are necessary. This can be done by direct land acquisition combined with land banking. It can also be done by Land Consolidation or Guided Land Development. Land acquisition is getting more and more difficult without land disputes and land acquisition involves high costs. Land Consolidation can not only lead to a more controlled and planned urban growth, but also to the costs for providing the infrastructure being recovered.