USAID LESTARI: STORIES FROM THE FIELD

USAID LESTARI: STORY FROM THE FIELD 1

INDIGENOUS FOREST: THE PEOPLE’S LAST REMAINING ASSET By: Rezki Mulyadi

That is the curse of resources, a paradox of abun-dance. It is a situation where a nation owns abundant natural resources (including minerals, forests, agricul-tural land, and fisheries), but ironically its economy is rather stagnant. Poverty is prevalent, income in-equality rises, and level of education is low. Further-more, the people’s rights over natural resources, which have been owned and managed traditionally by them, are threatened by foreign or domestic ex-tractive industries.

Unsurprisingly, conflicts between companies and lo-cal people due to competing claims of land use and destruction of resources occur annually. The conflicts often result in fatalities and financial losses. Mean-while, the conflicts themselves aren’t resolved in any way. One such conflict occurred in the Menggamat forest area, South Aceh, involving conversion of land for mining purposes.

In the conflict, 256 people in total died, dozens of people lost their jobs due to imprisonment, two of the company’s excavators were burnt, and dozens of hectares of productive plants were destroyed. These facts are what Bintara Yakob remembers about de-fending his indigenous forest that was about to be taken over by PT. MMU and PT. PSU, which was backed by state apparatuses. “We are just defending the indigenous forest which has been the people’s right

“Indigenous forest is a nation’s treasure and one of the few remaining resources. If indi- genous forests located on the equator vanish due to exploitative mining, agricul- tural, and industrial activities, the social-economic liveli- hoods of people relying on the forests will crumble.”

since a long time ago,” he said. Indigenous forests in Aceh have a long history dating back to the era of kings and queens of Aceh who formulated a writ-ten regulation commonly known as adat meukuta alam during the reign of King Iskandar Muda (1607 - 1636).

Bintara Yakob is an imeum mukim in Menggamat. Imeum mukim is a religious leader of a particular sub-region and chosen based on Aceh’s tribunal law. He is a representative of the tribe and plays an important role in maintaining safety, peace, harmo-ny, and order. Each Imeum is assigned to a mukim, a sub-region of Aceh divided based on economic scale and other administrative purposes. At that time, a mukim was as large as its mosque’s attendees for Friday prayer.

Management of natural resources is regulated based on tribunal law of the region. The law of mukim says that forest cannot be possessed individually or turned into an inheritance unless there is an old plant (Multi-Purpose Trees/ MPTS) that has been planted and managed by the people with permission from keuchik and mukim.

Indigenous forests in Aceh are believed to be one of the main sources of wealth of mukim and the only remaining natural resource asset. If they vanish or are damaged, the livelihoods of both current and future generations will be impacted. It is important to reassert that forests play a key role in the hy-drological cycle and guarantee a clean water sup-ply for domestic and agricultural purposes. Forests are also home to other valuable non-timber prod-ucts (rattan, dammar gum, honey, preys, oxygen).

Menggamat forest

Menggamat is the capital of Central Kluet District, South Aceh. This area used to be a part of North Kluet. Located on a mountainous terrain, Menggamat is known for its rich natural resources, including mi- nerals and clean water. Thus, dependency and in- teraction between people and the forest is still high, especially given the fact that the forest provides sources of livelihood: water springs, preys, rattan, dammar gum, vegetables, and others. The people have also realized that these resources are becoming scarcer. As a consequence, forest resource utilization is strictly regulated by tribunal laws.

Most of the people depend on farming to make a living. Their earnings mostly come from patchou-li (nilam), a top commodity in Menggamat. During the 1998 economic crisis, the people of Menggamat made huge profits from the skyrocketing value of the U.S. Dollar against the Indonesian Rupiah. The selling price of patchouli once rose to Rp 1.5 million per kg. The price kept fluctuating until reaching the current level of Rp 600,000. Farmers are almost entirely powerless in deciding the price of patchou-li; in comparison, wholesalers and brokers exhibit more control over the trade.

Now, the success story of patchouli farmers is a distant memory. According to Bintara, the presence of mining companies threatens the farmers. Meng-gamat forest has been torn to pieces by various governmental permits given to companies: mining permits, licenses of utilization of forest products, and plantation licenses. Particularly, since Menggamat for-est has been rumored to store gold and iron ores, several companies have come and engaged in explo-ration activities.

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Photo: Bintara Yakob, an imeum mukim in Kemukiman Menggamat.

“Since 1974, several joint Malaysian-Indonesian corpo-rations have planned to do an exploration, but the peo-ple still held out [against them],” said Bintara.

Subsequently, several national and local companies surfaced to utilize Menggamat forest products. For instance, PT Medan Remaja Timber, which has held a Natural Forest Management Permit (Hak Pengu- sahaan Hutan/ HPH) since 1992. Thousands of hectares of forest are planned to be exploited by these companies. The emergence of Natural Forest Management Permit(s) is the beginning of a constant threat against Menggamat Indig-enous Forest. As an imeum mukin, Bintara stat-ed, “PT RMT has obtained HPH and is going to dredge thousands of hectares of Menggamat forest.”

Fighting for the Status of the Forest Through Community Forestry (Hutan Kemasyarakatan)

The forest in Kemukiman Menggamat is quite large: 13,129 hectares. Local communities have been fight-ing for the recognition of Menggamat forest as an indigenous forest. They are aware that the forest serves to protect their water supply and provides irrigation for the paddy fields that are a source of livelihood for 13 villages.

The effort to push for recognition of Menggamat forest as indigenous forest has been endlessly made by Bintara as an imeum mukim. Assisted by Orang-utan Information Center (OIC), the people have started to realize the importance of teamwork in managing forests sustainably, increasing participation, and instilling a sense of shared responsibility. They are also taught about organizational management.

The fight to obtain the status of indigenous forest is long. Kemukiman Menggamat has already invest-ed significant time and effort to apply for the grant: preparing the necessary documents and arranging the participatory mapping process. “We have actual-ly suggested the recognition of Menggamat Indigenous Forest since a long time ago. This is our dream: obtaining license to manage, utilize, and preserve our forest,” ex-plained Bintara. Without a clear status, Bintara added, “Kemukiman Menggamat’s status will be continuously under threat and the people will no longer have the right and authority to defend it.”

As a role model in Kemukiman Menggamat, Bintara Yakob keeps fighting to raise awareness about the importance of protecting Menggamat forest. He wants his people not to be persuaded by false tem-porary promises made by companies. “If we allow this indigenous forest to be exploited, we are slowly kil- ling the future of our children and our grandchildren,” he said.

His efforts are not fruitless. People are starting to become aware of the importance of protecting the forest. This is a stepping-stone to obtaining an official recognition from the government. “Without people’s awareness, protecting the forest will be pointless even if we have an official recognition. So, the official recog- nition is actually not the first priority,” said Bintara while sailing down the large Lawe Melang River on a small boat and observing the condition of Meng-gamat forest.

A new step is taken and a new page is opened. Peo-ple come back to fight for Menggamat Indigenous Forest. As the beginning, people in Lawe Melang and Koto Village formed a group, planned preliminary

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Photo: Lawe Melang River Transport, Kemukiman Menggamat

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budgeting, arranged participatory mapping, and for-mulated an operational plan, which are the require-ments for application for indigenous forest status.

Previously, fighting for the forest resulted in physical altercations between citizens, companies, and state apparatuses. Bintara as an imeum mukin hopes that change will come about soon. Bintara said that every time they ask the government, they always receive good news; in reality, not a single change has been carried out. “Until this point, we haven’t received any document stating the clear status of our forest. We’re always given promises.”

The journey is still long. The fight is not over. There are many permits yet to be acquired. It is indeed very ironic. When people take the initiative to pro-tect and manage their forest with their own resour- ces, they have to take a long, meandering road. Sad-ly, the same does not generally apply for compa- nies. To Bintara and others it is not a problem. Their local wisdom teaches them that protecting the fo- rest means protecting lives. The disappearance of forest will obscure the future.

“We will always defend our forest, until the end of time,” said Bintara Yakob.