This section presents a collection of six case studies of community involvement in forest management in insular and mainland Southeast Asian countries. Each case provides a brief background on the historical relationship of the village with neighboring forestlands, typical use practices and technologies, and indigenous social mechanisms for management.
These case studies reflect the rich cultural diversity of the region and the many ways human societies in Southeast Asia have succeeded in developing largely sustainable and relatively self-sufficient systems of natural resource use over many generations. Each resource use system is specialized to take advantage of the unique natural characteristics and features of the habitat in which it is situated. Institutions, rules, and values are formed to guide resource management, adapting to emerging needs and changing conditions. While some systems are comparatively simple, other systems are rather complex in terms of technologies, regulatory systems, and the bodies of knowledge and beliefs that guide them. The experiences of the communities presented indicate that there is an ongoing discussion among members concerning ways to best utilize and protect the forest, and how to avoid overexploitation by themselves, their neighbors, and outside commercial interests.
The studies also describe how community-based systems of forest management are often highly dynamic, responding to changes occurring locally, nationally, regionally, and even globally. Expanding community populations and migrant influx place continual pressure to use forestlands for agricultural purposes. Competition with outside private sector interests for forests and other natural resources has grown in intensity in all the case study areas over the past fifty years. In the Cambodian case study for example, industrial logging operations come into direct conflict with local communities, while the Indonesia case study shows how communities in Krui are beleaguered by the palm oil concessions. National and foreign investors are assessing the mineral and timber resources of the Pantaron Mountain case study areas, even as those areas are currently being registered as ancestral domain. At the same time, case communities from Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam are confronting an array of government restrictions on their upland use as new national parks are formed and watershed regulations tightened.
In response to outside interests, communities are organizing and adapting their behavior in various ways. Through inter-village meetings, coordinated actions, and by networking, discussion of resource management is a frequent topic of debate in many of our study areas. Local government officials, agency foresters, NGO staff, researchers, development agency project personnel are all playing different supportive roles in assisting communities to respond to these threats. Land use planning is either ongoing or has been implemented in all six of the case study areas. Most significantly, in four of the six, the central or provincial government has given some recognition to indigenous community land rights and institutions, including their claims over forests that had previously been designated as "state" land. Each case concludes with a section highlighting some of the important learning experiences and how these are reflected within broader national and regional issues.
In the mid-1990s, recognizing the continuing heavy dependence of rural communities on natural forest resources, a study of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) was conducted in Ratanakiri Province in northeastern Cambodia. The initial goal of this project, funded by international NGOs, Oxfam, and Novib, was to explore ways to ensure the livelihoods of forest-dependent peoples and address resource conflicts. Over the past five years, vast forest tracts in Cambodia have been leased to private concessionaires for logging and plantation establishment. Leased areas frequently encroach on local village land. The project staff sought to facilitate dialogue between communities and government and to use existing legislation to enhance land and forest tenure security of the highland, ethnic minority inhabitants of the semi-evergreen forestlands. (
Note 1)The Forest Conservation Association of Upper Ya Poey Commune is one of several pilot projects in Cambodia that are attempting to vest indigenous communities with greater government recognition over their rights to communally held forestlands. The project involves 5,000 hectares of forest under the authority of six local villages.
The participating communities have agreed upon rules for forest protection and use, which they submitted to local government. While short of formal legal recognition, this case provides an important precedent for development of a new national legal framework that potentially could empower communities as forest managers. At the same time, this important test case faces threats from the same industrial logging policies that operate in other parts of the country. In March 1998, the forest department issued a logging permit to Hero, a Taiwanese timber exporter that includes forestlands already under Ya Poey community management. This action by the government has created concern among the local communities (see Box 11).
|
Box 11: Ya Poey Villagers Seek Help to Protect Their Forest from Logging |
|
Six villagers from Poey Commune in Ratanakiri Province recently came to the NTFP office in Ban Lung asking for help to protect their forest from logging. They said that logging activities in their forest had begun again. Trucks had been coming to the area for some time and the villagers had already cut trees to block the road and push them back, but recently the road construction had headed into their own forest. They "dreamed" that they should stop the equipment and had sacrificed a pig, but the equipment still came. They were worried that the spirits would get angry and that more pigs and chickens would have to be sacrificed. They had come to the NTFP project staff to ask for help in setting up an official community forest that would protect their forest from logging. They learned that their forest is now part of a large 60,000 hectare "legal" concession granted by the government in 1998 to Hero Taiwan, Ltd., an international timber company. An official from the provincial forestry off ice was asked to come and talk with the villagers. He showed them the official document from the government allowing the company to log in their forests; he showed them the large red official stamp of approval. He explained that it was too late to organize a community forest because the land had already been given to Hero. They asked if they would receive any benefits from the company; they were told that the company has already paid the government for the concession and if the villagers wanted any benefits they would have to ask the company. They were told that the concession is the law; all the land belongs to the government, not the villagers. They asked why they had not been informed of the activities in their area, and about protecting other resources such as fish and malva nuts. They asked how many trees would be cut and if they could monitor the activities of the company when it logged. They were told that the forestry department would monitor the concession activities and that they, the villagers, did not have the expertise to understand the technical aspects of forestry. At the end of the three-hour meeting, the villagers expressed their concern that the logging would make the spirits angry and the people sick. They were worried about the big trees being cut and the effect that would have on rain and how cutting the big trees would damage the small tress that they used for house building. The forest official came up with only one solution for the villagers: look outside the concession area; maybe the villagers could organize a traditional use community forest somewhere else. Source: "Villagers Ask for Help to Protect Forest from Logging," email communication from Don Muller, NTFP Project, April 4, 1999. |
Ratanakiri Province is located in remote, northeast Cambodia, sharing borders with Laos and Vietnam. Twelve thousand square kilometers, most of which is dense forest, is sparsely populated by 85,000 inhabitants including 7 highland minority groups. Fifteen percent of the population resides in towns and another 15 percent are low-land rice farmers. The remaining 70 percent are swidden cultivators whose ancestors have resided in small forest communities for centuries. Since the 1960s, the development of rubber plantations and other estate crops has been jeopardizing the environment and the indigenous peoples of the region.
Recent attempts by government and outside investors to take control of the forests in Ratanakiri and other provinces has accelerated since the elections of 1993, when the country was opened for investment. Since then, lowland Khmer have been moving into the area in increasing numbers, buying land along roads and near markets. In 1997, over a dozen coffee, rubber, cashew and other estate crop concessions of 100 to 20,000 hectares were granted "pending" approval by the provincial government. In that same year, the Macro-Panin logging concession, owned by Indonesian investors, gained exploitation rights to 1.2 million hectares of forestland. This concession was later cancelled, but is now being reallocated, with 60,000 hectares recently granted to Hero Taiwan, Ltd., an international timber company.
Close to one-half of the province's 1.16 million hectares has been set aside as royally decreed protected area. In addition, six dams are planned for the province and, in some cases, flooded areas could stretch across nearly two-thirds of the province from Vonsai to the Vietnamese border. Aside from generating hydropower, the government hopes to create irrigated paddy land that will allow communities to shift from swidden to wet rice agriculture (see Figure 6). Local people are unhappy about the recent "land grab" by commercial companies which threatens their ancestral domain and the remaining long rotation farmland.
For the ethnic minority communities of Ratanakiri Province, the forest environment is the basis for their spiritual and physical existence. Local spirits inhabit some forests, with taboos that forbid cutting to effectively ensure conservation. One section of O Taberr Forest contains a sacred grove of bora bamboo and villagers believe that "breaking off a piece of the bamboo or talking and joking loudly in the vicinity of the grove can result in illness or death." (
Note 2) On Ranchean Mountain, communities tell of forest spirits who are angered by the presence of guns and who forbid the hunting of gibbon, large deer or gaur, and tigers. According to the elders, when Kres villagers cleared the forest on the mountain in 1985 to open plots of chamkar, the spirits were angered and many villagers died. Regarding these old growth forests, one Brou elder noted that, "these trees were born in the time of the gods," and so to cut in these areas could anger the spirits and cause illness or death. (Note 3)While highland communities of Ratanakiri generally regard the forests as a communal resource, they often distinguish between the nearby regenerating forests and swidden fields that are part of the long agricultural rotation system, and the more distant forests with older growth. All chamkar, whether it be swidden fields currently in use or fallow, regenerating forest, is considered general domain of the village, as are most spirit and cemetery forests. Rainfed paddy lands are increasingly viewed as private property due to the claims of lowland Khmer settlers. Communities are careful not to open a chamkar inside the boundaries of another village that can lead not only to conflict with neighbors, but may displease the spirits as well.
As population and resource use pressures grow, village territory is being progressively defined and demarcated to minimize conflict. As one Kralah village headman reports:
From the past there were no village cultivation boundaries. Each village had its own area for doing chamkar only when the chamkars from one village expanded to meet with the chamkars from another village did we set boundaries. (
The more distant forest areas are less clearly delineated and are often shared with other communities. Villages may have different rules and taboos governing the use of shared old growth forests. Nonetheless, the economic dependence on old growth forests is significant. As one villager noted:
Our village boundaries extend only to our chamkars-that's one-hour's walk-but we support our living in an area much further than that, in the forest beyond our village boundaries. These forests are like our market place-they are where we find wildlife, malva nuts, rattan, and so forth. If a company takes those forests, we'll be dead. (
The highland people of Ratanakiri Province are unhappy about social and economic changes threatening their land tenure security. The late Ratanakiri Judge Choeung Pheav, an ethnic Kreung, summarized the problem in an interview in 1995:
There are many disadvantages at present for the indigenous people. The price of land is increasing, the population is increasing, and investors are coming. Meanwhile the indigenous people need a lot of land to sustain their lifestyle. Therefore if we look clearly at this, lowlanders may take over the land because the ethnic minorities have no land title certificates. The minorities are very worried about this. Unless international organizations think about this problem and how to intervene, the whole traditional land stewardship will collapse ... As far as the government is concerned, unless they see (land title) certificates, it is government land. But according to traditional rights it is the indigenous people's land because that's the way it's always been. (
Under current Cambodian land law, rural people can gain control over agricultural land, including both chamkar and old growth, by claiming individual title, forming an association and placing it under communal ownership, or by acquiring a long-term lease. Individual titling is perceived by many to be a lengthy and expensive process. Since most land ownership in Ratanakiri has historically been communal, private land ownership is a relatively new concept, although becoming increasingly common with permanent paddy lands. The privatization of long rotation swiddens, including both active fields and regenerating forest, poses problems, since it would rigidify the allocation of resources within a dynamic demographic and natural environment. It would also break down communal cohesion by disconnecting a major production system from group authority, strengthening the independence of individual households.
While some families see potential to acquire cash by obtaining private land titles, many are concerned about fragmenting the village territory. Interviews with Jarai, Tampuen, and Krueng indicate concern that individual titling of swidden lands would result in the creation of islands of private farmland surrounded by forests open for speculators and concessionaires, leaving no room for gathering and hunting. As one elder noted "If we develop in the so-called 'development way'-each family up to 5 hectares—all the land and forest will be gone. If we develop in the traditional way, there will be forest and land remaining." (
Note 7)In response to the growing threat to communal forests by outside speculators, village elders from Koy Village in Ya Poey Commune began formalizing rules for the use of the communal O Taberr Forest after the election in 1993. The initial regulations were simple: no clearing of communal forest for swidden, forest burning, or felling of large trees. Community elders were concerned, however, that their rules would not be recognized by outsiders.
Several years later the NTFP project, supported through Oxfam and Novib, began working in the area documenting forest product collection practices and use rights. Koy villagers asked them to help find ways to formalize their forest use rules. The project approached neighboring communities and found that the Krueng people of Koy shared O Taberr Forest with the neighboring hamlets of Ta Ngach, Kres, and Kiong. The staff asked village elders if they would be interested in creating a common set of forest use rights and rules and sharing a management area. They agreed to this arrangement and also suggested that Mas and Kancheung villages should be made management partners, since they share the communal forests of Stieng and Phnom Tapieng (see Figure 7).
In February 1997, three representatives from each of the six villages met. Elders from Koy village explained their concern that they could not protect the forest alone. They required authority from the government and the cooperation of their neighbors to guarantee that their need for rattan, wood, and bamboo could be met. Village leaders from Kres noted that they had managed their local forests for generations and wanted to be sure they could continue to sustain them for the future. Kancheung villagers were concerned about animal poaching by Lao hunters. They also reported that forest burning was destroying rattan and that malva nut trees were being cut and damaged during harvesting. At the end of the meeting, the elders agreed to establish the Forest Conservation Association (FCA). After lengthy discussion, the group agreed to adopt a common set of rights, rules, and responsibilities (see Box 12).
|
Box 12: Ya Poey Forest Conservation Association: |
RegulationsRightsResponsibilities |
The NTFP staff played an important role in the six villages and with the local government by facilitating discussion and providing technical assistance to the villagers to map the boundaries of four conservation and collection forests within the association area. The combined forest territory of the six member villages is now over 5,000 hectares.
Phnom Tapieng Forest is one of four forests managed by the FCA. A careful inventory of this 1,824-hectare semi-evergreen forest indicates that it is highly productive and rich in biodiversity. Close to 200 tree species and over 300 species of flora and saplings have been identified, 60 percent of which are used by local villagers. In a NTFP valuation survey of 40 households, researchers found that the combined value of rattan, firewood, honey, resin, bamboo, nuts, medicinal plants, wildlife, forest foods, and other products was as high as $4,000 per hectare, before calculating environmental services (
Note 8) By contrast, the present value of standing timber, based on a 90-year felling cycle, was only $1,700 per hectare. Furthermore, in recent years compensation paid to community members when commercial firms take control of their ancestral forestlands averaged only $36 per hectare.The survey found that all households rely on forest products for subsistence and cash since only 30 percent of families have a member engaged in wage labor. The study concluded that "NTFP are worth a lot, much more than hitherto thought, and are very important to the poorest sectors of society." (
Note 9) Benefits from forest products consumed ranged from $625 to $3,925 per household, averaging around $750 annually. (Note 10) At least over half of the households used their forest product income to purchase tobacco, MSG, salt, clothes, and sandals. A much smaller number of wealthier families purchased medicine from the West, sugar, rice, oil, batteries, and blankets.Equally important, forests supply the land for long rotation agriculture. Each family requires 6 to 8 hectares, which may be under a rotation of 3 to 30 years depending on soil fertility and land availability. Most swidden, or chamkar, plots are of similar size, usually no more than two hectares; enough to feed the family, but still within the capacity of the household to work the land. Old growth forest is rarely cut, as families prefer using old regenerated chamkar land. Highland people in Cambodia grow a variety of crops in their chamkar including upland dry rice, cassava, taro, sugarcane, maize, sweet potatoes, yams, gourds, beans, peppers, sesame, tobacco, pineapples, egg-plants, tomatoes, pumpkins, and cucumbers. Bananas, mangos, jackfruit, papaya, cashews and other fruit trees are planted around the households and in chamkar after field crop rotations are finished. Recent findings indicate that chamkar farming practices have led to dynamic but stable forest cover in the area over the past fifty years. (
Note 11)As this case study demonstrates, land speculation by outside private investors, supported by powerful interests in government and the military, has destabilized forest management practices that have demonstrated their long-term sustainability. The recent granting of concessions appears to give little or no consideration to the rights of local and indigenous peoples and the livelihoods and cultural traditions of thousands of families are being jeopardized. The case of Ya Poey identifies a number of important lessons that can assist in clarifying the process of land allocation to avoid unnecessary conflict between stakeholders. These are:
Lessons from the FCA resulted in the formulation of a number of recommendations now under government consideration. (
Note 12) Some key prescriptions are provided below:
This case study represents only one of many indigenous resource management systems in Indonesia that produce a wide range of goods from forest fruits for home consumption to highly valuable industrial products such as resin, rattan, and latex. The Communication Forum for Community Forestry (FKKM), a coalition of NGOs and academics that came together in the late-1990s, estimates that there are some 18 distinct types of community forest systems managed by ethnic minority groups throughout the archipelago. These mixed forest garden systems, or agroforestry, provide both cash and subsistence needs from non-timber forest products to the communities managing them while also maintaining the ecological structure and functions of the natural forests. While agroforestry systems like the one in Krui are often referred to as indigenous and traditional, they are also dynamic. Village managers are continually experimenting with new techniques and management strategies that affect planting and germinating, as well as different approaches to pruning, thinning, harvesting, processing, and marketing.
Scientific research and institutional coalitions have both played an important role in gaining greater tenure security for Krui communities over their damar forests. Social and ecological studies over the past twenty years have confirmed the high levels of productivity and long-term sustainability of the mixed agroforests of the southern Sumatra coast, not to mention their value as a habitat for biodiversity. Local, national, and international research and environmental action organizations have used this information to build a strong case for government recognition of the rights of traditional forest stewards. Tim Krui, FKKM, and other working groups and coalitions have effectively cooperated and succeeded in influencing the government through joint initiatives and interagency dialogue.
The current political transition in Indonesia provides a new opportunity to broaden the forest policy debate and extend greater authority to traditional adat communities over customary forest territories. While there are still many challenges facing local indigenous agroforesters, the prospects for new protection of these indigenous management systems is encouraging. With government recognition, community forest management allows Indonesia's forest-dependent peoples to make an invaluable contribution to sustaining the cultural and ecological complexity of the country and maintaining the biological diversity of the forests of Southeast Asia.
Along the southern coast of Sumatra, nestled between a protected tropical montane forest and the Indian Ocean, lie the agroforests of Krui. These agroforests are often called kebun damar, or damar forest gardens, referring to an important resin producing tree (Shorea javanica). Damar or Shorea javanica is a species of dipterocarp, the largest family of commercial timber trees in tropical Southeast Asia.
At first glance, the vegetation is indistinguishable from the primary rain forests in the adjacent national park, Bukit Barisan Selatan (see Figure 8). Yet, the lowland forests of Krui are far from wild; rather their structure and composition have been shaped by generations of community stewards. The forest canopy and understory is a complex mix of trees, climbers, herbs, and shrubs grown for centuries by local people for trade and domestic use.
While many types of fruit, wood, fiber, spices, medicinal materials, and other products are harvested for domestic consumption and sale, certain items may be of special importance. In the case of Krui, the damar resin from the Shorea javanica was a major trade good for centuries and, as a consequence, these trees have become a dominant feature of the forest gardens of the region. Beginning in the third century, damar was highly prized by Chinese merchants as the best material for caulking ships. On a visit to southern Sumatra in 1783, an English historian noted the damar plantations that produced Shorea javanica and, by 1843, annual damar exports from Sumatra exceeded 280 tons. By the end of the eighteenth century, international market demand for damar resulted in the development of specialized agroforestry systems designed to produce products for trade.
Increasing demand for damar in the United States and Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century led communities in the Krui area to begin widespread planting of Shorea javanica. (
Note 13) By the early 1980s, damar production had reached 5,250 metric tons nationwide and today almost one-half of all Indonesian damar comes from the forest gardens of Krui. Eighty percent of all damar traded on the world market is produced by smallholder farmers harvesting the resin from extractive agroforest reserves in Indonesia. It is used as an important binder in paints, varnishes, and linoleum products. A few decades ago, the development of synthetic damar threatened to crush the market for the natural product but it appears that the natural product remains competitive. In 1987, Indonesian exports of the highest quality damar resin, called mata kucing ("cat's eye"), were estimated at $4.5 million compared with the total production of forest and non-timber forest products at an estimated $26 million. (Note 14) It continues to fetch a stable price on the international market despite the recent Asian economic crisis.Raw damar from the whole of Krui is collected, sorted by quality, and then purchased by a series of middlemen from the villages and from the district town of Krui. Damar of lower quality goes to domestic paint and batik factories. Each village usually has 10-20 small traders who purchase damar from the farmers and take it to the market. In 1998, a farmer would expect a good harvest of high quality damar (based on size and clarity) to yield about 300 kilograms per hectare a month for which he would receive approximately $0.60 per kilogram, or $180 for his harvest. (
Note 15)Families manage the forests under the overarching adat (customary) laws and the institutions of the people who inhabit the Krui area. According to customary tenure systems, the Pesisir people hold forestlands in common under their hereditary lineage groups, or marga, which distinguishes the jointly-held forestland from the individually-held rice fields. As with the Katang people in Ban Khamteuy village in Laos with their yang oil trees, individual families in Krui could claim tapping rights to individual damar trees, if they were the first to begin collecting its produce. At the same time, no family was allowed to claim exclusive rights over virgin forest. Families received permission from the marga to open forest patches for fanning, but they were not allowed to plant perennials, except for coffee, pepper, and other relatively short-lived crop (
Note 16). If the family ceased to use the land for an extended period of time, the regenerating forest would revert to the stewardship of the community.As the markets for damar expanded, however, opportunities to increase production through the planting of Shorea javanica, especially in fallowed fields, grew. Planting damar trees required considerable investment in labor and capital, just as in the creation of rice paddy fields, and as a consequence local families wanted the tenurial authority to pass these damar gardens to their descendents. Given the changing economic environment, marga leaders "formally accepted the removal of the prohibition against planting perennials in the marga lands, which boosted the spread of the plantation movement and led to drastic land appropriation activities by individuals in former communal forest domain." (
Note 17) Yet, the old tenure system based on communal ownership prevailed in non-planted forests that continued to be held as hutan marga, or community forest.Although damar forest gardens have become the property of Krui families, households do not have hak milik penuh (full property rights) over the land as they would in Western law; they are still subject to community or marga restrictions. In Krui, families now hold hak waris (hereditary rights) to damar gardens allowing them to be passed to their descendents but they are not permitted to transfer the trees or cut them without the approval of the larger extended family. (
Note 18) Disputes over damar agroforests are subject to arbitration by the marga. While there has been a move towards privatization of damar gardens in Krui, common property traditions and Pesisir social values ensure that land and tree use rights remain under the oversight of the extended family and clan, and the larger community. As a result there has been no fragmentation of the forest garden ecosystems in the Krui area, which would have been likely under Western-style privatization. Many resources within the forest gardens continue to be held as community property, including many fruits, sap from the sugar palms, bamboo, thatching leaves, and other goods. This is especially true of "wild" plants versus those that are "planted." (Note 19)Damar forest gardens are often established at the end of the cycle of shifting cultivation, or when there is a sufficiently large opening in the forest canopy. The cycle often begins with the clearing of an old garden or secondary forest since primary forest is rarely opened for swidden farming in Krui. After clearing the forest, the first crop planted is upland rice. Following the upland rice harvest, a secondary, "intermediary" crop is planted, usually coffee or pepper, and in three to seven years damar seedlings are added to the upland field. Damar seedlings are germinated from seeds at home and transferred to upland plots. As the damar grows, it contributes to a microclimate suitable for coffee production; then, fifteen years after planting, damar overtakes coffee, pepper, and other fruiting trees.
This successional forest garden increases in complexity over the years, influenced both by natural ecological processes and by the planting and selective cutting by community members. As the damar reserve matures, it acquires the characteristics of neighboring natural secondary forests. As a multi-tiered canopy develops, herbaceous species decline, resulting in decreasing density of undergrowth. Damar trees begin producing after twenty years, yielding resin for about 30 years before dying somewhere between 50 and 60 years of age. Once established, damar gardens are not felled on any particular cycle like conventional plantations, but rather trees are individually cut and replaced as needed.
In mature damar reserves, damar trees that are interspersed with tall fruit trees, like durian, dominate the upper canopy. The lower canopy layer comprises shorter fruit bearing trees, like duku. Wild plants are allowed to grow, especially those that yield useful products. Damar forests resemble natural forests both in structure and in diversity. A recent comparative study of sample plots in primary forests in the area of damar agro forests and rubber estates found that there were 230 species in rain forests, 120 in damar forests, and only 10 in rubber estates. In rain forest sample sites, 130 bird species were enumerated versus 70 in the damar agroforests and 5 in rubber estates. This data indicates that damar agrofores have much higher biodiversity than rubber estate possessing over 50 percent of the plants found in neighboring rain forests. (
Note 20) Rattans, and some woods like Trema, Macaranga, Rubiaceae, Lauraceae, and Sterculiaceae provide communities with timber, fuelwood, and vines. With the loss of natural lowland and hill dipterocarp forests, damar gardens have become an import habitat for endangered mammals such as the Sumatran rhinoceros, the Sumatran goat, tigers, tapir, gibbons, and siamangs (monkeys). (Note 21)Aside from damar, household income is greatly enhanced from the sales of fruits from these agroforestry gardens. A recent study from the Krui village of Pahmungan found eleven commercial fruit tree species present in a one hectare mature damar agroforest, including durian (Durio ziebethinus), nangka (Artocarpus heterophyllus), menteng (Baccaurea racemosa), duku (Aglaia dookkoo), manggis (Garcinia mangostana), mangga (Mangifera indica), and petai (Parkia speciosa). Yearly income per hectare of agroforest was estimated to range between $1200 and $1800 based on a labor investment of 127 person days.
Researchers and silviculturalists have been impressed by the success of Krui farmers in establishing damar plantations. While Krui farmers are masters at regenerating dipterocarp species, p. ate sector and government reforestation programs have had difficulty re-establishing these valuable hardwoods. The richness of the damar reserves in the case of Krui demonstrates that reestablishing dipterocarp forest is not an impossible feat.
Throughout Indonesia, community institutions and adat laws continue to play an important role in regulating forest use among village families. Indigenous management systems are typically structured to resolve disputes among members, maintain a degree of equity within the community, and protect the resources for use by future generations. While most of Indonesia's natural forests are legally under the administration of government forestry agencies, millions of hectares of forestland are actively managed by forest-dependent households and communities relying on customary organizations and traditional methods. It is estimated that in the mid-1980s, agroforests under community and household management, like those found in Krui, covered about 3.5 to 4 million hectares in Sumatra (
Note 22). They are of great economic significance, supplying 70 percent of Indonesia's total rubber production, 80 percent of its damar resins, a large proportion of the clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, coffee, and related tree crop produce, and nearly all of the nation's fruit exports. (Note 23) But because of their commercial value and generally weak tenure position under existing Indonesian land laws, agroforests and forests under de facto household and communal management have been vulnerable to private interests, especially those with political support in Jakarta.With its valuable and productive forest reserves, Krui has been an attractive region for outsiders for hundreds of years. Yet, encroachment on the communities and resource management systems has increased in recent decades. In the early 1990s, local farmers in Krui became concerned when their 29,000 hectares of damar gardens, which are formally located within the State Forestry Zone, were leased to a timber concession. The company threatened to begin logging the 3 million valuable dipterocarp trees planted by Krui villagers. At the same time, oil palm companies, with the support of local government, began encroaching on Krui's agroforests. In 1996, one company clear-cut dozens of hectares of community-planted damar on the southern border of Krui. (
Note 24)The boom in international palm oil has sent domestic and foreign investors exploring opportunities for development throughout Indonesia. Nationwide, crude palm oil production rose from 400,000 tons in 1975 to 6 million tons in 1998. With 2.4 million hectares now under oil palm plantations, rapid expansion could result in an additional 3 million hectares converted to oil palm in the next few years (
Note 25). According to a recent report:Oil palm and timber plantations may have more negative consequences for local communities than previous logging operations. To some extent communities had managed to co-exist with logging operations but the plantations consume vast areas of land and may displace their traditional activities entirely. (
At present, four corporations control two-thirds of the oil palm area in Indonesia, with much of the new planting taking place on forestlands. Over the past decade, thousands of hectares of pepper gardens, natural forests, damar reserves, and other environments have been converted to palm oil plantations in the Pesisir Selatan, or southern coastal areas of the province.
According to satellite images, the Krui area possesses 54,000 hectares of mature damar agroforest (
Note 27). In 1991, a government regional land use plan (TGHK) designated over one-half of the area, 29,000 hectares, as part of the State Forest Zone. In the mid-1990s, community members learned that two large palm oil concessions were being planned for their area, one of 17,000 hectares in the north, and a second of 25,000 hectares to the south. News that darner agroforests were being clear-cut at night and during Friday prayers fueled the anxieties of local inhabitants that their resources were endangered. Indonesian as well as foreign scientists who had studied these remarkable agroforestry systems for several decades were also highly concerned. In response to the growing threat that the indigenous damar agroforestry of Krui might be converted to palm oil estates under corporate control, a coalition of researchers, called Tim Krui was formed in 1994 to help local communities protect their forest gardens. The Tim Krui coalition includes professionals from the Indonesian Tropical Institute (LATIN), the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF), the Ford Foundation, NGOs, and universities.Tim Krui members worked with villagers to map their damar reserves and helped organize meetings with local and national government representatives. Tim Krui hoped to better inform government planners regarding the sophisticated and effective management system already protecting the area and to gain legal recognition of community rights to the forest, notwithstanding its official designation as a State Forest Zone. A panel discussion was held in June 1997, involving community leaders, Tim Krui members, and Ministry of Forestry officials.
Mr. Djamalludin, then Minister of Forests, took interest in the Krui situation and suggested that it be used as a test case to develop a new community forestry policy. While the minister was reluctant to declassify the forestland, he did push for local control of the forests over the long term. The ministry thus decided to create a Special Management Area designation (known as Kawasan dengan Tujuan Istimewa—KdTI), with technical guidance from ICRAF. The ICRAF team drew on the experience of the Philippines, translating the language of the ancestral domain certification (CADC) into Indonesian for review by ministry officials. A committee worked for six weeks to draft the new terms. Some forest department members resisted formulating a new order while others wished to restrict the size of the special use zone. Ultimately, with the use of satellite imagery, an area of 29,000 hectares was allocated for the new Krui KDTI.
In January 1998, the government declared Krui a new special use zone (KDTI) (
Note 28). The new community forestry designation granted Krui communities control of ancestral damar forest reserves under customary adat institutions and laws. KdTl status gives the people of Krui rights to both timber and non-timber forest products. The new legislation is viewed as an important step toward recognizing the ecological and economic benefits from community-managed forests and devolving forest management authority to local people. Provisions of the new classification include:The challenge faced by the Ministry of Forestry and Estate Crops in the post-Suharto era is to move beyond a few showcase areas to a broad implementation of new CFM policies nationwide. Currently, the KdTl for Krui affects only 10 percent of the damar reserves found in the Pesisir Selatan region of southern Sumatra. Further, the community is still reviewing whether the current terms of their management agreement with the government provide the security they seek. Some community members feel that the boundaries of the State Forest Zone should be outside the area of the damar gardens, and that these resources should not be under the aegis of the Ministry of Forestry. Still, most villagers in the Krui area believe the new agreement is an improvement over previous arrangements.
The Krui case study highlights the rich forest management traditions of Krui and how local villages became some of the first communities in Indonesia to be nationally recognized as forest stewards. Krui's mixed agroforests and damar reserves play an important role in the protection of biodiversity and serve as a buffer zone to protect Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park. The reserves maintain the hydrology of the upper watersheds of the Barisan Mountains, ensuring that flooding or droughts do not threaten the irrigated rice fields along the coast. While Krui is an important test case in Indonesia, and recent government recognition of traditional management techniques and institutions provides greater tenure security to communities, indigenous agroforest forest management remains threatened, both along the Sumatra coast, as well as throughout Indonesia.
Krui is only one of the many diverse and complex indigenous systems of forest management found throughout Indonesia. The case of Krui is important because it is helping government planners and scientists understand the value of traditional agroforestry practices in Indonesia, both in terms of economic productivity as well as proven sustainability. At a time when Indonesia desperately needs stable and productive systems of forest management, indigenous forest garden technologies and stewardship institutions provide an attractive option to industrial timber extraction, i.e. responding both to the ecological and economic needs of local residents. At the same time, retaining indigenous agroforestry practices also supports local cultures and institutions.
The case of Krui provides a number of important lessons to policy makers, NGO activities, development agency representatives, and researchers including the following:
1 Sarah Colm, "Options for Land Security Among Indigenous Communities: Ratanakiri, Cambodia," unpublished manuscript of the Non-Timber Forest Products Project, Banlung, Cambodia, May 1997.
3 Joanna White "The Indigenous Highlanders of the Northeast: An Uncertain Future," in Interdisciplinary Research on Ethnic Groups in Cambodia, p. 334.
8 Camille Bahn, "An Economic Analysis of Tropical Forest Land Use Options, Ratanakiri Province, Cambodia" (Singapore: EEPSEA, November 1997).
11 Jefferson Fox, "Mapping a Changing Landscape: Land Use, Land Cover, and Resource Tenure in Northeastern Cambodia," unpublished manuscript.
13 John Gould, Americans in Sumatra (The Hague: Martinus Njhoff, 1961) pp. 16-17.
14 Latin, Studi Banding Lampung Barat, Krui dan Jambi Selatan, Kubu (Bogor: Lembaga Alam Tropis Indonesia, 1996) and E. Torquebiau, "Man-made Dipterocarp Forest in Sumatra," in Agroforestry Systems 1984, 2:103-127.
15 Latin, "Krui Damar Reserves," 1998, unpublished report.
16 For a detailed discussion of tenure in Krui, see Genevieve Michon, Hubert de Foresta, Kusworo, and Patrice Levan, "Formal Recognition of Farmers' Rights as a Pre-condition for the Rebuilidng of Productive and Durable Community Forests in Indonesia: The Damar Agroforests in Krui, Sumatra," in Charles Zemer, ed., People, Plants, and Justice (forthcoming).
17 Ibid. p. 3.
18 Ibid. p. 3.
19 Ibid. p. 5.
20 For a detailed review of the findings, see G. Michon, "Complex Agroforestry Systems and Conservation of Biological Diversity II," Malayan Nature Journal, 1997, V. 45, n 1-4. pp. 488-500.
21 G. Michon and H. de Foresta "The Indonesian Agro-Forest Model," in P. Hatiaday and D. A. Gilmour, eds., Conserving Biodiversity Outside Protected Areas: The Role of Traditional Ecosystems (Gland, Switzerland: IUCN, 1995).
22 Hubert de Foresta and G. Michon, "The Agroforest Alternative to Imperata Grasslands: When Smallholder Agriculture and Forestry Reach Sustainability," Agroforestry Systems, 1997, 36: 105-120.
23 Ibid. pp. 105-120.
24 Chip Fay and Hubert de Foresta, "Progress Towards Increasing the Role Local People Play in Forestlands Management in Indonesia," prepared for the Workshop on Participatory Natural Resource Management in Developing Countries, Mansfield College, Oxford, April 6-7, 1998.
25 David Kaimowitz, "Oil Palm Displaces Forests and SmaUbolders in Indonesia," CIFOR email news release, 4/20/98.
27 Personal communication from Hubert de Foresta, May 11, 1999.
28 Abdul Garuda Nusantara Hakim, "Kajian Hukum Surat Keputusan Menteri Kehutanan No. 47 Tentang Kawasan Dengan Tujuan Istimewa," in Dani Wahyu Munggoro, ed., Komuniti Forestri: Menguak Evolusi Pemikiran Komuniti Forestri. Seri 1, Tahun 1, March 1998.