Peatlands and Plantations in , : Complex Realities for Resource Governance, Rural Development, and Climate Change Mitigation

Craig C. Thorburn and Christian A. Kull Centre for Geography and Environmental Science Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

This is an author pre-print version of:

Thorburn, CC & CA Kull (2015) Peatlands and plantations in Sumatra, Indonesia: Complex realities for resource governance, rural development and climate change mitigation. Asia Pacific Viewpoint 56 (1):153-168. DOI: 10.1111/apv.12045.

The final definitive version is available through Wiley’s Online Library (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apv.12045) or via http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/apv.12045

Abstract. Peatlands play a crucial role in Indonesia's economic development, and in its stated goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Improved peatland management – including a national moratorium on the granting of any new conversion licenses – forms a cornerstone of Indonesia's climate change mitigation commitment. At the same time, rapid expansion of the plantation sector is driving wide-scale drainage and conversion of peat swamp ecosystems. The province of , in central Sumatra, finds itself at the crossroads of these conflicting agendas. This essay presents a case study of three islands on Riau's east coast affected by industrial timber plantation concessions. It examines the divergent experiences, perceptions and responses of communities on the islands. A mix of dramatic protests, localised everyday actions and constructive dialogue has succeeded in delaying or perhaps halting one of the concessions, while negotiations and contestation with the other two continue. With the support of regional and national non-governmental organisations and local government, communities are pursuing alternative development strategies, including the cultivation of sago, which requires no peat drainage. While a powerful political economy of state and corporate actors shapes the contours of socio-environmental change, local social movements can alter trajectories of change, promoting incremental improvements and alternative pathways.

Keywords: Peatlands, Deforestation, Plantations, Pulp and Paper, Sago (Metroxylon), Acacia, Climate Change, Indonesia, Social movements, Political ecology

Introduction change mitigation, and local governance. The Indonesian government’s 2009 pledge to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 26% Indonesia’s peatlands are volatile crucibles. from a projected business-as-usual baseline They mix carbon and biodiversity, water and by 2020 depends on the country’s ability to fire, villagers and corporations, activists and curb deforestation, particularly on peatlands managers. They are flashpoints for conflict (DNPI 2011). Peatlands store massive over national economic development, climate amounts of carbon, which is released into the atmosphere through the drainage, biomass Watts 2011). The second is the proposition removal, decomposition and burning that that local resistance and activism do have accompanies logging and land conversion impacts. As Rajan and Duncan (2013) point activities. Yet, such activities continue, despite out, such actions can make incremental a formal moratorium from the Indonesian improvements to peoples’ lives and government, protest and resistance from local environments. Third, an applied political communities, and legal challenges from civil ecology can help to identify alternative society groups. In late 2011, for example, 28 pathways and suggest better ways of demonstrators stitched their mouths shut in managing these landscapes that are more front of the national parliament building in a environmentally sustainable and socially just. dramatic protest against the actions of a major pulp and paper company that had A Political Ecology Approach obtained a concession covering 40 per cent of a 100,000 hectare peat island in Riau province Scholars of environmental change have long in central Sumatra. investigated the impacts of large-scale industrial demand on landscapes and local Such resource conflicts are quintessentially communities. Early texts under the banner of ‘political ecological’: they revolve around political ecology were very much concerned dramatic changes to the environment and with the role of natural resource-based divergent impacts on different parts of society, industries in driving environmental caused by multi-scalar, historically and transformations in particular regions (e.g. geographically particular processes. This Hecht and Cockburn 1989; Peluso 1992). particular conflict in Riau Province – which can More recently the field has tended to be seen as a microcosm for the ‘pulp, palm, emphasize other processes like conservation and peat’ triad around the country – is and control, resource management discourses, interesting in how its political ecology has and environmental subjectivities (Robbins played out. On the one hand, the growth and 2012). Peet et al. (2011: 23) argue for a return reach of industrial peatland exploitation is a to political ecology’s political economy roots: stark reminder of the forceful logic of ‘capitalism and its historical transformations is capitalism. On the other hand, as we shall a starting point for any account of the point out, the different experiences on destruction of nature’. different islands in Riau Province show that local and regional activist networks defending Given this renewed emphasis on powerful local senses of justice and access to resources external driving forces, one can easily despair can have an impact. of making a difference, of protecting local lives and landscapes from big capital and/or This article presents a case study of peatlands the predatory state. However, social on coastal district of Riau province. It seeks to movements and protests occasionally succeed understand the pressures that have underlain in curtailing the most brazen initiatives – such the dramatic transformation of this portion of as the well-known cases of water privatization Indonesia’s environment, and asks why the in Bolivia or Daewoo’s land grab in outcomes – in terms of protest, governance, Madagascar. Local communities, tapped into and plantation implementation – vary across networks of NGOs and social movements, can three neighbouring islands. In doing so, we make a difference. draw out broader conclusions for political ecology that support to three key precepts of It is important to bear in mind that such the field. The first is a reminder of the ‘revolutions’ are rare. Rajan and Duncan inexorable pressure of capitalism viscerally (2013), however, suggest that mid-scale social manifested in the landscape, and the action can make incremental but meaningful centrality of economic production and differences. Building on the theories of Karl political processes in understanding particular Polanyi (1957: 20), they argue that ‘social environmental outcomes (Peet, Robbins and change need not just be about large,

2 transformational events recognizable as grounded trajectories of change. The revolutionary, but can equally be about outcomes described here may not look like relatively localized everyday attempts to grand victories; they are more about making marginally improve the day-to-day drudgery big changes less disruptive at the local level, of life’. They suggest that researchers pay and seeking alternative pathways. more attention to ‘movements for habitation’ – attempts by society to ‘protect itself against The information used in the preparation of the forces that undermine its social solidarity this article was gathered during three visits to and threaten to distort its relationship to the Riau province in 2012-13. Initial briefings with natural environment’ (Polanyi 1957: 132). national environmental and human rights Following their line of argument, it makes NGOs and members of the National Forestry sense to understand the development Council (Dewan Kehutanan Nasional, DKN) trajectories and environmental provided background material, while in Riau, transformations of particular regions as co- the lead author was hosted by local NGOs, produced – on varied terms depending on the primarily the Riau chapter of the Indonesian particular power relationships – by local national environmental forum (Walhi) and an actors, social movements, major industries, affiliation of local community organisations and the state. under the collective banner of the ‘Riau Peatland Communities Network’ (Jaringan In Indonesia, there has been an active and Masyarakat Gambut Riau, JMGR). These vocal environmental NGO community since organisations provided introductions to the 1980s (Peluso, Afiff and Rahman 2008). provincial and district forestry and There is a growing consensus that NGOs and government officials and to communities on civil society groups are finally gaining traction two of the affected islands. Local politicians in their long struggle for greater and our NGO hosts both urged us not to environmental justice and forest peoples’ attempt to visit the third island (Pulau Padang, access rights and sustainable livelihoods. see below), as they felt that the presence of Sadly, little of this has found its way into foreign researchers could create suspicion and international scholarly literature. Numerous inflame tensions, which were running high studies in the post-Suharto era have focused throughout the period this research was on the perverse environmental impacts of undertaken. (They did manage to meet with a decentralization and ‘Reformasi’ politics (e.g., few people from that island while visiting the Barr, Resosudarmo, Dermawan and McCarthy district capital.) The lead author stayed for 2006; McCarthy and Moeliono 2011). Others several days in the district capital of Selat emphasise opportunities for increased Panjang, and in villages on Tebing Tinggi and community engagement, rights and access islands, holding discussions with (Colfer and Resosudarmo 2002; Thorburn district government officials, former and 2002), and note some progress in community current village government leaders, farmers, forestry and forest co-management (Campbell small business owners and youth groups, and 2002; Djajanti 2006) . also traveling around the perimeters of concessions to observe environmental This article hopes to make a small conditions and meet people in their fields and contribution to this literature, by examining homes. He was able to observe and the perceptions, responses and collective participate in a number of community actions of local communities in defence of activities, including programs initiated by livelihoods, habitat and environment in the some local NGOs to map land use and village face of powerful state and corporate actors in boundaries and survey the ecological health one of the world’s most rapidly deforesting of forest ecosystems. Interviews and group regions. It suggests that while political discussions were largely unstructured and economic forces strongly shape the contours open-ended; everyone we met was anxious of socio-environmental change, social that their story be heard. Preliminary drafts of movements can and do co-produce specific, the descriptive and analytical material

3 presented here were distributed to NGO and been left largely undisturbed, beyond the local government hosts for comments, subsistence activities of small indigenous feedback and corrections. communities (Page et al. 2011). Yet beginning in the 1980s and accelerating through The first part of this paper examines the subsequent decades, the peat swamp forests problem of peatland management at a variety of places like Sumatra, Borneo and New of scales, from an abstract global concern to Guinea have been subjected to extensive the geographic and historical particulars of logging, drainage, plantation development the case study of the Meranti islands in Riau and landscape fragmentation by smallholder Province. We then present and compare the farms. These changes can be attributed to the ongoing corporate ‘acacia invasion’ and local depletion of forests in mineral soil areas and reactions to it across the three Meranti continuously rising demand for forest and islands, illustrating the forcing power of agricultural products (Miettinen, Shi and Liew capitalist exploitation at the same time 2012). highlighting local people’s differing successes in ‘movements for habitation’. We present Conversion of peatland to other uses releases sago cultivation as a more socially just and carbon into the atmosphere, through removal environmentally sustainable alternative of aboveground biomass, fires, and pathway for communities and businesses in decomposition of the peat as a consequence the Meranti islands. of draining. Drained peatland areas are extremely fire-prone. Even without fire, peat For Peat’s Sake: Why Peat Forests Matter oxidizes when exposed to the atmosphere, releasing CO2. Converting peatlands to other Peat is an accumulation of partially land uses transforms these areas from carbon decomposed vegetation. Peat forms in sinks into major carbon emitters. Globally, wetland conditions, where waterlogging CO2 emissions from drained peatlands obstructs the flow of oxygen from the amount to two gigatonnes per year, atmosphere preventing dead leaves and wood representing nearly 25 per cent of the CO2 from fully decomposing. Peat wetlands emissions from the land use, land use change perform a number of vital ecological functions, and forestry (LULUCF) sector (Joosten, Tapio- including regulating water flow and stabilising Biström and Tol 2012). A further consequence regional evaporation rates, supporting unique of peatland conversion is threats to flora and fauna, and sequestering vast biodiversity, as peat swamp forests have amounts of carbon in the organic matter become important refuges for endangered trapped in waterlogged soil (Corlett 2009). species such as the orangutan, tiger and Altogether, the world's 4 billion km2 of elephant, already threatened by widespread peatlands, scattered across 170 countries, deforestation elsewhere (Miettinen et al. contain between 180 and 455 billion metric 2012). tons of sequestered carbon (Page, Rieley and Peat poses problems for both engineers and Banks 2011). Over geological periods of time, agriculturalists. Peat is highly compressible peat turns into lignite coal, accumulating at a under even small loads, making construction rate of about one millimetre per year of roads and structures difficult. Tropical peat (Andriesse 1988). In cool climate regions like soils are highly acidic, with pH ranging Ireland and Finland, peat has long been between 3 and 4.5. As it dries, the physical exploited as source of fuel. Dried peat is and chemical properties of peat change, classified by the UN as a non-renewable fossil causing it to become hydrophobic. This fuel with similar greenhouse gas emission phenomenon of irreversible drying makes characteristics to coal (WCED 1987). peat soils unsuitable for shallow-rooted Tropical peat swamp forests are a particularly annual crops. Drainage causes peat soils to challenging environment for humans. subside, initially from shrinkage as pores Throughout most of human history they have collapse and solid materials compress, then

4 continuing as the carbonaceous materials Riau: Province of Peat, Oil Palm, and Pulp oxidise (Joosten et al. 2012). The province of Riau in central Sumatra holds Tropical peatlands account for 11 per cent of the largest stores of peat in Indonesia. global peatland area, but contain 20 per cent Papua’s and Central Kalimantan’s peat of global peat carbon – with 77 per cent of swamps are vaster in terms of overall area, that amount located in Southeast Asia however Riau’s peat deposits – some over 10 (Hooijer et al. 2010). More than half of the meters deep – contain an estimated 16.4 world’s tropical peat swamp forests are gigatons of carbon, nearly a quarter of located in insular Southeast Asia (Miettinen et Indonesia’s total (Uryu et al. 2008). Riau has al. 2012). Peat fires and decomposition are experienced some of the most rapid and the primary reason that Indonesia now ranks extensive deforestation in Indonesia, with third in the world (after China and the United total forest area declining by 65 per cent in States) in greenhouse gas emissions, the past quarter century. Riau’s peat forest contributing approximately 5 per cent of the cover has declined from 80 per cent in 1990 global total in 2005 and projected to increase to just over 36 per cent in 2010 (Jauhiainen, significantly through the 2020s (DNPI 2011). Hooijer and Page 2012). The locus of Indonesia’s deforestation and biodiversity loss has now shifted primarily to As in other areas across the region, the peat wetland zones (Miettinen et al. 2012). primary driver of peatland conversion has been oil palm plantation development. Riau The major driver behind peat forest has been at the epicentre of this growth, conversion is large scale plantation leading the country in plantation development (Casson 2002; Koh and Wilcove establishment through the 1980s and ‘90s 2008; Miettinen et al. 2012). Developers dig (Uryu et al. 2008). More recently, oil palm canals to drain the peat sufficiently to allow expansion has spread to other parts of the access to heavy machinery to remove the country, while the primary force behind forest trees, which are used to provide raw material conversion in Riau has shifted to fast-growing for the timber and pulp and paper industries. acacia plantations for pulp and paper This is usually followed by conversion into oil manufacture (Jauhiainen et al. 2012). palm (Elaeis guineensis) and fast-growing pulpwood (mainly Acacia crassicarpa) The distribution of pulpwood plantations is plantations. In fact, peat is not well suited for dependent on the location of pulp mills, oil palm; subsidence can cause large numbers which require far larger investments than the of palms to topple after about four years, infrastructure necessary for about the time they come into full production. processing. Riau is home to two of the world’s Both oil palm and pulpwood plantations are largest pulp mills, one operated by Asia Pulp continuously drained to keep the water table and Paper (APP), and the other by Asia Pacific below the trees’ root systems. Resources International Limited (APRIL). These two mills produce more than two-thirds In support of Indonesia’s commitment to of Indonesia’s total pulp output, each with a reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26 per capacity of over 2 million tons per year. cent, in May 2011, Indonesian President Between them, these two companies hold Yudhoyono enacted a moratorium on new industrial forest concession (Hutan Tanaman concession licenses to clear or convert Industri, or HTI) rights to approximately 25 per primary natural forests or peat lands greater cent of Riau’s total land area. Around 75 per than three meters in depth to agricultural or cent of APP’s pulp plantation land and 45 per other uses (Government of Indonesia 2011). cent of APRIL’s is located on peatland (Uryu et The moratorium was extended for an al. 2008). additional two years in 2013. Pulpwood plantations take seven years to come into production; much of the more than

5

Figure 1: Location of the plantation concessions on the Meranti Islands, Riau Province, Sumatra, Indonesia. 10 million cubic meters of wood used each Before describing the different ways in which year to feed these mills currently comes from the conflicts over the pulp plantations have land clearance for new plantations, and, unfolded on the Meranti Islands, we first according to numerous allegations, from establish the historical and geographical illegal logging (Barr, Dermawan, Purnomo and context. The four main islands cover an area Komarudin 2010). of just over 3,700 km2 (Figure 1). The islands’ highest point – the peat dome located in the The APRIL mill, PT Riau Andalan Pulp and centre of Pulau Padang – is a mere seven Paper (RAPP), is the larger of the two, and metres above sea level. Nearly all the land is commenced operations nearly a decade after peat swamp, with small deposits of clay soil APP’s Indah Kiat mill. APP has more HTI along tidal rivers. According to the Ministry of concessions than its rival, a situation that the Forestry, the islands are comprised entirely of Forestry Ministry sought to address in 2009 state forestland, although official gazettement with a controversial decision to grant an as state forests is yet to take place. additional 350,000 hectares of HTI concession rights across five districts in Riau, to RAPP Just over 175,000 people live in Kepulauan (Ministry of Forestry 2009). Local NGOs have Meranti. The district government’s spatial challenged the legality of this decision, plan calls for approximately 30 per cent of the pointing out numerous legal and islands’ total area – much of the coastal zone administrative flaws in the environmental of the four main islands – to be excised from impact analysis and recommendation the national forest estate (Kabupaten processes, while noting that many of the Kepulauan Meranti 2013). concessions are situated on deep peat (TP2SK 2010). The history of human habitation on the islands dates back only about one hundred Kepulauan Meranti: Sinking Islands at years. The vast swamp and mangrove forests of Sumatra’s eastern coast presented a harsh Indonesia’s Edge environment that even traditional orang asli hunters and gatherers mostly avoided The district of Kepulauan Meranti (the (Barnard 2003). During the pre-modern period Meranti Islands) on the east coast of Riau this coast was largely uninhabited; Province represents a microcosm of the peat- settlements tended to cling to riverbanks pulp-climate-livelihoods nexus in Indonesia. many kilometres upriver, where alluvial Events unfolding there illustrate the deposits allowed for some agriculture. challenges Indonesia faces as it attempts to grow its economy while achieving greenhouse For centuries, Eastern Sumatra’s fine and gas reduction targets. Like thousands of other abundant timber, including camphor, medang small low-lying islands across the archipelago, and merbau, was exported to ports communities on the Meranti islands are throughout the region for use in ship seriously threatened by the consequences of construction and repair (Barnard 2003). The sea level rise. Paradoxically, the national importance of the region’s timber trade government’s economic development plans increased during the 19th century as teak for the islands contribute to the problem in producing regions became deforested. In the two significant ways. Draining the peat domes 1850s, the Sultan of Johore began granting in the islands’ centres accelerates the rights to firms to harvest timber in subsidence process already underway from the region. These timber operations, known decades of legal and illegal logging and as panglong (a Hakka word meaning ‘plank smallholder agriculture, while also increasing storage place’), formed the first semi- overall GHG output – i.e., Indonesia’s permanent settlements on the Meranti contribution to global climate change and sea Islands. The port of , now the level rise. district capital of Kepulauan Meranti, was established during this period (Ukirsari 2012). Panglong owners’ trade expanded to include out of the interior, which often became charcoal and firewood cut from coastal permanent drains, leading to peat mangrove forests, and sago starch extracted dehydration and increased fire danger. Local from the Metroxylon palm (Vleming 1992). villagers used these canals to transport additional timber out of the interior, both for By the 1880s and ‘90s, penghulu (headmen) of their own use and for sale. As occurred various negeri (autonomous settlements) elsewhere, villagers also used logged-over from the eastern Sumatran sultanate of Siak areas to establish new rubber, coconut and were granting rights to establish gardens sago groves. In the Meranti islands, this was a along the coasts where slightly elevated areas fairly orderly process, with village councils allowed cultivation of tree crops. These early determining allocations, and some village gardens mainly grew areca nut palm, later government issuing land use permits. The accompanied by coconut and rubber. These choice of crop was determined by the land’s pioneer farmers did not initially establish elevation and hydrology; drier areas were permanent settlements, but eventually began planted in rubber or coconut, swampy areas building houses and bringing families. The with sago. origins of the 73 villages on the Meranti islands date back to this period. An expanding network of canals and pathways, including narrow concrete roadways to This pattern of exploitation – selective logging support motorbike and small cart traffic, of mangroves and large hardwood trees, and extended outward from villages as more land land clearing for smallholder areca, coconut was brought under cultivation. The twinned and rubber groves, invariably leads to processes of land subsidence and saltwater subsidence of the peat soils and increased intrusion have continued apace. The saltwater intrusion. Landholders cut channels government has constructed tide gates in to drain the top layers of peat, piling the muck some channels to allow drainage while next to the channel to form a dry pathway. As keeping seawater out, however these peat dries, the process of subsidence begins, generally last a short time before falling into and will not stop until it reaches the water disrepair. table level and equilibrium is re-established. Older rubber and coconut stands are notable The Sago Industry in Kepulauan Meranti by the height of the root structures protruding above ground, often a metre or As previously discussed, political ecology more above the current ground level. Many focuses on the ways particular political and older trees topple over, or die as a result of economic systems and modes of resource saltwater intrusion. Gardens and groves – and access combine to shape the trajectories of eventually settlements – have shifted inland particular environmental problems. Political as the coastal zone becomes untenable. ecology is increasingly called upon to identify Nearly all villages in the islands have had to ways to resolve these problems. An important abandon their original locations. Inhabitants task of engaged political ecology is to seek to can still show the foundation stones of the understand the ways that individuals, earlier settlements; these moves have households and communities cope with occurred during the lifetimes of many people change, organise for survival, and unite for now living there. collective action. These knowledges, practices Land use transformation accelerated in the and strategies can become part of alternative 1980s and 90s, when a number of logging development strategies (Robbins 2012). concession (Hak Penebangan Hutan, or HPH) Fieldwork in the Meranti islands brought to permits were granted in the islands. light one such opportunity. Prior to the arrival Concessionaires practiced selective logging, of HPH logging concessions in the 1990s and taking only the largest and most valuable HTI industrial pulp plantation concessions in trees. They dug canals to transport the logs the 2000s, villagers and entrepreneurs in the

8 Meranti Islands were already pursuing a islands and other regions with (semi- natural resource-based livelihood and )mechanised processing, the trunk is cut into industry that can produce very different social meter-long pieces that can be rolled out of and environmental outcomes. the forest and floated down rivers. To extract the starch, the pith of the core is scraped and The large islands and coastal lowlands of pounded (or mechanically pulverized), eastern Sumatra are ideal for sago production. reducing the fibre to small pieces and The Metroxylon palm thrives in a swampy loosening the starch particles. The environment, requiring no drainage (Ruddle, pounded/pulverized pith is then mixed with Johnson, Townsend and Rees 1978). water and run through a filter into a settling Therefore, unlike other tree crops currently vessel. The starch settles forming a thick paste, being promoted on converted peat forest land, which is removed and further dried before sago cultivation does not result in peatland packaging into moist cakes or sacks. Sago in subsidence. this form is used to produce a variety of traditional dishes, as well as commercial The trade in sago in this region dates back products such as pearl sago, flour and noodles. hundreds of years. Sago is not indigenous to An early industrial innovation was the Sumatra or peninsular ; it was introduction of simple forced-air ovens to dry introduced by ancient seafarers sometime in the paste into fine flour that can be more the distant past (Tan 1983). ‘Siak sago’ has easily transported and stored for longer long been regarded as the highest quality; 15th periods without oxidizing or putrefying. and 16th century Chinese annals note its importance in the region (Barnard 2003). In Most villagers in the Meranti islands grow a th th the 19 and early 20 centuries it was traded few stands of sago, which they harvest for use by English and Dutch merchants for use as as a breakfast food or snacks, and sell some to sizing in the textile industry. Today, nearly all local mills. In the mid-1980s, sago cultivation sago produced here is shipped to Cirebon, on the islands expanded after the national West Java, for the manufacture of sohun glass government tried to promote rice cultivation noodles. as part of the national rice intensification program. After a few seasons, most villagers The sago palm multiplies vegetatively by elected to plant sago instead. Only about stolons growing from the base of the trunk, 1,500 hectares of rain-fed rice is currently forming dense stands and can become the grown on the islands, while some 7,000 dominant plant across vast areas of households cultivate nearly 40,000 hectares swampland (McClatchey, Manner and Elevitch of sago groves. Sago is Kepualuan Meranti’s 2006). It is easily propagated by separating major crop: nearly 200,000 tons per year, suckers for replanting, and takes between compared to 22,000 tons of coconuts, 8,500 seven to ten years to reach maturity. As tons of rubber and 5,500 tons of rice. mature stems are harvested, others replace them. An individual tree can reach ten meters For several decades, the sago trade in the in height and produce over 200 kg of pure Meranti Islands has been dominated by 60 or starch. A well-managed sago garden can yield so mechanised mills operated mainly by 150 stems per hectare per year, or Chinese tauke, many of these descendants of approximately 30 tons of pure sago starch. As original panglong entrepreneurs. Diesel such, sago is a more productive plant than engines power a variety of machines to rice, in terms of both its output per area and pulverise, mix, wash and strain the sago pith, labour input (Ruddle et al. 1978). and the paste is harvested from large settling ponds. These factories also include drying Sago is harvested by cutting the tree then ovens, used to process the semisolid cake into splitting or peeling the trunk to expose the sago flour. Each factory employs between 30 inner core. In many traditional societies, the to 50 men – thereby forming the economic sago is processed on the spot. In the Meranti mainstay of neighbouring villages – and

9 produce between 150 to 300 tons of dry sago Tinggi Timur subdistrict (see below). Presently, per month. The mills lack waste treatment demand exceeds production, and there has facilities; liquid effluent flows directly into been a raft of sago theft, targeting harvested streams or the strait, while the fibrous pith is trunk sections awaiting transport to mills, and dumped in fetid heaps. The sago bark is stolons for sale to the plantation. According to usually piled in a crosshatch manner along the many growers, however, the greatest threat shoreline to build up a bank and counter to sago production in Kepulauan Meranti is subsidence and erosion. Most of these alteration of the islands’ hydrology resulting operations own several hectares of sago from the establishment of pulpwood gardens, and also purchase additional sago plantations. trunks from villagers. The ‘Acacia Invasion’ and Local In the late 1980s, the national Inpres Village Movements for Habitation Development Program provided four miniature mills to process villagers’ sago in the Tebing Tinggi subdistrict. A small diesel Since 2007, the Ministry of Forestry has issued engine drives a rotary rasp to shred the sago HTI concession permits for three acacia pith and a small propeller located in a mixing plantations on the islands to companies vat. These simple mills are capable of affiliated with APRIL/RAPP (Figure 1). The processing between 10 to 20 sago trunks per permits were issued before Kepulauan day, producing between 20 and 30 tons of Meranti was split off from the much larger wet sago per fortnight. Each mill provides district of in 2009. Since the new part-time employment for about ten people. district’s establishment, the community and A number of local entrepreneurs soon government have been embroiled in constructed their own mills; presently there controversy over the three concessions. are 17 ‘sago rakyat’ mills operating in Tebing These cases, each reflecting differences in Tinggi. Profits are slim, particularly with rising governance, networks and historical fuel costs. The sago cake produced by these contingency, demonstrate how local mills is of inferior quality, still containing some ‘movements for habitation’ (Rajan and fibre and impurities. Their entire production is Duncan 2011) can sometimes attenuate the purchased by a sole trader operating from starkest impacts of industrial exploitation. Selat Panjang, who often has difficulty The PT RAPP Concession on Pulau collecting enough sago to fill his 150-ton boat Padang for a fortnightly trip to Malaysia. The largest and most controversial of the HTI The Indonesian government has long been concessions in Kepulauan Meranti is PT RAPP interested in developing sago’s economic and on Pulau Padang. The 41,205 hectare food security potential, categorising sago as a concession covers nearly 40 per cent of Pulau strategic national food crop. Sago is receiving Padang’s total area, and borders all 14 villages renewed attention as a possible response to on the island. Local activists claim that the climate change, which is expected to concession area encompasses villagers’ adversely impact rice production in Indonesia ancestral land, and that the land clearing and and elsewhere (Alfons and Rivaie 2011). The drainage will cause immense harm to the government of Kepulauan Meranti is island’s environment (Metroterkini.com 2013). promoting sago as a primary engine of growth and prosperity in the district, and plans to The concession stretches nearly the entire 60- more than double the area in the district kilometre length of the island. A section of under sago cultivation, to over 100,000 high conservation value forest on a peat dome hectares with a projected annual production is excised from its centre, leaving an of 400,000 tons of sago flour. A commercial elongated donut-shaped plantation (see map). sago plantation has recently begun operations Of the 41 thousand hectares, about two thirds on a former timber concession in the Tebing (27,775 hectares) is to be planted in acacia,

10 with the remainder set aside for timber PT RAPP began operations in March 2011, species, ‘livelihood plants’, company facilities, amid escalating tensions. The company and one ‘non-productive area’ where a rapidly dug several kilometres of drainage petroleum company operates. canals, cleared nearly 6,000 hectares of forest, and planted over one thousand hectares of During 2009 and 2010, PT RAPP secured acacia. Numerous demonstrators were letters from the Village Heads of 11 of 14 arrested and detained, and a climate of fear villages on the island approving the and intimidation prevailed. Violence broke out concession’s operation, claiming that the at the site in July 2011; two RAPP excavators company will provide hundreds of jobs, new were burned and an operator killed. In late and improved roads, social and educational 2011, demonstrators set up an ‘operations programs, and support for agricultural and post’ outside the provincial parliament small enterprise development. Three villages building, and five demonstrators sewed their located in the south of the island rejected the mouths shut in a dramatic protest gesture. In concession altogether, and between 2010 and December, a delegation of 82 activists 2012, the Village Councils (BPD) of eight of the travelled to Jakarta, planning to sew their eleven ‘pro-concession’ villages also issued mouths and camp in front of the national letters rejecting the concession. There began parliament building. Not long thereafter, a series of increasingly impassioned public another six demonstrators announced their protests, at the site, in the district capital intention to self-immolate if the concession Selat Panjang, in the provincial capital was not revoked. Twenty-eight people had , and in Jakarta (Kompas.com 2011). stitched their mouths shut by the time the Minister of Forestry ordered RAPP to The district government initially supported temporarily suspend operations in December the communities’ wishes, dispatching three 2011, and dispatched a mediation team to letters to the Ministry of Forestry requesting investigate the situation and propose that all three HTI concessions in the district be solutions (Andiko et al. 2011). reviewed. However, after the Director General of Forest Production responded in The mediation team submitted their findings November 2010 that the concessions were in January 2012, and the Minister offered that legal and would go ahead, the district the land of the three villages in the south of government has been left with little recourse the island that reject the concession be other than attempt to implement the law, excised from the concession, effectively which has drawn it into conflict with groups halving its size. The compromise further opposing the RAPP concession. stipulated that all community lands would be mapped, with existing groves and farmland to The most outspoken segment of the be ‘enclaved’. Hard-line opponents in Pulau opposition is supported and coordinated by Padang rejected this compromise, continuing Serikat Tani Riau (STR), the provincial branch to demand that the entire concession be of the National Farmers’ Union (Serikat Tani cancelled. Individuals favouring conciliation Nasional, STN), which is affiliated with the claim to have been threatened and Democratic People’s Party (Partai Rakyat intimidated; some who we met in Selat Demokratik, or PRD). STR promotes mass Panjang claimed they were afraid to return to mobilisation, frequently organising marches, their homes on the island. tent cities, ‘open seminars’, Istighotsah mass prayer meetings, and hunger strikes Nearly two years after being ordered to demanding that the RAPP concession be suspend its activities, in October 2013 PT withdrawn. Angry crowds have disrupted RAPP, with the approval of the Ministry of ‘socialization’ events organised by RAPP, Forestry, attempted to reinitiate land-clearing blockaded docks to prevent equipment being and planting on Pulau Padang. Protesters offloaded, and jostled and thrown water on immediately launched an armada of small visiting government officials. craft to prevent the company from landing its

11 equipment. Police turned out in force – not to scenarios that played out across Indonesia’s enforce the Ministry of Forestry’s permit, but outer islands throughout the HPH timber to prevent violence and encourage the two concession era of the 1970s and ‘80s, the sides to negotiate. These negotiations were height of Indonesia’s logging boom (Gillis inconclusive, until eventually the company 1988). withdrew its barges (Berdikari.com 2013). For now, the impasse continues. Villagers note with alarm that the local hydrology is changing;. Inundation is a regular If PT RAPP’s concession is revoked, the feature of life for people living in peat government will be required under ecosystems, however, this used to occur in a Indonesian law to compensate the company. predictable, seasonal rhythm. Now, villagers Meanwhile, PT RAPP’s management continues we met explained that after just a few days to insist that they have done nothing wrong, without rain the canals from which they draw that the environmental impact assessment their water are reduced to a trickle, but just and permit process were all conducted in one night of rain and their yards and gardens accordance with Indonesian law. On its are completely under water. website, RAPP’s parent company APRIL maintains that they are ‘a leader in Asia in Any changes that occur, locals are quick to applying best practice sustainable forestry blame the acacia plantation. In 2012, the sub- management’, and ‘part of the solution to the district seat of Tanjung Samak experienced its challenge of balancing environmental first cases of dengue fever; most people conservation, social and economic believe this is somehow related to the HTI development’ (APRIL n.d.). concession. Coconut groves are infested with beetles; local farmers are certain that these The PT SRL Concession on Pulau and other pests have been forced out of the Rangsang diminishing forest. As one villager explained:

A second permit was issued to PT Sumatra ‘The beetles are angry since the Riang Lestari (SRL), another APRIL/RAPP concession took away their food. Now affiliate, for an 18,890 hectare HTI concession they attack our coconut trees. Maybe on Pulau Rangsang. Local communities there we’ll get angry too, like those people were not so unanimous or coordinated in in Pulau Padang. But who will we their response, and the company was able to attack? Where will we get our food?’ secure support letters from all of the neighbouring village governments. Canal and PT SRL has several other HTI concessions road construction, timber harvesting and throughout Riau province, and many of these forest clearance, and acacia plantation have encountered concerted opposition and activities have proceeded at a rapid pace since protest from local communities and NGOs. late 2009. Four years on, over half the Perhaps anticipating greater resistance in concession area has already been planted in Pulau Rangsang, the company has publicised acacia. numerous initiatives to underscore their commitment to local communities and the Villagers we encountered in neighbouring environment. These include articles in local communities are fearful and confused. They newspapers about agreements with nine claimed that there is little or no clarity about villages to grow 2,000 hectares of ‘livelihood concession boundaries, about who will plants’ (which they are legally obliged to do), receive how much compensation, or about efforts to protect the island’s coastline the location of or access to the five per cent of through mangrove reforestation, and the concession area set aside for ‘livelihood statements that the canals they are plants’ for local communities. As such, the SRL constructing are intended for hydrological case is the one that most closely adheres to a management and fire suppression, thus ‘business as usual’ model, resembling

12 potentially staving off disaster for island district levels, and sought support and residents. guidance from environmental NGOs in the provincial capital Pekanbaru. The NGO At the time of our visit in late 2012, the website ‘Eyes on the Forest’ (2010) published situation in Pulau Rangsang was becoming an investigative report challenging the legality increasingly tense. Community leaders of the concession, pointing out that a expressed concern that the sort of significant portion of the concession area intimidation and violence that has plagued contained natural forest still in good condition, Pulau Padang might spread to Pulau Rangsang. and noting as well that the concession area If any sort of coordinated protest does impinged on community members’ rubber eventuate, however, it will be too late to stop and sago groves. the plantation, which is nearly completely cleared and replanted. Communities can still Despite these protests, PT LUM initiated organise around issues of compensation, activities in 2008, cutting over 10 kilometres access to livelihood plant zones, and of canals and submitting an annual work plan watershed management, but to date, no-one (RKT) to the Forestry Ministry in 2009 to clear is taking a lead role in such an endeavour. 2,832 hectares and remove over 260,000 cubic meters of wood. The company more-or- The PT LUM Concession on Pulau less ceased operations soon thereafter Tebing Tinggi however, and since 2009 have neither removed any wood nor cleared any land, The third case study contrasts with both of although they continue to submit RKT work the previous ones. It can be characterized as plans to the Ministry, and send out crews at constructive and cordial opposition that has least once each year to erect new boundary succeeded (so far) in preventing the company markers or make small modifications to from operating. It involves the first of the pulp existing canals. They need to do this to keep plantation concessions on the Meranti islands, the concession license from being revoked for issued in 2007, to PT Lestari Unggul Makmur inactivity. (PT LUM, another RAPP/APRIL affiliate), for a 10,390 hectare HTI concession on Pulau Villagers across Tebing Tinggi Timur, Tebing Tinggi. meanwhile, are engaged in a coordinated crusade to convert more land into rubber or The community of Sungai Tohor, the oldest sago groves – including the issuing of land use and largest village in the subdistrict, had permits by village governments. With the previously engaged in serious protests against Subdistrict Head (Camat)’s official blessing, PT Uni Seraya, a timber concessionaire that each village is undertaking participatory had formerly operated in the area. These mapping of their boundaries and land use actions included the torching of a logging with the assistance of a local NGO. Their camp and the house of the former Village strategy is to demand that this land be excised Head in 2002 to protest damage caused to from the concession area, eventually community members’ rubber and sago groves. diminishing its size to the point that it will not A number of villagers served prison sentences be worth PT LUM’s effort to clear and plant for their role in the violence. acacia on the remainder. They are also Anxious to avoid a repeat of that previous attempting to position themselves as experience, the community was more responsible environmental stewards. measured in its response to the arrival of PT Together with provincial environmental NGOs LUM five years later. They quickly dispatched and a few concerned academics, community letters from Village Heads and Councils (BPD) leaders in Sungai Tohor have established a of all seven villages bordering the concession young farmers association and a number of area to district, provincial and national demonstration plots to encourage agricultural government officials, organised numerous diversification; conducted training courses in (peaceful) demonstrations at the village and

13 forest surveying techniques; and established These three case studies illustrate in different nurseries to support afforestation and ways how local leaders and activists have enrichment planting programs. They plan to reacted to the powerful, well-connected establish Sungai Tohor as a ‘Centre for capitalist forces seeking to convert peatlands Sustainable Peatland Agricultural and on their islands for acacia plantations. While Horticultural Development’ to support the communities in Pulau Rangsang were perhaps efforts of the Riau Peatland Community too slow or disunified to stop the company’s Network (Jaringan Masyarakat Gambut Riau, actions or extract any concessions, in both JMGR). In early 2013, a workshop of local Pulau Padang and Tebing Tinggi leaders and villagers, village and subdistrict government activists have so far succeeded in slowing or leaders produced a ‘Memorandum of halting the concession activities. Each of these Understanding’ (Nota Kesepahaman) outlining has taken a somewhat different approach, shared goals for community-based however, with the former emphasizing management of forests on the island that confrontational protest and the latter more emphasised active community participation; constructive dialogue. In Pulau Padang, transparency; resolution of outstanding protesters demand nothing short of a total conflicts; improved community livelihoods withdrawal of the concession. The national, and environmental conservation; and and by most indications, district government’s certainty of land use and boundaries response has been to propose a mediated established through a consultative process. settlement involving compromise, but failing that, will back the concession as legal and Unlike the protesters in Pulau Padang, supporting national and regional development community leaders in Tebing Tinggi Timur objectives. The case of Tebing Tinggi Timur have cultivated cordial relations with district presents an alternative scenario that appears government officials, frequently hosting to stand the best chance of producing exhibitions, fairs, ceremonies and celebrations. different forms of local development and The following conversation embodies the alternative economic strategies, akin to the strategy they are pursuing: ‘movement for habitation’ propounded by Rajan and Duncan (2013). ‘We need to avoid ‘playing hard’ like those people in Pulau Padang; look what it has gotten them… A New Type of Industrial Forest Concession ‘But the people there have been compelled by circumstances to do Before concluding, we introduce another, new what they did. The company and the form of large-scale capitalist plantation government have just forced their development taking shape on the islands. In way. the southeast of Pulau Tebing Tinggi, adjacent to the inactive PT LUM concession, ‘Yes, well we cannot let it come to agribusiness giant PT Sampoerna Agro is that. We all lose when it becomes developing Indonesia’s first non-wood violent.’ product industrial forest concession, to The district government, for its part, has produce sago. The area is a former logging repeatedly petitioned the Ministry of Forestry concession that was aggressively harvested to review, revise or revoke PT LUM’s during the 1990s by PT National Timber and concession in Tebing Tinggi Timur. They point Forest Products (NTFP). After harvesting most out that the concession has been inactive for of the available timber, NTFP management four years, and recommend that it be began planting sago in logged-over wetlands. converted either to a ‘community forest They eventually planted around 4,000 concession’ (Hutan Tanaman Rakyat, HTR), or hectares, much of which is now reaching perhaps a sago concession (see below). maturity. Since then, the concession has changed hands a few times, most recently

14 when PT Sampoerna Agro purchased the predecessor PT NTFP is unclear. Most men in rights in 2010 to form PT National Sago Prima the village work on the NSP plantation. Most (NSP). likely the company will set aside a portion of the groves currently under preparation or NSP has already planted an additional 4,000 already under cultivation as the ‘livelihood hectares of sago, and established a nursery to plant’ allocation for these local villagers. produce 380,000 seedlings needed each year. Eventually, 14,600 of the concession’s 21,600 While the NSP concession experiences the hectare area will be planted in sago; with the same sort of land compensation and labour remainder consisting of ‘livelihood plants’ disputes as plantations all across Indonesia, it (most likely sago as well) for local has not encountered the same level of protest communities, timber species, conservation and contestation as the three acacia forest, and a buffer zone between their concessions discussed above. Local villagers’ concession and the neighbouring PT LUM attitudes toward the operation are somewhat concession. The company has already dug 170 ambivalent; sago farmers we met are kilometres of canals to control water levels disdainful that the new interlopers do not and facilitate transport of harvested sago. NSP consult with local growers to deploy ‘local has constructed a modern processing facility wisdom’, but rely instead on agronomists with the capacity to produce 33 thousand from national universities. They expressed tons per annum of high quality sago flour. The doubt as well that thinning sago stands and company’s engineers are experimenting with controlling water levels can increase using sago waste to run the factory’s boilers. production. Local mill owners speculate that Sampoerna Biofuels, another subsidiary of the PT NSP is manipulating the local price of tual, Sampoerna Group, plans to explore the and fear that the company will attempt to possibility of utilising sago to produce biofuel establish a monopoly over sago harvesting (Jakarta Globe 2010). and processing in the district. (This seems unlikely, as the NSP mill’s processing capacity The concession employs around 300 workers, of 33 thousand tons represents only about 17 with much of the low-skilled labour drawn per cent of the district’s current production.) from neighbouring villages. The company aims Most fundamentally, it appears that the rural to source all of its sago from its own communities of Kepulauan Meranti recognise plantation, but has resorted to purchasing that a sago plantation does not represent the some sago stems from local growers while same sort of threat to the ecology of the their own trees mature. This has led to a islands that acacia plantations do. significant increase in the price of sago stems; when the company began operations three If successful, this venture could present an years ago, the price of a 110 cm ‘tual’ of sago important viable alternative model for was Rp. 15,000 (US$ 1.50), presently it fetches forestry development in the Kepulauan nearly three times that much. The district Meranti district, as well as other peat swamp government has requested that NSP refrain areas in Riau and elsewhere in Indonesia. from purchasing sago stems from local Although NSP have not yet conducted any producers so as not to undermine local mills experiments to measure carbon emissions operating in the district; they presently from their sago plantation, the fact that the purchase any additional tual needed to meet peat is kept saturated precludes the sort of production targets from farmers in the district dehydration, oxidation and subsidence that of Siak on the Sumatran mainland. occurs when peatlands are converted to either oil palm or acacia plantations Villagers in Kapau Baru, located at the main (BAPPENAS 2009). Peat ‘re-wetting’ is one of entrance of the NSP sago concession, are the major strategies proposed by the demanding compensation for sago groves Indonesian National Council on Climate they claim to have planted. How much of this Change to reduce the country’s GHG they planted as paid employees of PT NSP’s emissions (DNPI 2010).

15 One alternative scenario that the district entirely thwart capitalist expansion, but, as government has proposed to the Ministry of Rajan and Duncan (2013) argue, they can and Forestry for the PT LUM concession is that it do make incremental improvements to be converted instead into a sago plantation. peoples’ lives and environments. In the Residents of surrounding villages have told us Meranti islands, concerted community action that they still intend that the concession be has delayed and possibly halted acacia revoked altogether, or converted to concession activities on two islands, while community forest plantation (HTR) status, but communities and local government promote that a sago concession would definitely be alternative economic activities and livelihood less objectionable than acacia. solutions. Their approaches and outcomes, as we show across three different islands, have Conclusion different historical and social contingencies, and produce contrasting results. Combining The focus of this research was to investigate everyday activities of localized resistance with the intersection of two seemingly conflicting scale-crossing alliances and networks of social national policy imperatives – to grow movements, Meranti villagers and leaders, Indonesia’s economy through promotion of local politicians and government officials, natural resource based industrial smaller scale capitalists, and regional and development, while at the same time trying to national activists seek to moderate the strong significantly reduce Indonesia’s GHG political and economic forces affecting these emissions – as these play out ‘on the ground’; islands, and to forge liveable compromises. i.e., to analyse the ways in which these Alternative pathways are appearing that policies and initiatives impact on particular suggest ways of managing these landscapes local communities and ecosystems, and to try that are more environmentally sustainable to understand the different ways that local and socially just. communities respond to these changes. The Meranti islands are poised at the cutting edge of debates over Indonesia’s climate change mitigation strategy and development References: approaches. The aggressive expansion of powerful Indonesian pulp and paper Alfons, J.B. and A.A. Rivaie (2011) ‘Sagu companies, particularly on carbon dense Mendukung Ketahanan Pangan dalam peatlands, is clearly at odds with Indonesian Menghadapi Dampak Perubahan Iklim’ President Yudhoyono’s ‘progressive’ and (‘Sago Supports Food Security in the ‘apparently sincere’ statements on combating Face of Climate Change’). Perspektif climate change, reducing deforestation and 10(2): 81-91. developing sustainable forestry (Butler 2012). Andiko, T. Batubara, E.B. Siregar, J. Suhendri, I. The swamp-level viewpoint that informs these Harmain, A. Zazali, Wawan, A. Setiadi, investigations reveals communities vulnerable I. Sukendar and K.S. Hut (2011) to the impacts of both global climate change ‘Laporan Tim Mediasi Penyelesaian and global capitalistic development. It reveals Tuntutan Masyarakat Setempat as well an intimate glimpse of these same Terhadap Ijin Usaha Pemanfaatan communities’ ‘ecologies of hope’. Hasil Hutan Kayu Pada Hutanam Tanaman (IUPHHK-HT) di Pulau We have shown that while powerful state and Padang Kabupaten Kepulauan corporate actors in one of the world’s most Meranti Provinsi Riau’ (‘Report of the rapidly deforesting regions strongly shape the Mediation Team on Settlement of contours of socio-environmental change, Community Demands regarding the social movements can and do have impacts, Industrial Forest Utilisation Permit altering trajectories of change in particular (IUPHHK-HT) in Pulau Padang, local and regional landscapes. They may not Kabupaten Kepulauan Meranti,

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