Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province, Indonesia
Colfer, C., Dennis, R.A., and Applegate, G
Site Report
September 2000
The underlying causes and impacts of fires in South-east Asia. Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province, Indonesia
by
Carol Colfer1, Rona Dennis1, and Grahame Applegate1
1 Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)
Map design: Rona Dennis Copy editing: Erik Meijaard
Corresponding author and contact address: Carol J. Pierce Colfer Center for International Forest Research (CIFOR) PO Box 6596 JKPWB 10065 Jakarta Indonesia
Cover photo: Rice field burning in Long Segar (Long Apui) in August 1979 Photo by: Carol Colfer
Table of Contents
Page No. ABBREVIATIONS AND TERMS...... III
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... V
SUMMARY...... VI
1. INTRODUCTION...... 1
2. SITE DESCRIPTION ...... 4
3. METHODOLOGY...... 8
3.1 SOCIO-ECONOMIC STUDY METHODS...... 8 3.2 REMOTE SENSING AND GIS...... 11 3.3 INTEGRATION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING...... 11 4. RESULTS...... 13
4.1 FIRES ...... 13 4.1.1 Landscape level changes ...... 13 4.1.1.1 Long Apui ...... 20 4.1.1.2 Batu Bulan - PT Satu Concession ...... 29 4.1.1.3 Lepo’ Umit...... 29 TOTAL ...... 32 4.1.1.4 Long Tutung...... 35 LAND COVER CLASS ...... 36 4.1.1.5 PT Akasia Industrial Timber Plantation (HTI)...... 43 4.2 LAND COVER AND LAND USE CHANGES...... 44 4.2.1 Qualitative landscape level changes ...... 44 4.2.1.1 Long Apui ...... 45 4.2.1.2 Batu Bulan...... 47 4.2.1.3 Lepo’ Umit...... 47 4.2.1.4 Long Tutung...... 48 4.2.1.5 PT Akasia...... 49 4.3 FIRE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES...... 49 4.3.1 Long Apui...... 49 4.3.2 Batu Bulan...... 52 4.3.3 Lepo’ Umit...... 53 4.3.4 Long Tutung...... 54 4.3.5 PT Akasia...... 55 4.4 HEALTH IMPACTS ...... 57 5. UNDERLYING CAUSES...... 61
6. POLICY IMPLICATIONS...... 74
7. REFERENCES ...... 76
APPENDIX I: SOURCES FOR HOT-SPOT DATA ...... 84
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia i Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province
APPENDIX II: COMMUNITY DESCRIPTIONS...... 85
APPENDIX III: COPING STRATEGIES...... 87
FIGURES: FIGURE 2-1 LOCATION OF STUDY SITE IN RELATION TO BORNEO ...... 4 FIGURE 2-2 LOCATION DIAGRAM WITH MAIN LAND USE CATEGORIES AND LAND MARKS IN THE STUDY SITE...5 FIGURE 4-1 MAPS SHOWING CHANGES IN LAND COVER/USE BETWEEN 1990 AND FEBRUARY 1998...... 14 FIGURE 4-2 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LAND COVER TYPES AND CANOPY DAMAGE BY FIRE...... 18 FIGURE 4-3 MAPS OF LONG APUI’S ESTIMATED TERRITORY, SHOWING LAND COVER (1990 AND FEBRUARY 1998) AND FIRE DAMAGE (MARCH 1998) 21 FIGURE 4-4 THE SCALE OF THE DISASTER FOR LANDSCAPE…………………………………………………..24 FIGURE 4-5 NAVIGATING THE I’UT RIVER NEAR LEPO’ UMIT, WITH TYPICAL VINE REGROWTH IN BACKGROUND……………………………………………………………………………………25 FIGURE 4-6 MAPS OF LEPO’ UMIT’S ESTIMATED TERRITORY, SHOWING LAND COVER (1990 AND FEBRUARY 1998) AND FIRE DAMAGE (MARCH 1998) 31 FIGURE 4-7 RECOVERED GMELINA SP. IN FOREGROUND, BURNED PARASERIANTHES FALCATARIA IN MIDDLE, AND FOREST BEYOND 34 FIGURE 4-8 CHANGES IN LONG TUTUNG LAND USE BETWEEN 1990 AND 1998, INCLUDING AMOUNTS OF FIRE DAMAGE IN MARCH 1998 35 FIGURE 4-9 JAVANESE TRANSMIGRANT BURNING ALANG ALANG BEFORE LAND PREPARATION 38 FIGURE 4-10 KENYAH WOMAN LOOKING FOR FERNS FOR LUNCH 39 FIGURE 4-11 PT SAWIT’S OIL PALM PLANTATION...... 41 TABLE 4-12 CHANGES OVER TIME IN ACCESS TO FOREST PRODUCTS, LONG TUTUNG (UNIT 10 AND UNIT 11 COMBINED) 48 FIGURE 4-13 LONG APUI FIRE BREAK, JULY 1999 ...... 50
TABLES: TABLE 3-1 NUMBER OF KENYAH HOUSEHOLDS AND STUDY SAMPLES 9 TABLE 4-1 CHANGES IN LAND COVER BETWEEN 1990 AND 1998, IN THE STUDY SITE 15 TABLE 4-2 MATRIX SHOWING THE 1990 LAND COVER CATEGORIES (FIRST COLUMN) CONTRIBUTING TO EACH LAND COVER CATEGORY IN 1998 (ROWS) 16 TABLE 4-3 QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF FIRE DAMAGE IN DIFFERENT LAND COVER CLASSES 20 TABLE 4-4 CHANGES IN LAND USE IN LONG APUI’S ESTIMATED TERRITORY FROM 1990 TO 1998 22 TABLE 4-5 PERCEIVED CAUSES OF FIRE 26 TABLE 4-6 NUMBER OF HECTARES BURNED, BY CROP 28 TABLE 4-7 UNDER-ESTIMATE OF AGROFORESTRY AREA BURNED, LONG APUI AND LONG TUTUNG 29 TABLE 4-8 CHANGES IN LAND USE IN LEPO UMIT’S ESTIMATED TERRITORY FROM 1990 TO 1998 32 TABLE 4-9 CHANGES IN LAND USE IN THE LONG TUTUNG AREA FROM 1990 TO 1998, INCLUDING AMOUNTS OF FIRE DAMAGE IN MARCH 1998 36 TABLE 4-10 CHANGES OVER TIME IN ACCESS TO FOREST PRODUCTS IN LONG APUI 46 TABLE 4-11 CHANGES OVER TIME IN ACCESS TO FOREST PRODUCTS IN LEPO’ UMIT 47 TABLE 4-13 HEALTH PROBLEMS DURING FIRE. LONG APUI, UNIT 10 AND UNIT 11, LONG TUTUNG 58 TABLE 5-1 SCORES ON FACTORS AFFECTING FIRE DANGER IN RESEARCH SITES 72 TABLE III-0-1 CHANGES OVER TIME IN KENYAH COPING STRATEGIES IN LG. APUI 87 TABLE III-0-2 CHANGES OVER TIME IN KENYAH COPING STRATEGIES IN LEPO' UMIT 87 TABLE III-0-3 CHANGES OVER TIME IN KENYAH COPING STRATEGIES IN LG. TUTUNG 88
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia ii Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province
ABBREVIATIONS AND TERMS
Adat rights Customary ownership or use rights recognized by local customary law ADB Asian Development Bank
Alang alang Imperata cylindrica (an invasive grass) AVHRR Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer Banjar A Muslim ethnic group, common in-migrants to East Kalimantan, from South Kalimantan Bina desa Village Guidance Program (run by timber concessions) Bugis A Muslim ethnic group, common in-migrants to East Kalimantan, from Sulawesi Bupati Leader of the Kabupaten (an administrative level, called a regency) Depa two full outstretched arms' lengths EC European Commission ERS-2 European Space Agency Radar Satellite EU European Union EU-JRC the Joint Research Centre of the European Union GIS Geographic Information system GPS Global Positioning System GTZ Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit ha hectare HPH Hak Pengusahaan Hutan (timber concession) HTI Hutan Tanaman Industri (industrial timber plantation) HTI trans A program to link transmigration sites to HTI, for the provision of labour Hutan cadangan pangan Forest Food Reserve IFFM Integrated Forest Fire Management Kanwil Kantor Wilayah (Provincial Office) KdTI Kawasan dengan Tujuan Istimewa (a new concept on community- managed agroforests) Kecamatan Administrative level, comparable to a county Kenyah A Christian/animist Dayak ethnic group Kepala dusun Neighborhood leader
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia iii Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province
KfW Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau KK Kepala keluarga (household head) km kilometer KPH Kesatuan Pengelolaan Hutan (Forest Management Unit) KPHP Kesatuan Pengusahaan Hutan Produksi (Production Forest Utilization Unit) Kutai A Muslim ethnic group, with communities adjacent to Long Apui and Lepo’ Umit Lahan I, II First and second parcel of land given to transmigrants Landsat MSS Landsat Multispectural Scanner. An imaging system found on the first five Landsat satellites. The system collects multispectral data in four nonthermal radiation ands with a spatial resolution of 79 x 79m. Landsat TM Landsat Thematic Mapper. A multispectral scanner imaging system on board the Landsat 4 and 5 satelllites. The imaging system collects mulltispectral data in seven bands (six nonthermal bands have a spatial resolution of 30x30m, whereas the thermal band has a spatial resolution of 120 x 120m. The temporal resolution is 16 days. m Meters MOFEC Ministry of Forestry and Estate Crops NES Nucleus Estate Smallholder project, a Government-sponsored plantation development program in which transmigrants receive title to a portion of the developed plantation project NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, USA NTB Nusa Tenggara Barat (West Nusa Tenggara, an Indonesian province) NTT Nusa Tenggara Timur (East Nusa Tenggara, an Indonesian province) Spot XS SPOT multispectral scanner imaging system with a spatial resolution of 20m x 20m. Stakeholders People or groups of people interested or responsible for forest management. Includes landowners, community, industry and Government organisations TREES Tropical Ecosystem Environment Observations by Satellite
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia iv Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work would not have been possible without the financial support of the United States Forest Service, and two CIFOR programs: ‘Local People, Devolution and Adaptive Collaborative Management’, and ‘Sustainable Forest Management’. We are also grateful for the mutually beneficial collaboration with the Asian Development Bank. Special thanks go to the people residing in the communities visited. These people patiently answered our many questions and shared their own perspectives on fires, impacts and management strategies. Thanks too, to the officials and staff of the various Government and commercial offices who consented to be interviewed, in many cases trusting us with information that could have harmed them if used unethically. Finally, we would like to thank Anja Hoffmann, of the Integrated Forest Fire Management Project of GTZ, in Samarinda, for providing all the spatial data used in this analysis. Without all of these people’s cooperation, this study could not have been conducted.
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia v Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province
SUMMARY
The fire damage in East Kalimantan during the El Niño year of 1997–1998 was dramatic and devastating. Here we examine both the biophysical changes wrought by the fires and the experience of the forest people who lived through that event, in several contexts. These contexts, all in the center of East Kalimantan, range in size from a single village with a few score of households representing a single ethnic group to a huge, multi-ethnic and multi- stakeholder transmigration area. Although the primary emphasis, in the social component, was on the indigenous rural people, information was also collected from other important stakeholders, such as transmigrants and personnel in regional government, oil palm and industrial timber plantations, timber concessions, and transmigration. Comparisons of classifications from satellite imagery in 1990 and 1998 provides clear evidence of the kinds of large scale changes that have occurred. This is followed by a comparison of the February 1998 land cover situation with a March 1998 image showing the amount of fire damage in these same areas. We also portray the people’s experience of the fires, including any fire management mechanisms they had..
We then provide an analysis, which tries to segregate the different dimensions of the problem, in search of better understanding of the causes of fires. Our hope is to contribute here to a typology of conditions under which fires are more likely to occur.
We conclude with six policy implications of this study.
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia vi Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province Site Long Segar
1. INTRODUCTION1
In 1997–1998, East Kalimantan was hit by the most severe El Niño of the 20th century. The area burned was estimated at 5.2 million ha in that province alone (Hoffmann et al., 1999). Although this catastrophe spawned numerous projects and studies, few were field- based2. The study reported here tries to do two things: First, based on field research conducted in July and August 1999, it is documented what happened, from the perspectives of selected stakeholders in one area in central East Kalimantan. Second, spatial analyses are used to determine the quantitative impacts of fire on the landscape between 1992 and 1998. This work represents a starting point for our improved understanding of proximate causes (as supported by Vayda, 1999), with aim of ultimately identifying some underlying causes.
To deal effectively with fire in the future, a better understanding of both proximate and underlying causes of these fires is essential. Nepstad et al. (1999) and others (including Indonesian officials) identify three things needed for a fire: Fuel, dry climatic conditions and a source of ignition. Many researchers have identified aspects of the social and institutional realities that contribute to fire, such as land disputes, unclear tenure, land clearing for plantations, conflicting laws and regulations, etc. (Bompard and Guizol, 1999; Bowen et al., 2000; Potter and Lee, 1998b; Suyanto, 2000a; Suyanto, 2000b; Vayda, 1999). In this paper, the social science component has taken an inductive approach, identifying the factors perceived locally to be important in contributing to the ignition and spread of fire locally, in specific fire events. The impacts on the people residing in communities affected by fires have also been assessed. This perspective has been rounded out by examination of the remotely sensed data available.
This study builds on Colfer’s previous and long-term research experience among the Uma’ Jalan Kenyah3. We reasoned that examination of a topic as controversial as the causes of
1 Some of this analysis will be published, in a different form, in the Borneo Research Bulletin in 2001. 2 See Dennis (1999), or Applegate et al. (In press); or Brookfield et al. (1995), for a longer term perspective. 3 Her first contact with Long Apui was in 1979, when she spent a year studying the community’s interactions with the forest. She has maintained her research interest in this community, conducting historical studies of land use from initial settlement, studies of their agroforestry system, gender issues, migration, etc. periodically since then.
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 1
Site Long Segar fire events would benefit from the kind of trust between researchers and local people that can only evolve over time. Efforts were made throughout to supplement the perceptions of local people with those of other stakeholders in the areas visited. Beginning in the Long Apui village (see Figure 2-2)4, we moved out, following the migration routes of two Kenyah communities living in the fire-affected regions, addressing the roles of other important actors in the area. The area, identified below forms the focus on this report, though two other Kenyah “daughter” communities, close to the provincial capital Samarinda, were also visited as part of this research.
Long Apui was selected as an important starting point for several reasons:
• Given the sensitive nature of research on causes of fires, we reasoned that long term connection with the people and resulting rapport with them might provide unique insights.
• Long term data on land use in the area is available (Mayer, 1996; Sakuntaladewi and Amblani, 1989) (Colfer and Dudley, 1993; Colfer et al., 1997; LEAP (Land Evaluation and Planning), 1980; Massing, 1980; Mayer, 1989; Moniaga, 1990; Sardjono, 1997); and the management system of the Uma' Jalan Kenyah represents that of many swidden systems in Borneo.
• Significant changes in land use and forest cover have occurred since monitoring first began in the late 1970s (cf. Brookfield, et al., 1995) (cf. Colfer and Salim, 1998; Colfer, et al., 1997).
• The combination of concessionaires, plantations, and small scale agriculture represent a common pattern in Kalimantan.
• Long Apui has spawned several other villages, all within fire-affected areas of East Kalimantan, which form potentially informative comparisons:
4 Pseudonyms are used throughout to protect the privacy of those interviewed.
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 2
Site Long Segar
• A satellite village called Lepo’ Umit, up the Telen River (along the I’ut River and a parallel logging road) (see Figure 2-2) has recently been connected with the logging concession’s Village Guidance (Bina Desa) activities; this provides a potentially important divergence in experience (within the same ethnic group, landscape, and natural resource management history).
• A daughter village in the Long Tutung Transmigration location, where other Long Apui residents moved after the 1983 fires and drought. Here, again, there is significant interaction between the Kenyah and other ethnic groups, as well as other major actors (concessions (HPH), industrial timber plantations (HTI), and oil palm plantations).
The focus on the Kenyah experience of the fires is intended to contribute, ultimately, to the identification of important underlying causes (cf. Gellert, 1998; Gönner, 1999; Mayer, 1989; Mayer, 1996; Sakuntaladewi and Amblani, 1989; Vayda, 1999) and to the evolution of relevant typologies.
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 3
Site Long Segar
2. SITE DESCRIPTION
Figure 2-1 Location of study site in relation to Borneo
This research looked at a landscape with variable land uses. The area on which we focused extends from Long Tutung Transmigration area to the North; through the Kenyah communities of Long Apui and Lepo’ Umit, located within a major timber concession; further south to Batu Bulan, the base camp for the timber concession, which is adjacent to an industrial timber plantation. Given our long experience in Long Apui, we began there. Long Apui is an Uma' Jalan Kenyah community, initially settled in 1962. At that time, the area was sparsely populated, and the people were drawn there by lush, largely unclaimed primary dipterocarp forest, abundant pigs, and a navigable river, with a good view. In the early 1970s, it, along with neighbouring Payau (a Kutai village) and nearby Long Nyeng (an Uma' Kulit Kenyah village), was declared a "resettlement village" by the Indonesian Government, and for five years received a variety of inputs (housing construction materials, guidance in "settled agriculture", agricultural inputs and implements, etc.). This occurred not long after an El Niño in 1972, followed by a second disastrous year in which rats
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 4
Site Long Segar decimated the people's rice fields (as in 1998-99). By 1979, however, Long Apui was prospering, and had grown to more than 1,000 inhabitants.
Figure 2-2 Location diagram with main land use categories and land marks in the study site
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 5
Site Long Segar
At that time, virtually all families were living by means of swidden cultivation, making upland ricefields a bit larger than the average size in other communities in that river system (Massing, 1980). They were cutting the vast majority of their fields from primary forest, arguing that such lands were more fertile (Colfer and Dudley, 1993). Their interest in laying claim to land, new access to markets for rice, and new availability of consumer goods, capital investments, education, and medical services, were also undoubtedly factors.
The community was located in an area given as a concession to the US-based Georgia Pacific Timber Company, in 1972. Relations between the community and the company were occasionally marred by conflicts. But Long Apui was located in an area where the commercial timber resources were not particularly good, compared to other areas of the concession, and compromises were usually possible.
Long Apui and its environs were badly affected by the 1983 El Niño and its resulting fires, and many families moved away, some to Lalut Bala and to Lepo’ Mading near Samarinda (see Figure 2-1), some joined the Long Tutung transmigration site. This transmigration project began in 1986, bringing thousands of people to an area just north of Long Apui (Sakuntaladewi and Amblani, 1989). About the same time, Georgia Pacific decided their concession was no longer profitable enough, and sold it to PT Satu, a company with significant political problems due to its ownership by one of Soeharto’s cronies. By the mid-1980's, Long Apui had shrunk to about 500 people. In 1990, PT Satu became one of the first companies to develop "HTI trans"5—south of Long Apui. Four communities of transmigrants were brought into the area to provide the labor needed to develop the industrial timber plantation that the Government was encouraging. Long Apui's total population, including Payau and Lepo’ Umit, is now 1,399 people (village statistics, 1999).
The last two decades have brought increasing pressure on the rain forest (lowland Dipterocarp) in the area, from timber concessions, from transmigration, from plantation agriculture, and from local communities, as well as sometimes devastating climatic fluctuations. The population density has steadily risen due to in-migration, with local
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 6
Site Long Segar people continuing to depend primarily on direct use of natural resources, and inadequate attention to sustainability issues on the part of the companies and the Government. Policies relating to land tenure and use rights have been contradictory and unclear, with power and economic clout having greater influence than justice. The level of conflict among stakeholders in the area has risen dramatically, with local people often losing access to the resources on which they depend, particularly when pitted against the many plantation development schemes.
5 see Abbreviations and Terms for explanation of HTI-trans.
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 7
Site Long Segar
3. METHODOLOGY
This study has included use of surveys, interviews, participant observation, and remote sensing methods.
3.1 Socio-Economic Study Methods
The methods employed have been both quantitative and qualitative. This research involved numerous in-depth interviews with residents, both individuals and groups. Questions were asked concerning fires with the intention of improving our understanding of their causes, frequency and severity, and mechanisms for their prevention and control. Specific comparisons of resource availability during previous years (El Niño and otherwise) were made; and changes in coping strategies were documented, between past and present disaster years. The histories of 20 specific fire events were recorded, including locations, years of burning, reported causes, crops planted and land use and tenure patterns in the area. Seven such histories were recorded in Long Apui, three in Lepo’ Umit, eight in Long Tutung, and two in PT Akasia’s HTI.
Colfer was assisted in this research by Yustina Doq Jau and Yohanes Ngerung, both residents of Long Apui, and Pesawat, the community leader of Lepo’ Umit, all of whom received guidance in interviewing. Survey forms had been prepared in the Indonesian and Kenyah languages, and the survey forms were pre-tested and revised, with the help of the field assistants. GPS readings were taken throughout the field research period whenever practical. Before the formal studies began, Colfer explained the intent of the research and obtained the agreement of the community members, in discussions with the village leaders and in various informal discussions with community members.
The Long Tutung component focused on the two settlements called UNIT 10-Long Tutung and UNIT 11-Long Tutung. The short time available required opportunistic sampling. The fact that some residents are in the village and some not, should not, given usual Kenyah practice of splitting residence between fields and the village, affect the validity of the
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 8
Site Long Segar sample. Interviews were conducted in the Kenyah language.
Calculating the exact proportion of the population surveyed was not possible. In Long Apui, official statistics use KK (or household heads). However, life occurs normally in extended family situations, with two to three official household heads living in the same house, cooking in the same kitchen, and sharing the same rice fields. Our sample used the house/kitchen/rice field as the unit of analysis for our land use history (not reported here) and the comparative matrices on resources and coping strategies. Table 3-1 provides the best population-related data available, with the number of interviews conducted for the two fire-related studies. The matrices were household based; whereas the health and loss survey was directed at individuals. There were individuals from Long Cu’, in both communities, but we did not have the opportunity to interview anyone originating from there.
No. Official Estimate of Extended Comparative Health/Loss Households Households Matrices Interviews Long Apui 149 133 28 53 Payau 101 ? 6 3 Lepo’ Umit 25 22 15 0 UNIT 106 ? 35 21 30 Long Apui 23 Long Po’on 6 Long Cu’ Unit 117 ? 7 8 8 Long Apui ? Long Po’on ? Long Cu’
Table 3-1 Number of Kenyah households and study samples
The Long Apui and Lepo’ Umit household estimates are based on village statistics, reviewed and corrected by the field assistants. In Long Tutung, our estimates are based on a count of households by a group of Kenyah including the neighborhood leader (kepala
6 These sub-categories (Long Apui, Long Po’on, and Long Cu’) refer to the place of origin of these local transmigrants. 5 Sakuntaladewi and Amblani (1989) report 1,510 individuals from 357 households in UNIT 11 – Long Tutung, in 1989 (about 2/3 in-migrants and 1/3 local).
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 9
Site Long Segar dusun) with whom we stayed in UNIT 10. Interviews were conducted during the day in the fields where groups of Kenyah farmers were participating in senguyun, a kind of group exchange labor, clearing rice fields in preparation for burning. In the evening, the interviews continued at the settlement areas, in people's homes.
The comparative matrix survey required respondents to compare the availability of various forest products and various strategies for coping with disaster during the following years: 1972–1973, 1979–1980, 1982–1983, 1989–1990 and 1997–1998. The first, middle and last years, in bold type, were El Niño years. 1979–1980 is the year Colfer resided in the community; and 1989-90 is another representative year with a reasonable rice harvest. This survey was conducted among people 40 years of age and older, since those younger than 40 were unlikely to remember the first El Niño of interest.
Although the interviewers tried to equally interview women and men, they had very little success interviewing women directly, though women regularly contributed to the discussion. Part of this has to do with the assistants' unwillingness to press them and their own cultural biases. It also reinforces our previous perception that quick assessment of women's views is difficult (cf. Colfer, et al., 1997).
The health and loss survey was intended to enhance our understanding of what happened during the fires to people's health and to estimate the amount of losses the people had endured from the fires. In general, this survey was conducted along with the land use history mentioned above, with any residents eligible as respondents. The percentage of female respondents was considerably greater for the health and loss survey.
Colfer also conducted a number of informal and open-ended interviews with various officials and company personnel (e.g., PT Satu and PT Akasia in Batu Bulan; and county (kecamatan) offices, PT Sawit, PT Dua in Long Tutung) about the causes and impacts of the fires in their areas. The responses of these various parties to queries varied greatly from apparently completely open and honest, in most cases, to extremely guarded, fearful and unhelpful.
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 10
Site Long Segar
3.2 Remote Sensing and GIS
The spatial data analyzed in this site study were provided by the GTZ-MOFEC Integrated Forest Fire Management (IFFM) Project in East Kalimantan. For the land cover change analysis we received classified imagery for February 1990, February 1998 and mid-March 1998. These February 1990 and February 1998 classifications were derived from Landsat TM imagery as part of the EC TREES Forest Cover Change Project carried out in 1999. The mid-March 1998 dataset was a fire damage map which was derived from interpretation of a multi-temporal ERS-2 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) mosaic for a large part of East Kalimantan (Siegert and Hoffmann, 1998).
The IFFM Project processed the original imagery (Landsat TM scene 117/59). All imagery was referenced to map coordinates in the Universal Transversal Mercator (UTM) projection, Zone 50 N. All imagery was visually interpreted on-screen using ArcView GIS.
For this analysis only a part of the Long Segar site was used for the classifications. We streamlined the land cover classes so they corresponded to the nomenclature used for other sites in this project. Over 60 GPS points with attached field description, which were collected by Colfer in 1999, were used to check the accuracy of the original classification.
3.3 Integration of Social Science and Remote Sensing
In order to improve the analysis of underlying causes of fire, a methodology was developed that integrates some of the results of the socio-economic research with the results of the remote sensing-based change analysis. A GIS was used for this integration. Not all outputs from the socio-economic research are compatible with a GIS and from site to site, the types of outputs vary slightly. For the Long Segar site, the focus was on integrating local people’s narratives with land cover change maps and burn scar maps at the village level. At the landscape level, land cover change and burn scar analysis was carried out. The results from the village and landscape level were then compared. Using the functionality of the GIS, it was possible to calculate the types and size of land cover changes in relation to the
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 11
Site Long Segar territory claimed by a village. In addition, local people’s narratives were added to these land cover change results to provide an insight into how and why these changes occurred.
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 12
Site Long Segar
4. RESULTS
4.1 Fires
4.1.1 Landscape level changes
In this section, we integrate the findings from our remote sensing and social components. We have remotely sensed data from February 1990 and two scenes from 1998, one before the fires began (February) and one before they were finished (mid-March). The story they tell is not a pretty one: increasing degradation, over the years; and eventual devastation.
Figure 4-1 provides clear images, based on remotely sensed data from February 1990 and February 1998, showing significant changes in the landscape over the last decade.
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 13
Site Long Segar
Figure 4-1 Maps showing changes in land cover/use between 1990 and February 1998
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 14
Site Long Segar
Year/Area (ha) 1990-1998 1990-1998 % Class 1990 1998 change (ha) change Natural Forest 134,747 100,202 -34,545 -26 Lowland dipterocarp forest (LDF); closed 12,814 0 -12,814 -100 LDF; medium 24,966 3,571 -21,395 -86 LDF; open 23,925 27,661 +3,736 +16 LDF; fragmented 73,042 68,970 -4,072 -6
Agricultural mosaic 41,946 75,959 +34,013 +81 Arable agriculture; rainfed 40,940 27,150 -13,790 -34 Arable agriculture;other 162 0 -162 -100 Mosaic; other 844 0 -844 -100 Mosaic of cultivation and 0 48,809 +48,809 +100 re-growth
Plantations 0 10,239 +10,239 +100 Agricultural plantation; oil 0 10,239 +10,239 +100 palm
Other vegetation 8,487 5,337 -3,150 -37 Wood and shrubland 2,799 0 -2,799 -100 Swamp grassland 5,688 5,337 -351 -6
Bare soil 2,317 0 - - Settlement 3,895 21,009 +17,114 +439 (transmigration) Burn Scar - 2,488 - - Cloud/shadow 26,749 2,907 - - Total 218,141 218,141 - - Table 4-1 Changes in land cover between 1990 and 1998, in the study site
Table 4-1 documents these changes quantitatively. More than 34,500 ha of forest were lost, with almost the same amount added to the “Mosaic of cultivation and regrowth” category. “Plantations” went from nothing to more than 10,000 ha. A related phenomenon was the increase in settlement area (the Long Tutung Transmigration area), by 17,000 ha over this time span. From an environmental perspective, the only positive element in Table 4-1 is the conversion of 2,317 ha of bare soil to other land cover categories.
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 15
Site Long Segar
Area (ha) Class 1998 Class 1990 Lowland Lowland Lowland dipterocarp Agriculture Plantation; Mosaic of dipterocarp forest; dipterocarp forest; fragmented arable; rain-fed oil-palm cultivation medium forest; open and re- growth Lowland dipterocarp forest; medium 3503.58 3518.20 11386.51 253.03 6116.46 Lowland dipterocarp forest; open 10005.12 1962.23 345.81 8171.22 Lowland dipterocarp forest; fragmented 6287.39 36049.37 6831.84 8604.25 4990.97 Agriculture arable; rain-fed 2.61 259.24 157.49 16332.10 4.05 20875.41 Mosaic of cultivation and re-growth 3.39 74.05 766.59 Swamp grassland 2195.89 492.82 209.85 Settlement (transmigration) 11.37 Cloud and shadow 15.02 6234.72 4431.47 2298.39 1291.00 5063.35 Grand Total 3524.60 26378.72 56182.96 26565.36 10109.15 45984
Area (ha) Class 1998 Class 1990 Swamp grassland Settlement Burned area Cloud & shadow Grand Total (transmigration) Lowland dipterocarp forest; medium 124.46 63.73 24,965.97 Lowland dipterocarp forest; open 2913.77 526.35 23,924.50 Lowland dipterocarp forest; fragmented 1993.05 5812.53 1045.84 1427.20 73,042.44 Agriculture arable; rain-fed 214.20 2698.50 396.37 40,939.97 Mosaic of cultivation and re-growth 844.03 Swamp grassland 2771.43 13.86 4.54 5,688.39 Settlement (transmigration) 3810.64 73.70 3,895.71 Cloud and shadow 265.40 5543.13 777.74 829.58 26,749.80 Grand Total 5244.08 20778.57 2488.25 2795.12 200050.81
Table 4-2 Matrix showing the 1990 land cover categories (first column) contributing to each land cover category in 1998 (rows)
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 16
Site Long Segar
Table 4-2, more difficult to read, shows the changes from one category of land cover to another. For instance, of the 26,565 ha of arable agricultural land in 1998 (fifth column), 16,332 ha were already in that category in 1990. An additional 6,832 ha was added to arable agricultural land in 1998 from what had been fragmented lowland dipterocarp forest in 1990. Closed lowland dipterocarp forests, present in 1990, disappeared completely in the 1998 data; and one can see the progression as better forest in 1990 converts to more degraded forest or to agricultural uses by 1998. The lowland dipterocarp forest quality progression categories go from closed canopy as the most pristine to medium canopy to open canopy to fragmented.
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 17
Site Long Segar
Figure 4-2 The relationship between land cover types and canopy damage by fire
In Figure 4-2, we show the land cover types in which the fires of 1998 did the most damage. We compare the February 1998 land cover map with a March 1998 map showing levels of fire damage in the same areas. The most striking feature of these maps is the congruence between densely populated, “developed” areas and extensive fire damage
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 18
Site Long Segar
(>80% damage with biomass burned). Long Tutung, where plantations and transmigration settlements abound, burned almost completely. The areas to the south, less densely populated and managed in a manner closer to Borneo’s indigenous traditions, had less damage (25%-80%, with biomass remaining). In the southeastern corner of the study area, there is another area of >80% damage: an industrial timber plantation area, with its own transmigration area. There is one exception to the congruence between high population, major developments and fire: the previously forested area to the West of the Telen River (middle, between two left forks of the Telen River). This area has been logged, and in the 1980s included an experimental tree crops plantation. It is also ringed by agricultural areas.
Area (ha) Fire damage by mid-March 1998 Land cover class 1998 No 25-50% 50-80% >80% damage, Grand damage damage damage biomass Total destroyed agriculture arable; rain-fed 2,391 9,341 11,813 23,546 agriculture plantation; oil-palm 24 2,332 7,883 10,239 burned scar 1,524 965 2,488 cloud & shadow 157 394 2,311 2,862 highland dipterocarp forest; 123 41 164 fragmented highland dipterocarp forest; 179 2,826 259 3,463 medium highland dipterocarp forest; open 84 629 714 lowland dipterocarp forest; 5,842 37,993 24,687 68,523 fragmented lowland dipterocarp forest; 109 109 medium lowland dipterocarp forest; open 2,898 20,038 3,989 26,926 mosaic of cultivation and re- 1,921 23,231 22,267 47,4193 growth swamp grassland 40 469 4,28 5,337 Settlement (transmigration) 2,390 18,586 20,976 Grand Total 24 13,713 101,400 97,629 212,766
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 19
Site Long Segar
Table 4-3 Quantitative assessment of fire damage in different land cover classes
Table 4-3 provides the quantitative specifics, showing the kinds of forest cover in which the various levels of damage occurred. The fact that, for nearly half of the total area, burn damage was more than 80% with the biomass destroyed, demonstrates again the scale of the catastrophe.
In the following sections, we go to a more specific level of analysis, clarifying the fire events and fire context in each of the six contexts visited, within the overall study area: Long Apui, Lepo’ Umit, Batu Bulan, Long Tutung, and PT Akasia HTI. Considerable attention is given to both our remote sensing findings and the human context.
4.1.1.1 Long Apui
Long Apui is in a landscape that has changed dramatically since the 1970s. Rich lowland tropical dipterocarp forests covered the landscape then and commercial logging was just beginning (Colfer with Dudley 1993). In 1983, there were El Niño-related fires that burned large tracts of this same landscape. In 1990, significant tracts of lowland dipterocarp forest still remained. Figure 4-3 shows specific changes that have occurred between 1990 and February 1998, and the fire damage and area burned by March 1998. In 1990, there remained significant areas of lowland dipterocarp forest (though far less than at the beginning of the previous decade). The general change from forest to a more agricultural landscape over time is clear; as is the fact that some forest remains in the territory.
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 20
Site Long Segar
Figure 4-3 Maps of Long Apui’s estimated territory, showing land cover (1990 and February 1998) and fire damage (March 1998)
Table 4-4 shows the changes in land use from 1990 to 1998. Both closed canopy and medium canopy dipterocarp forest disappeared entirely from Long Apui territory over this time span, while the agricultural mosaic increased from nothing to almost 10,000 ha.8 Both open and fragmented lowland dipterocarp forests increased in size, with the latter increasing by > 3,000 ha. Most of Long Apui’s territory (>12,000 ha) fell in the 50-80% fire damage class.
Land cover class 1990 1998 Change 1990-1998 % change 1990-1998 lowland dipterocarp 2,696 0 -2,696 -100 forest: closed
8 We are unsure about why 9,000 ha of the area are categorized as “arable agriculture rainfed” in 1990 and much of the same area is classified as “mosaic of cultivation and regrowth” in 1998. The people of Long Apui have made ricefields farther afield, over the years, leaving areas near the village to regain their fertility, under fallow. This may account for the difference, but we are surprised at the dramatic change, and wonder if there may be some problems interpreting the remote sensing data here.
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 21
Site Long Segar
lowland dipterocarp 1,604 0 -1,604 -100 forest: medium canopy lowland dipterocarp 2,408 3,364 +956 +40 forest: open lowland dipterocarp 128 3,277 +3,149 +2,460 forest: fragmented arable agriculture; 9,008 1,189 -7,819 -87 rain-fed mosaic of cultivation 0 9,813 +9,813 +100 and re-growth cloud and shadow 1,799 0 NA NA Total 17,643 17,643 NA NA
Table 4-4 Changes in land use in Long Apui’s estimated territory from 1990 to 1998
Within this biophysical context, communities exist. Long Apui is a village of shifting cultivators. Although swidden cultivation remains their primary subsistence mode, most community members have been experimenting with tree crops (rubber, cacao, coffee, and fruits). They are within PT Satu's timber concession and have been consistently involved in PT Satu's Bina Desa (or “village guidance”) program. A significant number of local officials, teachers, church people have in the past received salaries from PT Satu. Relations are not as good, perhaps, as those with Lepo’ Umit, but there have not been very serious conflicts. Local leaders have recently negotiated with PT Satu to clarify the village boundaries of Long Apui and three other neighboring communities. Colfer saw good maps (based on those used by the 1999 Ministry of Forestry plan for village cooperatives for timber management). Nearby Long Nyeng had accepted an offer of Rp. 17,500/m3 (US$ 2.05) as a recompense (from the reforestation funds or from the royalties) for the wood to be taken from the area that is agreed to be theirs. Long Apui leaders wanted more information about how the wood taken is calculated before they agree to such a figure.
In Long Apui, the fires were seen as coming from outside (see Table 4-5), from Long Tutung to the North, beginning in February 1998. They could be seen coming slowly, low
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 22
Site Long Segar in the forest most of the time, burning high during the heat of the day and flying through the air during windy periods. Because the rice harvest was a complete loss, due to the drought, the people needed money. Part of the community went up the Mela River (branching west from the Telen River just north of Long Apui) to pan for gold and part remained in the community to guard it. March was a period of intense activity, with little food and even less water. The Telen River, usually navigable by fairly large trading boats, was about 50 cm deep high in the middle during the worst period. The people realized they couldn't save their fields (most of which are far from the village, up the Telen and Payau Rivers), but they hoped to save their village. They mobilized the entire community, men, women and children, to cut a fire break around the back of the village from one end to the other. After that was accomplished, flying bits of burning debris continued to threaten the village. One house caught fire briefly, but this was seen in time and put out. Another area behind the village (beyond the firebreak) was protected by spraying with water in pesticide sprayers and by shovels and soil.
Figure 4-4 shows the scale of the disaster for the landscape; but Long Apui itself represented one of the areas with lesser damage. The land directly behind their village (to
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 23
Site Long Segar the left of the river) is within the 25-50 % damage range (the category representing the lowest amount of damage in the area).
Figure 4-4 The scale of the disaster for landscape
In Long Apui there was little blame attached to any individual or company. The fires were seen as coming primarily from the direction of Long Tutung (where fire damage was >80%), as a sort of natural disaster, later surrounding them. The idea that people might burn the forest in this way to secure rights or for cheap land clearing ill founded. Local people recognize the value of forest resources and the losses that accompany such burning. Another argument against the kind of purposeful burning by small farmers is the condition in August of lands burned in March. By the time rice planting season comes (at the beginning of the rainy season in September), the burned areas are full of debris and vines or grassy regrowth that is very difficult to deal with and to weed9 (Figure 4-5). Planting upland (unirrigated) rice in March or April would simply not work.
9 Cf. Mayer (1989). Her study was partially designed to evaluate the degree to which local people had taken advantage of the "free" clearing of land provided by the 1982–1983 fires to expand agricultural areas (an idea I also considered reasonable at the time). She found they had not; and their statements that successful planting is more difficult after a fire because of sharp increases in pests and weeds were confirmed by visual observation as Long Apui's inhabitants were struggling to clear their fields during this research period (more than a year after the fires).
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 24
Site Long Segar
Figure 4-5 Navigating the I’ut River near Lepo’ Umit, with typical vine regrowth in background
Some Kenyah maintained that Kutai people (from Payau) set one fire along the Payau River, though no reasonable proof was forthcoming. The Kutai practice of repeated burning of alang alang (Imperata cylindrica), to encourage the growth of new shoots, to draw deer to be caught with traps, was mentioned repeatedly as a possible cause of smaller fires that occurred after larger fires were thought to be controlled. A similar story was told in Lepo’ Umit, relating to some Kutai people who were reportedly looking for turtles and lit some alang alang. These fires are thought to have been set because of envy since their fields had burned and the remaining Kenyah ones had not. This explanation lacks credibility, given their overall awareness of the effects of the fire and also the danger to themselves and their belongings from further burning.
Fire from: Long Apui UNIT 10 UNIT 11 (n=58) (n=30) (n=9) Elsewhere 78% 47% 44%
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 25
Site Long Segar
People 3% 17% 0% Kutai 3% 0 0 Javanese 0 3% 33% UNIT 10 (NTT) 0 17% 0% HTI (timber plantation) 2% 0 0 Company 0% 0 11%
Rattan collectors 5% 0 0 Hunting 3% 0 0 Cooking 2% 0 0 Cigarettes 9% 0 0 grasslands 0 7% 0 Roads 0 30% 0
Accidental 5% 0 0 Purposeful 7% 13% 11% Table 4-5 Perceived Causes of Fire
The figures in Table 4-5 reflect summaries of responses to an open-ended question, "What was the source of the fires in 1997–1998?" People were free to answer as fully as they liked, and each response was tabulated above.
The attribution of fire causes to activities like hunting, rattan collection and cooking in the forest, in Long Apui, reflects the greater involvement in and direct dependence upon the forest of most of the population there, vis-à-vis the other sites.
The magnitude of the losses from the fires is both difficult to imagine and difficult to measure. Amazingly, no loss of life or homes was reported (though six field huts were destroyed). CARE Indonesia did a survey in East Kalimantan in November/December 1998 (Tuffs, 1999), and found a variety of indicators indicating that nutritional levels were sub-
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 26
Site Long Segar standard10.
The area surrounding Long Apui was a mosaic of cultivation and re-growth, reflecting the shifting cultivation pattern that characterizes Kenyah resource management. This community uses land extending along the small rivers that branch off the Telen in both directions, and north of the community along the Telen, primarily.
Table 4-6 summarizes the responses to our questions about losses. The fact that people could provide the number of hectares of particular tree species is indicative of an important change in their system in recent years. In the past, they practiced traditional agroforestry that mimicked and/or made use primarily of natural regrowth, with minor "fiddling" by humans (weeding around or protecting desired species, periodically interplanting special plants or transplanting a desired species (see Colfer, et al., 1997). It was very difficult for them to estimate the quantities of particular crops other than rice. With "guidance" from PT Satu and the Long Tutung extension personnel, they now include some more conventional (within the scientific world) agroforestry, planting the seedlings provided by these outside groups, within specified areas after their rice crop. They know how many hectares of those crops were lost.
Crop: Area burned Area burned Area burned Long Apui (ha) Unit 10 (ha) Unit 11(ha) (n=56) (n=30) (n=8) Coconut 1 44 16 Cacao 8 16 4 Fruits 17 2 2 Rubber 17 0 0
10 Only 57 % of the children under 5 are not "wasted" (weight for height); only 25 % are not "stunted" (height for age); and only 26 % are not underweight (weight for age, Tuffs (1999))
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 27
Site Long Segar
Banana 6 10 1 Coffee 6 4 0 Rattan 4 0 0 Cassava 1 1 0 Pine 0 2 0 Bean 1 0 0 Sengon 1 0 0 Cloves 1 0 0 Durian 1 0 0 Vegetables 1 0 0 Total 65 79 23 Table 4-6 Number of hectares burned, by crop
More difficult to estimate, and more important to Kenyah subsistence is the damage done to the surrounding forest. The confusion about land tenure in the area makes it very difficult for the Kenyah to know how to respond to a question like "how much of your own forest burned?". In the past, the difficulty would have been knowing the size of a hectare. Ownership was clear: Whoever had cleared the primary forest (or their offspring) owned the area. But the Government, the industrial timber plantations, the transmigration authorities, the oil palm plantation and the logging companies do not recognize ownership in the same way. Now the problem is determining which system of land ownership applies. People were able to estimate easily the amount of their most recent rice field that burned. But the secondary forest areas they listed (Table 4-7) did not include vast areas that would be theirs by their traditional system, and are typically available to them to use. Our earlier estimate of the land needed in that area for sustainable agroforestry production and maintenance of the people's life style (Colfer and Dudley, 1993) was 15–40 ha per family (roughly 2,000–5,300 ha, with our current population estimate). A huge amount of it burned.
Burned Burned Burned Area Type Long Apui UNIT 10 UNIT 11 (ha) (ha) (ha) (n=56) (n=30) (n=8) Ricefield 120 34 20
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 28
Site Long Segar
Secondary forest 148 0 18 Table 4-7 Under-estimate of agroforestry area burned, Long Apui and Long Tutung
4.1.1.2 Batu Bulan - PT Satu Concession
Timber concessionaires have been important actors in Kalimantan for a long time—at least since the 1970s—with significant implications for the landscape. Colfer interviewed groups of timber company employees in Batu Bulan (two hours downriver, by outboard, from Long Apui). As in Long Apui, huge areas of PT Satu's concession burned. The official estimate is 70,000 ha, with three particularly badly burned areas. Major parts of this concession burned in 1982–83 as well. The company appears to have tried hard to put out the fires, mobilizing their heavy equipment, converting gasoline tankers to water tankers, and making use of the workers (though their number had been significantly reduced because of Indonesia's monetary crisis).
Many of the positive actions toward more sustainable management that they had undertaken or planned were adversely affected. Nurseries burned, and areas planted to meranti (the prime commercial species) and making good progress, burned. Personnel reported utter dismay and confusion, much like the people of Long Apui, about what to do now. The uncertainty that accompanies Indonesia's current political crisis (their owner, one of Soeharto’s most famous cronies, is now in jail) add to their confusion, and to their feelings of job insecurity.
They reported feelings of fear and amazement as the fire blazed up during the heat of the day or during windy periods, carrying flying, burning debris overhead to land hither and yon. Both PT Satu personnel and people in Batu Matahari told of staying up night and day to guard against and fight fires that threatened their homes, and frightening experiences on roads at night as their cars were temporarily trapped between falling, burning trees.
4.1.1.3 Lepo’ Umit
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 29
Site Long Segar
Figure 4-6 shows the change in land cover in Lepo’ Umit’s estimated territory, from approximately half forested to predominantly a mosaic of cultivation and regrowth. In reality, some of that area is timber plantation, bordering on the lowland dipterocarp areas to the east. It is worth noting that almost half of their area (1,652 ha out of 3,863) was subject to >80% fire damage, with no standing biomass. Another 1,950 ha was subject to 50-80% damage, standing. This is in an area where the people have been assiduously attempting, for a number of years and with considerable external encouragement, to cultivate tree crops as a primary subsistence base, in an effort to supplant their traditional system of shifting rice cultivation (see Figure 4-6)
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 30
Site Long Segar
Figure 4-6 Maps of Lepo’ Umit’s estimated territory, showing land cover (1990 and February 1998) and fire damage (March 1998)
Table 4-8 provides the quantitative changes from one category of land use to another in Lepo’ Umit territory over time (1990 to February 1998). The sharp reduction in open lowland dipterocarp forest and the loss of all fragmented lowland dipterocarp forest stand out; as does the dramatic increase (from nothing to 2,610 ha) in mosaic of cultivation and re-growth (which is in fact partly timber plantation). It is also worth noting that much of the area covered by cloud (817 ha) appears on the map to be within an area that was open lowland dipterocarp, in 1990, meaning that the reduction is even greater than the figures indicate.
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 31
Site Long Segar
Land cover class 1990 1998 Change 1990-1998 % change (ha) (ha) (ha) 1990-1998 lowland dipterocarp 1,314 725 -589 -45 forest: open lowland dipterocarp 61 0 -61 -100 forest: fragmented arable agriculture; 1,671 528 -1,143 -68 rain-fed mosaic of cultivation 0 2,610 +2,610 +100 and re-growth cloud and shadow 817 0 NA NA Total 3,863 3,863 NA NA
Table 4-8 Changes in land use in Lepo Umit’s estimated territory from 1990 to 1998
Lepo’ Umit's situation differs from that of Long Apui in that it was essentially a locally initiated experiment in settled agroforestry. The leader, B, wanted to lead a group of people to a new way of farming that would protect the environment, confirm their rights to the land, and yield a good income for them and their children. In pursuing this dream, B worked closely, first with PT Satu, the logging company that was expanding by developing industrial plantations in the area, and later got additional help from the agricultural extension agents in Long Tutung, the transmigration area. Lepo’ Umit people continue to do swidden cultivation on a small scale, but their intent has been to switch to rubber as their economic base, supplemented by a variety of other crops (pepper, fruits, and possibly some industrial tree crops).
Their experience of the fires was much the same as Long Apui's. From their perspective, the fires came out of the North (Long Tutung area), aided by wind and drought, burning everything in their path. The leader was committed to their experiment, and to all the effort the whole community had put into their endeavor. The community arranged for the timber company to bring their heavy equipment to the area and cut a clean swath through the forest, to protect the community's rubber trees. This was done to the north, and another swath was cut to the south. Community members made heroic efforts to guard their area,
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 32
Site Long Segar putting out fires that ventured in, working night and day, dirty, hot, and short of water. For a brief time, the fires seemed under control. Because their harvest had failed totally, almost all of the community members followed their friends and family from Long Apui to areas upriver (Mela and Telen rivers) to pan for gold—against the appeals of B, who told them that the rubber trees were their children, and would feed them when they were old if they remained to take care of them. While they were gone, another fire started in a patch of alang alang. Again with heroic efforts and the help of the few people who could be found, B tried to save the community's fields, but the fire raced through too quickly and there were too few people to fight it. Five field huts were burned, and almost all the rubber that the community had so carefully tended.
The people blame the Kutai from nearby Labi Labi, whom they claim were out hunting turtles (the equivalent for that ethnic group to the Kenyah's search for gold, as a subsistence strategy during these times of stress), and lit the fire. Some say it was purposeful (jealousy because Lepo’ Umit's rubber gardens represented the one green area), others say they were careless with cooking fires or cigarettes. No one saw them, and there was no believable evidence that it was purposely set. Although the suspicion was reported to the Kutai village head, no further efforts were made to recover damages—partly from fear of charges of slander.
Relations with the company continue to be good. The community is grateful to the company for trying, with their heavy equipment, to prevent the loss by fire, and the company also brought them water by tanker periodically and took them to the one remaining source of water (a dam that had been created by the construction of the logging road) every other day. The company's situation now remains uncertain, meaning that help to the community has diminished. PT Satu has political problems. The entire concession burned, along with all the Paraserianthes falcatria., Shorea sp. and about half of the Acacia sp. The Gmelina sp. seems to have recovered from the burn (see Figure 4-7).
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 33
Site Long Segar
Figure 4-7 Recovered Gmelina sp. in foreground, burned Paraserianthes falcataria in middle, and forest beyond
The company, through the Bina Desa program, has consistently provided assistance to this community, including helping with seedlings, transport, extension, etc. According to B, the company has also accepted some of his suggestions (such as planning to start an area of fruit trees that included both fruits from afar and from the local forests—Hutan Cadangan Pangan). B reports that the local company officials are prepared to hand over rights to the plantation in the area of Lepo’ Umit, but he does not know if this will be approved at higher levels (though he says he has good relations with the general manager of Batu Bulan, in Samarinda). He has thought through what he wants to ask for and the rationale, including plans for the future. These include preservation of the burned old growth so that it can regenerate; planting of Gmelina sp. since it is proven fire-resistant, grows quickly and is good quality wood for furniture; and replanting of the community's rubber.
No evidence or perception surfaced that the company was responsible for any of the burning. Indeed, all parties interviewed appear to be genuinely appalled at the damage and almost overcome by the losses they have sustained.
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 34
Site Long Segar
4.1.1.4 Long Tutung
Figure 4-8 shows dramatically the fire damage in an area where numerous ethnic groups, development activities, and a massive transmigration program have been implemented. Land use changed from 1990, when the transmigration program had already settled the initial planned population, and when it still included quite a mix of land use types, to a single monolithic category in 1998: settlement.
Figure 4-8 Changes in Long Tutung land use between 1990 and 1998, including amounts of fire damage in March 1998
Table 4-9 documents the quantitative changes from each category of land use to another in this complex area of transmigration, timber companies, plantations, and local people. It is important to bear in mind that this area includes agriculture around houses---but the landscape has been changed so drastically that the first attempt to classify it, based purely on remote sensing, called it “urban”.
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 35
Site Long Segar
Land cover class 1990 1998 Change 1990-1998 % change (ha) (ha) (ha) 1990-1998 lowland dipterocarp 2,914 0 -2,914 -100 forest: open lowland dipterocarp 6,062 0 -6,062 -100 forest: fragmented arable agriculture; 3,060 0 +3,060 +100 rain-fed bare soil 251 0 NA NA settlement 3,884 21,009 +17,125 +441 (transmigration) wood and shrubland 93 0 -93 -100 cloud and shadow 5,701 955 NA NA Total 21,964 21,964 NA NA
Table 4-9 Changes in land use in the Long Tutung area from 1990 to 1998, including amounts of fire damage in March 1998
Long Tutung is a large transmigration area, originally settled in 1986 and 1987. The primary ethnic groups living there include people from Java, from East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), Lombok, and local Kenyah transmigrants from Long Apui (primarily represented in this study), from Long Nyeng, from Long Po’on, and from Long Cu’. These groups practice very different kinds of farming and have responded quite differently to the opportunities and constraints confronted in a transmigration program. The Kenyah remain intimately involved in upland rice cultivation while experimenting with the tree crops mandated by the Government program. Every family interviewed had planted coconut trees, supplied by a government owned plantation on credit, in the late 1980s. Shortly after that crop began bearing, a serious fire burned significant amounts of the plantation, and the Government (with the help of the World Bank and probably the plantation owner) made cacao seedlings available to the farmers. The farmers planted the cacao in among the remaining coconut trees, using the coconuts as shade. The year prior to
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 36
Site Long Segar the burn, they had good yields and were pleased with their ability to live on these tree crop yields. The fires of 1997–1998 demolished almost all the coconut and cacao, leaving the people feeling helpless, dismayed, and quite uncertain about the future. The people have titles to their quarter ha home gardens and Lahan I (one ha, the first field they were given, intended for food crops). Lahan II (2 ha) has been allotted but they do not have title to it, and of course they do not have certificates for the areas of forest they have cleared since moving to the area and discovering they could not subsist on the food crops they were able to grow on their official plots (cf. Colfer and Dudley, 1993). Both Lahan I and II are covered with alang alang, the clearing of which the Kenyah do not consider consistent with their agroforestry system, the value of their labor, or their personal work ethics. Along both sides of the road between UNIT 11 and the area near PT Satu's rubber orchard are areas that had been planted to coconut and cacao that are now vast expanses of grassland.
A group of 95 households in UNIT 11 arranged with PT Satu to use some land adjacent to PT Satu's rubber seedling area (which did not burn). PT Satu agreed to each household getting 50 m along the road (Long Tutung - Sengatta) and 1.5 km back from the road. The leaders of two Kenyah farmer groups sent a letter to the Bupati (in Tenggarong town) on 2 July 1999 requesting permission to use this area. Their rationale includes several issues: 1) Their households have grown so that their children now need land, something the transmigration program will, they think, have to deal with for all the transmigrants eventually, 2) They have a traditional agroforestry system that includes hunting and other uses of the forest, so they need to be near forest (of which there are remains nearby), 3) If they are away from other ethnic groups and other agricultural systems, they will be better able to deal with fire hazards. They remain interested in a combination of food and tree crops. The area has been partially cleared and planted to corn, recently; and the clearing continues with the intention to plant rice in September.
Although information on the agricultural practices of the other groups is based on much briefer observation and knowledge, people from NTT have cattle, which they manage as an important part of their system. The Kenyah understanding of the system is that people from
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 37
Site Long Segar
NTT burn alang alang so that the young shoots are available to the cattle for fodder; and the Kenyah consider these people to be careless with fire and responsible for much of the damage.
The complaints of the Kenyah in UNIT 10 - Long Tutung focused on people from NTT, whereas those in UNIT 11 maligned the Javanese. Colfer spoke with one Javanese farmer, burning alang alang. He had cut the grass, let it dry, piled it up and was burning it, prior to cultivating the soil with a hoe (cangkul). His previous days' work was visible, cultivated in front of the area being burned. He was standing there, watching the fire, which he'd made in the middle of the cleared area. He expressed dismay at the farming practices of the other groups.
Figure 4-9 Javanese transmigrant burning alang alang before land preparation
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Site Long Segar
Figure 4-10 Kenyah woman looking for ferns for lunch
Although the Kenyah complained of the regular use of fire by the other groups, they also reported clearing the alang alang under their cacao trees with fire, to protect them, during the drought, the idea being that cleared areas are less subject to wildfire.
Table 4-5 (above) demonstrates clearly the much higher internal suspicion in the transmigration area, vis-à-vis a more remote local community like Long Apui. Whereas in Long Apui, 78 % basically saw the fires as coming from outside, in Long Tutung, this percentage dropped sharply (47 % in UNIT 10 and 44 % in UNIT 11). Indeed, no one responded that the fires were accidental in either transmigration community.
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Site Long Segar
Tables 4-6 and 4-7 (above) show the number of ha reported burned that belonged to the 38 families surveyed in the two locations (UNIT 10 - Long Tutung and UNIT 11 - Long Tutung). Coconuts, cacao and banana were the primary crops grown by these people, and they represent important losses. Interestingly, no mention was made of the oil palm plantation that Sakuntaladewi and Amblani (1989) described as planted at the time of their research (and providing employment for local people). At that time, the intention was to distribute the land as part of Lahan II for UNIT 11 - Long Tutung when the trees began to bear.
As in Long Apui, the problem of land ownership is confusing. These people, unable to subsist on their allotted plots, began opening forest land (consistent with their previous customs) in 1988 (Colfer and Dudley, 1993). Sakuntaladewi and Amblani (1989) report that some transmigrants had also begun to practice shifting cultivation at the time of their study. This land, the people consider their own, but they also recognize that outsiders do not agree with them. These differences of opinion about land tenure account for some of the prevailing antagonism that characterizes Long Tutung. The Kenyah do acknowledge that, compared to the local indigenous communities like Bau Baru, they must be considered "newcomers", now that they have joined the Transmigration program. None of this land, to which they lay some claim, is included in Table 4-7—yet most or all of it burned.
There are three other major non-Governmental actors in this area besides the communities:
• PT Dua, a logging company in whose concession all this activity has taken place and which used to be in partnership with PT Sumalindo; • PT Tiga, which has a huge industrial timber plantation (HTI) within PT Dua's concession area. • PT Sawit, a large oil palm company, reportedly connected with the Sinar Mas Group (see Figure 4-12).
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Figure 4-14 PT Sawit’s oil palm plantation
PT Dua has had their concession since 197911. It now covers 73,124 ha and was recently closed and then renewed on a trial basis for two years. Since 1979, its area has been reduced by the development of the transmigration area in the 1980s, by the addition of the HTI in the 1990s, and by the formal acknowledgement of "enclaves" arranged in cooperation with local communities (January 1999). PT Dua personnel interviewed were open and cooperative. Large areas of the western part of PT Dua's concession burned quite thoroughly, but these were the areas they had already logged, by and large. The eastern area remains, they said, in reasonable shape, and they are logging (at km 60—from the base camp/log pond in Long Pau).
There has been a serious conflict between the logging company, PT Dua, and the oil palm
11 Sakuntaladewi and Amblani (1989) report five active timber concessions in the area (UNIT 11 - Long Tutung) at the
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 41
Site Long Segar plantation, PT Sawit. PT Sawit's clearing activities within the PT Dua concession (covering 7,850 ha) began in May 1997, without permission from either PT Dua or the Forestry Ministry. They used three smaller companies to help them clear. Legal action against PT Sawit was initiated by a committee involving the police, PT Dua, local Government officials and others, who investigated charges that PT Sawit's clearing was responsible for the fires that demolished the area. PT Dua served as a witness in this legal action (which fell under the criminal laws). The conclusion of the court was that there was insufficient evidence against PT Sawit, but PT Sawit still had to pay the court costs and reimburse farmers who had planted sengon along one of the affected roads, as part of a PT Dua regreening program. PT Dua personnel almost refused to speak with Colfer. Repeated explanations of the innocence of her intention finally convinced them to talk, but the views expressed were clearly "company policy", i.e., "the fires were the result of the El Niño."
PT Sawit has also had serious conflicts with an adjacent local community, Bau Baru. In return for rights to use their land for oil palm, the company was said to have made promises to the community. The promises were reportedly not kept. The community of about 3,000 people (Kayan) was reportedly united in their disapproval of the company's action. Initially they went to the oil palm field and demonstrated, then they went to the office and demonstrated, and finally they went to the county leader (camat) and demonstrated. A smaller number of people from Bau Baru also reportedly went to the field one night, took wood that had been sawn into smaller logs for their own use, using the company's tractors, and then drove the tractors one by one into a nearby swamp, in protest. The conflict appears to have been resolved by the company's moving its border somewhat so that it impinges less on local lands, and promising some other help.
The Kenyah community leader (kepala dusun) was involved in the current resolution of this problem, but he himself distrusts PT Sawit. He said that the field manager from PT Sawit approached him some time ago, wanting to use three ha of his land, and promising that he would be involved in a group of prioritized farmers. After the company got the land and
time of their research (PT Gunung Gajah, PT Satu, OTP, Rimba Nusantara, and Gruti).
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Site Long Segar converted it, the kepala dusun has been unable to contact the field manager. The kepala dusun believes he was tricked.
PT Tiga has a very large industrial timber plantation (HTI) within the previous PT Dua timber concession that was opened in 1992. The species they have planted include Paraserianthes falcataria, Gmelina. sp., Eucalyptus sp., and a little Tectona sp. and Swietenia sp. No one mentioned the HTI until PT Dua provided a map including that area. It burned, along with the rest of the area, but no one mentioned anyone setting fires, or seemed to suspect the company of setting fires, given the obvious losses they would sustain in their own company.
4.1.1.5 PT Akasia Industrial Timber Plantation (HTI)
Since the late 1980s, there has been significant interest in industrial timber plantations by the Indonesian Government and by companies (cf. Gellert, 1998). For that reason, and the generally adverse effects of these plantations on local communities, a number of officials at PT Akasia were interviewed, as well as a few transmigrants involved in the HTI scheme. About 90 % of PT Akasia's 53,000 ha HTI was reported to have burned (48,000 ha). The company officials stressed the efforts they had put forth to put out the fires and to protect the four transmigration villages within their area (see below).
The plantation had Acacia sp., Albizia sp., Gmelina sp., planted in the early days of the plantation's existence (1984-1992). After that the emphasis was on meranti (Shorea leprosula and Shorea parfifolia), planted in strips with shade trees {(ulin) Eusideroxylon zwageri; (kapur) Dryobalanops beccarii; (bengkirai) Shorea laevis, (benggeris) Koompassia excelsa, and fruits}. During the early days, they used fire to clear land, but after 1992, they report stopping using fire, after a directive from above.
Because of our special interest in the people, we identified one of the transmigration sites within this industrial timber plantation to examine changes in land use and fire damage. The area covered 2,177 ha of “arable agriculture: rainfed” in 1990. By 1998, it had become
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 43
Site Long Segar a “mosaic of cultivation and regrowth”. In terms of fire damage, 87 ha were classed within the 25-50% category; 1,187 ha were classed as 50-80% burned; and 903 ha were >80% burned with no standing biomass remaining.
There are 4 transmigration settlements in their area, initially with 300 families each (UNIT 1 was settled in 1991, UNIT 2, 1992, UNIT 3, 1993, UNIT 4, 1994), settled in 1990. These communities have seriously dwindled in numbers. Estimates from local people in UNIT I are that there may be 200 families left. They estimated less than 100 households left in UNIT 2. The reasons given were economic ones; i.e. they couldn't make a reasonable living.
The people in UNIT 1 include Javanese and Kutai, with smaller numbers of Banjars and Bugis. No inter-ethnic squabbling was reported (two Javanese women emphasized differences in food preferences only); and one of the two groups interviewed was composed of a Javanese, a Bugis and a Kutai. Although it seems probable that ethnic differences have some impact, it also seems likely that they are less problematic than in Long Tutung.
4.2 Land Cover and Land Use Changes
4.2.1 Qualitative landscape level changes
The landscape has changed unrecognizably in this area, since the late 1970s, when dense primary rain forest was dominant. Logging commenced in the 1970s and by the 1980s, the area suffered its first serious El Niño-induced fires, and was “invaded” by thousands of transmigrant families. The 1990s were the era of the industrial timber plantation—each wave of human and landscape changes squeezing local people tighter and tighter, and putting more pressure on the landscape.
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Site Long Segar
In this section we look at changes to the landscape that have occurred over the years, using changes in availability of various products and coping strategies as indicators, focusing specifically on comparisons between El Niño and normal years. We provide snapshots of each of the five communities visited. These can also be compared with Figures A-E.
4.2.1.1 Long Apui
The 1997 El Niño12 was unanimously considered the worst fire event the people had ever seen much worse than the 1983 fires; see Mayer (1989) for a post-fire analysis or the 1972 drought. Whereas in 1982–1983, the Long Apui area was evaluated as among the worst affected, with more than 50 % crown damage to trees (Wirawan, 1987), the 1997–1998 fires were reported to have burned everything (cf. Figure B). There was nothing left for the birds to eat. Animals were easy to hunt because they needed water, and came to the river to drink. The fish were easy to catch because they were concentrated in such small amounts of water. Whereas in 1983 people had subsisted on cassava, this time much of the cassava was burned as well. Forest foods like ferns, bamboo shoots, various kinds of leaves all burned. There was nothing to eat except the animals and the fish and the price of rice was astronomical (if available at all). In 1983, many of the trees still stood alive. The fire burned the underbrush and the small trees, but ironwood, and meranti, much of value remained. This time, very few living large trees remained.
Long Apui appears to have depended even more heavily on gold panning this time than during the previous crisis. One problem they recounted with the 1982–1983 gold-panning was the continual immersion in water and the resulting "rotting" of the skin (Colfer and Dudley, 1993). This time, they said there was so little water, they didn't have that problem13. They had to dig holes, and let the water slowly seep into the holes before they could pan.
12 Analyses of the impacts of the 1982-83 fires are available in, for example, Boer (1989); Mayer (1989); Sakuntaladewi and Amblani (1989); Wirawan (1987); Woods (1987). 13 Whitmore (1990) reported that between July 1982 and April 1983, East Kalimantan received only 32% of its usual rainfall. I have no comparable data on the more recent drought.
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Table 4-10 provides a summary of their perceptions of the availability of various forest products, and, for contrast, of cash and rice. The lower the number the more available the product remains (1= a great deal, kado' ale'; 5, very little, kedi'ut ale'). There is a general trend for forest products to be less available, over time, with rattan, bamboo, forest medicines, forest foods, and wood the most dramatically absent recently. Cash seems to be slightly more common now than in the past, though not strikingly so. The rice situation is also deteriorating (confirmed by Colfer and Salim, 1998).
wildlife Fish Rattan/ medicine food wood cash rice Bamboo 1972-73 2.00 1.68 2.50 2.79 2.79 2.18 3.79 4.11 1979-80 2.29 2.07 2.21 2.61 2.46 2.29 3.54 2.32 1982-83 2.50 2.29 3.21 3.29 3.39 2.79 3.64 3.96 1989-90 2.39 2.25 3.00 3.07 3.11 2.75 3.25 2.64 1997-98 2.86 2.64 4.25 4.14 4.15 4.04 3.46 4.50
(without Lepo’ Umit or Payau). Note the years in bold are El Niño years.
Table 4-10 Changes over time in access to forest products in Long Apui
One of the aims of the research was to discover how people's survival strategies had changed over the decades, when the rice crop failed14. Table III-1 in Appendix III shows these data. The first seven columns represent people’s dependence on forest products as supplements in times of crisis. The next two columns represent customary mechanisms for surviving disasters: requesting help from family or others. The final two, HPH (timber concession) and HTI (industrial timber plantation), were anticipated as possibly increasingly important, but people on average consider these options as fairly unimportant (4) to not important at all (5). The strong dependence on eating cassava, panning for gold, hunting pigs and fishing are clear in Table III-1.
14 Comparable more specific, year by year information is available in Colfer and Salim (1998), for the years 1991 - 1997.
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4.2.1.2 Batu Bulan
Although none of the timber concession staff members interviewed was working in Batu Bulan during the 1982–1983 fire, their understanding was that the recent fires were much worse, causing much more damage (both in terms of area and in terms of intensity). As noted above, Wirawan (1987) reported >50 % crown damage in this area after the 1982– 1983 fires; see Figure B for this fire event.
4.2.1.3 Lepo’ Umit
This community had not been established at the time of the 1982–1983 fires. The forest had been logged and partially burned (>50 %, Wirawan, 1987).
Table 4-11 provides Lepo’ Umit people's average assessments of the availability of forest products over time. The people were still in Long Apui during the first three dates in the table. The availability of cash and rice are also assessed, for comparative purposes. Although the availability of wildlife and fish are assessed as about the same as the Long Apui assessment (between "average", 3, and "a lot", 2), they remember less abundant times than do Long Apui residents. Rattan, bamboo, forest medicines and foods, and wood are seen as scarce now in Lepo’ Umit. Roughly the same pattern is also evident for cash and rice as in Long Apui.
wildlife Fish rattan/bamb medicine Food wood cash rice 1972-73 2.53 2.80 2.60 3.07 2.87 3.07 3.07 4.47 1979-80 2.93 3.00 3.27 3.47 3.13 3.47 3.07 3.40 1982-83 2.80 3.27 3.67 3.93 3.67 3.67 3.40 3.73 1989-90 3.27 3.53 4.00 4.13 4.27 4.07 3.53 3.27 1997-98 2.80 2.40 4.73 4.87 4.93 4.20 3.07 4.53 Note: The first three dates reflect experience in Long Apui
Table 4-11 Changes over time in access to forest products in Lepo’ Umit
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Site Long Segar
Table III-2 (in Appendix III) shows the changing coping strategies used by people in Lepo’ Umit, in times of disaster. Eating cassava and panning for gold were the primary coping strategies during the fires. Hunting for pigs, fishing, and making wooden beams were also important.
4.2.1.4 Long Tutung
The Long Tutung area was logged in the 1970s and 1980s, and burned partially in 1982– 1983. Wirawan (1987) placed Long Tutung in the category, "up to 50 % crown damage" to trees. The area had not yet been converted into a transmigration location at the time of the 1982–1983 El Niño, but it was partially burned during the shorter droughts of the early 1990s. Again, nothing compares to the 1997–1998 fires for damage done.
Neither PT Tiga's HTI nor PT Sawit was operating during the earlier serious drought. PT Tiga personnel were not interviewed due to time constraints, and no one mentioned the more recent droughts or their impacts on the HTI.
PT Dua was operating in 1982–1983 and said they sustained significant damage, but again, nothing compared to 1997–1998.
Table 4-12 shows local people's perceptions of changes in resource availability over time. There is a fair amount of consistency in the findings from the three survey locations, in perceived resource availability.
wildlife fish rattan/bamb Medicine Food wood cash rice 1972-73 1.68 1.74 2.05 2.63 2.11 1.63 4.00 4.47 1979-80 2.05 2.00 2.42 2.63 2.32 1.95 3.63 2.11 1982-83 2.16 2.00 3.16 3.21 3.42 2.32 3.68 4.32 1989-90 2.14 2.32 3.93 3.61 3.54 3.11 3.43 2.43 1997-98 2.25 3.04 4.43 4.21 4.36 4.25 3.50 4.68 Note: The first three years from Long Apui, last two from Long Tutung
Table 4-12 Changes over time in access to forest products, Long Tutung (UNIT 10 and UNIT 11 combined)
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Site Long Segar
Table III-3 (Appendix III) shows the slightly more common use of wage labor as a supplement to income in cases of disaster than in the other two villages surveyed, though it is still not perceived as common. In 1999, however, a number of people (having no rice, whatsoever) reluctantly went to work for the oil palm plantation.
4.2.1.5 PT Akasia
This area burned partially in 1982–1983, though the area was still part of PT Satu's timber concession at that time. It burned seriously, as mentioned above, in 1997–1998 (about 90 %). No serious intervening fires were reported.
4.3 Fire Management Strategies
The purpose of this section is to provide some understanding of the indigenous and other local capacity for fire prevention and control. Again, in this section, we provide our results in a location by location manner.
4.3.1 Long Apui
Traditionally, the Kenyah have a variety of fire management strategies (see Aspiannur and Abberger, 1999, for a study of another Kenyah sub-group). They make a fire break between the field they want to burn and any adjacent area they fear might catch fire. Traditionally healthy and normal living forest does not burn particularly easily in this context. But a fruit orchard might if it has flammable under-stores. The firebreak is two depa (full outstretched arms' lengths) in width. Two of these breaks were seen in Long Apui fields (Figure 4-13).
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Site Long Segar
Figure 4-53 Long Apui fire break, July 1999
Burning strategies include attention to time of day, amount of wind, condition of surrounding forest, slope, and dryness of slash in the field. Fires burn hottest at mid-day, and a hot fire is desirable for a good burn (which reduces weeding and increases ash fertilization). The more wind the more dangerous the fire. When winds are high, small fires are started downwind, moving toward the wind. This allows for more control but also often results in a less complete burn. Fires started upwind burn hot and move quickly when it's windy, potentially endangering unintended areas downwind. The condition (humidity) of the surrounding foliage also affects these decisions. Old growth is unlikely to burn, whereas an area used the previous year for a rice field is very susceptible to burning. Some said that fires move up hill more quickly/easily than downhill. Naturally the drier the slash has become, the greater the fire danger and the greater the likelihood of a thorough burn. There also comes a time when there's a significant danger that rains may come and prevent
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Site Long Segar a good burn altogether. The decision to burn is a difficult and stressful one, involving both the individual field owner and normally all the others with neighboring fields. The few cases of fires escaping that we were able to elicit were in situations where the adjacent owners had not been notified (and the adjacent owners' non-rice crops burned).
Care is taken that people can escape the fire once it gets going. If a large cluster of rice fields (or ladang) is being burned, people may start in the middle and work outwards, so as to avoid the danger of trapping people in the middle.
Technically there are sanctions against those who do not take proper precautions regarding fire. In the old days, people could be fined a knife or a gong. In more recent times, fines have taken the form of cash. A person who burns someone else's fruit trees, for instance, is supposed to have to pay Rp. 25,000 - Rp. 50,000/tree15. In fact, in the only concrete examples that community members were able to dredge up, the person burning inappropriately had to pay a total of Rp. 10,000 (see below), even though the neighbor’s garden was destroyed.
Most people make their fields near their friends or relatives, and people are aware of the dangers of fire. When burning to clear rice fields, the whole group of people with adjacent rice fields typically discusses when and how to burn. On the fairly rare occasions when an adjacent rice field burns, it is likely to belong to someone who has a close relationship to the person burning, a person who is unlikely to want to harm or sever the relationship. In one case, one family burned its field before its neighbor’s field was ready. The fire spread into the neighbor’s not yet completely cleared/dried rice field, resulting in a less than satisfactory burn for the neighbor. The victim was angry, but not angry enough to pursue sanctions.
15 Note that this fine has been in effect during a period when the Rupiah has changed from roughly Rp. 2,000 to the US$ to as high as Rp. 17,000 to the US$; a US$ equivalent of the Rupiah amounts is therefore impossible to calculate.
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Only one man (A) had repeated problems with fire, and he had succeeded in getting a fine levied against one person who burned his garden of salak (snakefruit), bamboo, and fruits near the village. A woman had cut down some of his jackfruit trees and burned them and then the fire spread into the salak, bamboo and fruit garden. The woman had not made any fire break, and she was fined Rp. 10,000.
In March 1982, A had 70 newly producing clove trees burned in a frequently used area across the Telen from Long Apui (one he originally cleared from old growth in 1972 and planted first to rice). The wind came up and blew the fire from where his neighbor was making a cassava garden in an area that was full of alang alang. A saw the fire from his house and wanted to put it out, but had no water. He tried beating the fire with sticks, but it just kept flaming. He told his neighbor that the Government had set reimbursement prices for losses like that, but the neighbor said to let the adat (customary law) committee take care of it. Nothing ever happened. The area has been alang alang from then to now [in fact, the area was alang alang in 1979 as well].
On another occasion, a neighbor was burning to clear for his ricefield. He did not make a fire break between his land and A's garden of sweet peppers, jackfruit, and rambutan, and the wind came up. A did not learn of this until he found the place burned. Again no fines were levied or reimbursement required.
This man's experience was confirmed by other people who had trouble thinking of other examples of "intentional" (sengaja) burning. There were three examples of accusations of intentional burning levied against the Kutai. Only one involved sanctions. The Kutai set some alang alang afire in 1996, and the fire blew out of control into the Long Apui cemetery. This resulted in an intra-community dispute, resolved by the adat committee who required the Kutai to pay a fine of Rp. 100,000 (US$ 4, 1996 rate).
4.3.2 Batu Bulan
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While the fires were threatening, the timber personnel cleared a swath around the villages of Batu Bulan and Batu Matahari, immediately adjacent to their main local headquarters, with bulldozers, kept tanker trucks filled and being used (including delivering water to people who had drums to place by the road and providing transport for people in the village of Lepo’ Umit to go get water every other day). They reported having to attach ten hoses to a tanker truck to get far enough away from the heat of the fire to work. The area around the camp is almost completely alang alang, so the fire danger must have been extremely high.
The primary risk, of course, from the company's point of view, was probably financial loss. Although unable to elicit any estimate of this, it was clear that the losses sustained are considerable, both in terms of standing timber that is no more, and in terms of the various activities they have undertaken to make the operation more sustainable (including the losses to the Bina Desa program, such as those reported in Long Apui and Lepo’ Umit).
One official mentioned the overall loss to be one that affected his professional life, since he was there because he was a forester, and he was a forester because he was interested in the forests. Now the forests are burned in this area. His compatriots seemed to share his dismay.
The sanctions that have been applied to PT Satu do not seem to be related to the fires, but rather to political problems related to their owner. Local people are not blaming the company (except in a sort of general way that logging dries out forests) for the fires; nor do there appear to be sanctions within the company, which appears to be too preoccupied with its other problems to be much concerned with this issue.
4.3.3 Lepo’ Umit
The people of Lepo’ Umit are also very familiar with the use of fire and methods for controlling the spread of fire (related to slope, wind direction, time of day, dryness of fields, as well as clearing paths between areas to be burned and areas to be preserved), as in
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Site Long Segar
Long Apui. They have used fire traditionally as a tool, know its uses and its dangers. They also have traditionally held people responsible (fines) for inadvertently burning other people's property. In Lepo’ Umit, a relatively new community, there has not been any formal codification of traditional law, nor has there been a situation, other than the 1997– 1998 fires, in which unintentional fires have occurred that were considered significant enough to report, even within the village.
4.3.4 Long Tutung
The Kenyah in Long Tutung use fire in the same way as in Long Apui, with the same safeguards. However, they do not feel they can use their adat laws regarding fire, because technically they are "newcomers" like the other transmigrants. Their custom of making rice fields together with close friends or relatives helped cement joint responsibility for fire, and that is impossible insofar as they use Lahan I or II for their rice fields (they do not anymore). Lahan I and II were passed out on the basis of a lottery, so the fields of one ethnic group are interspersed with those of other ethnic groups. Since the Kenyah have made rice fields in places other than Lahan I and II consistently since the second year of their settlement in Long Tutung, their sense of intra-group community (or "social glue") continues to function. In fact, being surrounded by other ethnic groups may emphasize and strengthen their commitment to their own way of life and to other members of their ethnic group.
It seems probable that the emphasis on keeping the area under the tree crops clear goes along with a common agricultural requirement that areas between the trees be regularly weeded and that the growth of competing plants be minimized. This is incompatible with a system that allows forest re-growth. It probably also results in a drier environment. On the other hand, if the only regrowth under the trees is alang alang, the practice of clearing that away may indeed prevent fires, as local people maintained.
The geographical mixture of agricultural and agroforestry systems and the people from the different ethnic groups that practice those systems means that one’s neighbours may be
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 54
Site Long Segar involved in very different pursuits. In this case (as in other mixed transmigration sites, cf. Colfer et al., 1989), there is also considerable antagonism between the ethnic groups and much suspicion that the other ethnic groups are responsible for the fires, which do indeed burn regularly. People said that any time there is a week or so of no rain, fires begin to appear (though most are controlled). The day before our arrival in Long Tutung, the cassava garden behind the house of the kepala dusun was almost burned by an uncontrolled alang alang fire directly behind the plot. They said they did not know who set it, but were sure it was people from NTT. There did not appear to be any sanctions associated with fire, reportedly because of the difficulty in obtaining evidence about who started it.
The differences in agricultural practices among the different ethnic groups have already been mentioned. Within the Kenyah community, there were people who were able to protect their fields longer than others. The kepala dusun, for instance, carefully monitored his Lahan II field of coconut and cacao, burning the alang alang that came up under it regularly. He was able to protect it until May, when he believes a group of people from NTT purposely set it afire.
He experienced an increase in theft of his crops during the monetary crisis. On twelve separate occasions he caught thieves, four of whom he took to the police who put them in jail for three months, and eight of whom he only took to the village head (kepala desa). The latter eight thieves admitted their crime and apologized. No other sanctions were applied. He heard from an ex-priest from NTT and from the kepala dusun of the NTT community that these 12 men had made an agreement to burn his field if it remained after the fires. He did not pursue this legally, despite the facts that the kepala dusun offered to serve as a witness, and he believes quite firmly that it's true. He said "what's the use? The crops are gone."
4.3.5 PT Akasia
The plantation company reported maintaining a fire control committee of 30 people (confirmed by a community member), using all the 1,000 employees at one point or another
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Site Long Segar in fire control. They reported having a variety of fire control equipment (bulldozers, water tankers, mobile water tanks, graders, motorcycles, fire towers, radio units, pickups, water storage areas, and high pressure water pumps) that they used in trying to control the fires. They also made 10 m wide strips around the areas they were trying to protect, including villages. The company has an agreement with the Department of Transmigration stating that they have to supply year-round employment to the transmigrants in the four settlements within their area. Because of this, they paid the transmigrants to help protect the trees during the fires.
Despite all this, one articulate resident of UNIT 1 felt that one of the two most important messages he wanted to convey was the shortcomings of the company in terms of preparation for future fires. The other was their laxness in supervising clearing of areas under trees (weeding), particularly while the trees were young. He felt this laxness contributed to serious fire danger, and compared badly with the practices of PT Tiga (in another location, south from the one near Long Tutung), which he reported took better care of their trees and had less fire damage (confirmed by visual inspection).
Although the short time available (one day) does not permit much depth, there appeared to be only a small amount of agriculture (other than plantation) within the area. The transmigrants had ¼ ha of land reserved for their agricultural use, but it was reported to be 1.5 kilometers from the settlement. People had planted a number of tree crops (mango, citrus, coffee, salak, bananas) and cassava on their land, but it all burned. The area is now covered by alang alang, primarily. No previous problems with fire (pre-1997–1998) were reported. People burned small areas of land to make orchards, but these were reported to be easily controlled.
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Site Long Segar
Although the drought was a difficult time for everyone because of the smoke, fear, financial losses in crops burned, the rise in prices and unavailability of commodities, the people's dependence on the company (required to provide for them) may have lessened the impact on them, in comparison with local communities—though this is difficult to confirm. The typical previous poverty of transmigrants in their home island probably affects their interpretation of the severity of a disaster like this, vis-à-vis the other people in the area.
No traditional fire control measures or sanctions were mentioned by anyone in this community.
4.4 Health Impacts
Although the environmental impacts of the fires have been dramatic, there was perhaps more publicity about the haze that affected nearby countries, at the time (Gellert, 1998). Little attention has been paid to the impacts of such haze in the fire sites themselves (with Harwell, 2000, a notable exception). For that reason, we collected some systematic information on health impacts of the fires. The team interviewed an opportunity sample of 98 individuals in Long Apui, UNIT 10-Long Tutung and UNIT 11-Long Tutung was asked what problems they had during the fires, from smoke. Table 4-13 provides the frequency distribution of reported ailments.
The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 8. Long Segar, East Kalimantan Province 57
Site Long Segar
Concern (n=98) Percentage Breathing difficulties 57 Stinging eyes 56 Flu 36 Watery eyes 36 General ill health 23 Coughing 23 Sore throat 14 Cloudy vision 9 Runny nose 6 Hot air 4 Stomach trouble 3 Unknown 3 Fever 2 Headache 2 Fatigue 2 Environment 1 Chest pain 1 Fear 1 Worry 1 Table 4-13 Health problems during fire. Long Apui, UNIT 10 and UNIT 11, Long Tutung
The description provided by Harwell (2000) more clearly conveys the kinds of impacts these statistics reflect:
"'The era of smoke' (jaman asap) is how many in Kalimantan remember the ten months during 1997-8 when a cloud of yellow smog hung over the island. People fainted and wheezed, coughing black phlegm; eyes burned and waters; soot accumulated in nostrils, ears and the corners of eyes. Most health impacts wen undocumented, as medical care is largely inaccessible for many residents. Street lights remained lit throughout the twilit day. Farmers without wristwatches returned from their swidden fields early: unable to judge the time by the sun, they feared being caught far from home after nightfall. In near zero visibility, planes and buses crashed, ships plowed into each other, killing hundreds. Although the island sits astride the equator, the sun rarely appeared, and when it did, it was a frightening blood-red apparition that disappeared behind the smog as quickly as it had come. Apocalyptic imagings were hard to resist." (2000:327-
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Site Long Segar
328)
Besides the obvious problems of stinging eyes and respiratory problems, people were particularly concerned about their water supplies. People reported intestinal problems and worried about more serious ailments they might suffer. Tuffs (1999) found this still to be a problem in her November/December 1998 survey, where the point prevalence of diarrhea episodes in children under five was 71 %. Drinking water for 72 % of her respondents was from rivers, with 64 % reporting disposing of live sewage in the river. This conveys something of the dependence of local people on the rivers—whose water levels fell sharply or disappeared during the drought. She also found high levels of upper respiratory infections in the children surveyed (63 %).
The psychological malaise is more difficult to describe, but is obvious. In all the interior communities, and even with company employees, there was serious dismay at the scale of the destruction. In most cases there was sadness over losses to the fires (crops, timber, other forest products) and there was serious anxiety about the future. In Long Apui, Care International had provided food for work beginning in January 1999, but they were scheduled to stop immediately after this research (subsequent discussions with CARE Samarinda confirmed that the program continued into 2000). No harvest was anticipated until January (assuming the pest problems would evaporate). The timber company had no idea what its future held either, being one of Bob Hasan's prime companies, and having lost most of the timber in its concession to the fires.
Moving to Lepo’ Umit, we find all these emotions, compounded by a sense of bitter disappointment, of broken dreams. The community had considered itself a kind of experiment in a new agroforestry farming system. Although they still have upland rice fields, they had grown to hope for a “settled” way of life, more consistent with the desires of the Government and the companies, and with what they had come to consider modernity. They were on the verge of reaping some of the benefits of their seven or eight year long effort when the fires demolished that dream.
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Site Long Segar
In Long Tutung, the dismay, sadness and anxiety are mixed with anger and a sense of injustice. They are angry about the burning practices, both small and large scale, of their neighbors, whom they hold partially responsible for the fires. Although they too have no rice harvests, they were not included in the food for work program offered to Long Apui by CARE. And they feel that their history with the Government and the local companies has been one of broken promises (confirmed by local officials).
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Site Long Segar
5. UNDERLYING CAUSES
In the past, fires have been consistently blamed on the activities of small farmers who normally burn in August or September before planting their upland rice fields. This time, satellite imagery made it clear, at the time of the burning, that the fires tended to occur in and around plantation areas (Dennis, 1999; Stolle and Tomich, 1999; Suyanto, 2000a; Suyanto and Ruchiat, 2000). The official explanation from Government (and sometimes, industry) evolved to one that emphasizes the role of extreme drought in causing the fires. Like Harwell (2000), we heard the Government refrain that fires require 1) dry fuel, 2) oxygen, and 3) a spark (an explanation confirmed by forest fire experts, Oliver and Larson (1990); Richard White pers. comm., 1999), with the same addendum, less widely held outside Kalimantan, that tree limbs rubbing together sometimes provide that spark. The fires are also sometimes blamed on the coal seams that occur in certain parts of East Kalimantan and burn underground normally.
We are more inclined to share Harwell's (2000) view that this disaster is more human made than natural (as are Byron and Shepherd, 1998; Stolle and Tomich, 1999). Harwell says: "'Disaster'…in the sense of social impact, is not "natural" but distinctly human-made. Hewitt (1995) suggests we read this increasing vulnerability of populations to climatic extremes….as a consequence of development initiatives which have radically restructured patterns of resource access and social relations." (p. 321).
Human-induced changes have definitely occurred in Kalimantan over the past 20–30 years that have made the environment more sensitive to fire (Leighton and Wirawan, 1986; Mackie, 1984). A fundamental change is simply in the overall humidity. Whereas even 20 years ago, the island was primarily humid tropical rain forest, now only small areas of that habitat remain (e.g. Brookfield, et al., 1995). There has been a continual process of conversion, particularly notable in the areas that burned, from humid tropical rain forest to logged (and degraded) tropical rain forest to industrial timber plantations, oil palm and other cash crop plantations, or transmigration locations. Each change has decreased the
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Site Long Segar humidity in comparison to the previous ground cover16.
Accompanying these biophysical changes has been the introduction of major new actors in Kalimantan's forests. Whereas in the past, the forests were inhabited only by local ethnic groups (various groups of Dayaks and Kutai), a whole raft of new stakeholders has emerged: logging companies, industrial timber plantation companies, various kinds of cash crop plantations (oil palm, coconut, cacao, rubber), conservation agencies—each supported by Governmental officials of various stripes. These new activities are, by and large, supported by explicit Governmental policy initiatives.
There have also been dramatic demographic changes. The influx of official and spontaneous transmigrants has resulted in a clear shift in the island's ethnic composition and in its population density. Whereas East Kalimantan (indeed all of Borneo) has always been marked by ethnic diversity, centuries of co-habitation produced some complementarity among local ethnic groups in resource use. Informal agreements evolved into customs that reduced conflict between neighboring groups17. In interactions with newcomers, from other islands, such informal agreements and customs have yet to be worked out. Resource use patterns, values, and use of fire differ among the ethnic groups and have led to conflict.
From a purely local perspective, there has been a clear increase in insecurity about land tenure and in perceptions of inequity (c.f. Wollenberg and Colfer, 1996, for the importance of these issues for human well being). Whereas in the past local people were blissfully unaware (or at least unconcerned) about their lack of formal, legal rights to the resources they traditionally considered their own, they are now painfully aware that they can be booted out of the places they have called home, without recourse18. They are also increasingly aware of the benefits that outsiders have reaped from the forest they
16 There is of course also the issue of global climate change (e.g., global warming) that may be influencing Kalimantan's forests 17 In Long Segar, East Kalimantan, in the 1980s for instance, the Kenyah consciously left commercial rattan collection and shingle making to the Kutai from neighbouring Kernyanyan. In the Danau Sentarum Wildlife Reserve in West Kalimantan, the Iban and the Melayu have long divided the resources by exploiting the forest and the lakes, respectively. 18 The current era of "reformasi" (or reform) may result in more secure tenure, since the Minister proclaimed in early
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Site Long Segar considered their own. This is partially a function of increasing educational levels and improved communication with the outside world and partially a function of increasing competition from outsiders for Kalimantan's resources.
Finally, local people's traditional mechanisms for dealing with fire—a normal agricultural tool—evolved in a very humid context. It may be that the mechanisms for fire control that worked very well in humid tropical rain forest (c.f. Aspiannur and Abberger, 1999; Colfer, 1999) are inadequate for dealing with this much drier environment. Indeed, newcomers to Kalimantan may have less experience dealing with fire as an agricultural tool, and thus less knowledge about how to control it.
Here, ten (sometimes related) propositions about fire causes in Kalimantan are proposed. For each proposition, evidence is provided, including examples of the kinds of accusations heard in the field that lend credence to the proposition. These accusations are in no way substantiated, though they are all possible causes of fire. Several actual burning cases from other areas, where the facts are known, are also used. Because these propositions have emerged in an inductive manner, they may subsequently be further whittled, as we compare these findings with those from other areas where fire has been a problem (Dennis et al., 2000a; Dennis et al., 2000b; Mayer et al., 2000; Suyanto et al., 2000a; Suyanto et al., 2000b, and future findings from Vayda and Broad 1999; Suyanto et al., 2000c)
The first three propositions pertain to underlying conditions that prevailed at the time of the fires in Kalimantan and affect fire danger, one biophysical, one social, and one political:
1. As the prevailing ground cover becomes drier, fire danger increases. Much of Kalimantan, as stated above, has been converted from humid tropical rain forest to an environment that is significantly drier than it was previously. The Governmental refrain explaining fires (dry fuel, oxygen and a spark) is pertinent to this proposition. There is more dry fuel for fires now than there was when Kalimantan was covered in primary forest. This condition contributes to, but does not explain the fires (dry conditions are necessary
1999 that the forests are for the people. But new Minister; and what this will mean remains to be seen.
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Site Long Segar but not sufficient for fires to occur).
2. Insofar as actors are unused to combating fire, the danger of fire damage increases. When people's traditional systems evolved in very humid contexts, their concern about wildfire is likely to be less than among people used to dealing with very dry conditions. The many accusations relating to cooking fires left unattended and cigarettes thrown out the window in conditions of high fire danger support this; as do similar observations about fire causes in West Kalimantan in 1992–1993 (see also Luttrell, 1994, and their plans to examine these cases in detail; Vayda and Broad, 1999).
The "readiness" of most parties to combat fire was also minimal in East Kalimantan, with the Government apparently playing no local role at all19. In two Dayak communities, the people, used to a situation where they only expected to control the fires they set, had little recourse when walls of fire approached them from afar. They battled the fires with pesticide sprayers (with access to water a serious constraint, with rivers so low), with hoes, with sticks and with soil. They made fire breaks around their village and sometimes around tree crops, with bush knives and hoes. The logging companies helped out where they could, with water tankers and heavy equipment near roads, but their capacity was also limited. They had a reduced work force due to the financial crisis and a 200,000 ha concession to try (unsuccessfully) to protect.
One functioning 15-year old industrial timber plantation with a comparatively good reputation (probably more interested in combating fire than a newly clearing plantation) reported having had the following fire equipment for its more than 50,000 ha concession: 3 water tankers, 12 portable water tanks, 6 high pressure pumps, 4 bulldozers, 1 grader, 1 pickup, 10 motorcycles, 8 fire towers, 15 radio communication units, and 11 water storage areas. They also said they had a fire protection committee of 30 people, aided by both the company's employees and a steady supply of workers from the four transmigration areas
19 Byron and Shepherd (1998) point out that the Ministers of the Environment and of Forests strongly supported measures to control fires and rein in the perpetrators, but faced such powerful opposition that their success was limited. Harwell (2000) has a more sceptical perspective on this ministerial support.
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Site Long Segar within the plantation. Yet an estimated 90 % of the plantation burned to the ground. Fire was reported as coming from every direction during the height of the crisis.
Some of this lack of readiness was due to the history of a more humid environment. In the US, where fire danger has been recognized as a problem in forested areas for decades, effective responses have evolved, with Governmental support. Fire fighters can be quickly organized, including hiring of short term labour (often students) and the mobilization of the National Guard (a US-based arm of the military). There is a sophisticated management structure and line of command in place.
But the lack of action in some cases in East Kalimantan was almost certainly also due to an interest by external parties in speeding the conversion to non-forest uses (Resosudarmo, in press). If this view is correct, the desire to burn will decrease as the conversion progresses, and the same parties then need to protect their mature plantations from fire. If mass conversion of Kalimantan's forests to oil palm is ultimately the Government's and the people's decision, it will imply very different levels of fire danger, and a consequent improved level of fire fighting readiness, than have been the case in the past.
3. Insofar as the Government acts in an uncoordinated and corrupt fashion about issues relating to land use, fire danger increases
In East Kalimantan, there is uncertainty about the appropriate uses of the land. Different ministries are reportedly maneuvering to divide up East Kalimantan. Certain parties are interested in converting large areas to oil palm plantations. Indeed, the Government expects to be the largest producer of palm oil in the world by the year 2005, hoping to have converted 5.5 million ha to oil palm alone (Casson, in press; Potter and Lee, 1998a). In the past there has been serious pressure from Jakarta to convert to industrial timber plantations as well. On the other hand, a number of timber concessions are still functioning, implying and requiring a very different kind of ground cover; and National Parks officially dot the East Kalimantan landscape. The government’s current move to “decentralize” is also having unanticipated and apparently deleterious effects on the environment, as some local officials stampede to obtain “part of the [newly available local] pie”. Meanwhile, local
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Site Long Segar people have continued to practice swidden agriculture, gradually adapting it to include tree crops. Whereas in the past there has been competition among Governmental agencies about land use, now there appears to be something of a policy vacuum relating to land use in East Kalimantan. One timber official said they were living under "the law of the jungle".
Converting East Kalimantan's lowland Dipterocarp forests to plantations seems a travesty to many. But this is a decision for the Indonesian people. The level of corruption that has characterized the Indonesian bureaucracy (and field observations suggest that it continues, perhaps even more rampantly than before "reformasi", or the current reform movement) has adverse effects on rational decision making about land use in the province (cf. Dudley, 2000, for a systems dynamics view of corruption). When officials of various ranks can be bought, they are likely to become proponents of the views of the parties with the most money. This is highly unlikely to be the local communities whose livelihoods depend on these resources—despite the Ministry's recent decision that the forests are now for the people.
In a July 1999 meeting of an oil palm plantation company, several local communities and the local Government, the local Government came out strongly in support of the proposed oil palm expansion. Local people's concerns about their rights to their land and resources were met with the loaded question: "Do you want rights to land or modernity?" Participants in the meeting reported it as reminiscent of a Golkar political campaign from the New Order, in favor of oil palm expansion. Foreign experts in Samarinda and in Pontianak have also reported strong support for oil palm expansion from higher level local officials. Informal discussions with officials and others suggest that this support is, in some cases, bought by the companies.
The same issue of corruption affects the value of potential sanctions against burning. When everyone believes that officials can be bought, and officials themselves accept this as a normal supplement to their low salaries, the possibility of getting a fair hearing in court cases (including those related to fire) is also considered minimal. Fieldwork uncovered only one example, involving an oil palm plantation in conflict with the local timber
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Site Long Segar concession, where sanctions were brought against those who were believed to have set fires. Sanctions, in the current climate, are likely to be less effective than efforts to enhance social capital, resolve the conflicts deriving from land disputes, and mount fire danger awareness campaigns. Effective sanctions can be another important deterrent, especially in areas where there are many, different kinds of actors.
Two of the propositions pertain to issues of social conflict (fire as weapon)20:
4. As the number of new, external actors increases, so does the likelihood that fire will be used as a weapon.
The areas visited in this study fell into four categories (with the last coming from Gönner's 1999 study) along this continuum, each considered more likely to involve the use of fire as a weapon:
• A small cluster of villages with two ethnic groups who had lived in close proximity within a timber concession for decades, with only occasional mention of fire as a weapon.
• An area with four ethnic groups living in a transmigration site within an established industrial timber plantation, adjacent to an established timber company, with an intermediate level of suspicion about purposeful fire.
• An area where there were at least four major ethnic groups living in a transmigration area, a number of indigenous communities of various ethnicity nearby, a new oil palm plantation, and an established industrial timber plantation and logging company, with a great deal of suspicion about purposeful fires.
• In Gönner's (1999) description, significant conflicts between communities21 and a tree plantation (HTI) and an oil palm plantation had occurred for several years when the
20 The proposal for this research identified three fire types: fire as a tool, fire as a weapon, and accidental fire (CIFOR/ICRAF/UNESCO, 1998). 21 The number of ethnic groups is unspecified, but one can assume that there were several new ethnic groups included in the transmigration development area.
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Site Long Segar
drought came. Additionally two new transmigration settlements were recently opened. There were a series of comparatively well documented fires purposely set. Harwell's (2000) account of similar experience with oil palm plantations near the Mahakam Lakes, though less detailed, is similar.
5. As the diversity of value systems and natural resource use patterns increases, so does the likelihood that fire will be used as a weapon.
In a nearby transmigration area Javanese and Kenyah live side by side with people from NTT. Each ethnic group has negative stereotypes about the other; and there were many inter-ethnic accusations about starting the fires. The Kenyah, for instance, argued that the other ethnic groups set fires all the time, burning grasses (Imperata cylindrica) throughout the year. The Javanese considered the other ethnic groups to be poor farmers because they were unwilling to burn and then hoe such invasive grasses. The people from NTT regularly burned the grass to encourage the growth of young shoots for their cattle. The Kenyah themselves burned Imperata growing under their coconut/cacao orchards, to protect them from wildfire. Additionally, the traditional fire control mechanisms of each group tend to be more difficult to implement when others sharing the knowledge of those systems are interspersed with ethnic groups characterized by different systems/knowledge of fire control. Rules and regulations about fire control evolve within particular cultural and environmental contexts; when representatives of different cultures, with different fire management patterns, mingle, households cannot depend on each other to follow rules that evolved in the respective, different, contexts.
Two of the propositions pertain to psychological issues that may increase the chances of fire used as a weapon:
6. As perceptions of inequity or injustice increase [and a consequent interest in revenge], so does the use of fire as a weapon.
In a Kenyah village with comparatively little inter-ethnic conflict or outsider involvement, the residents maintained that the Kutai (both indigenous groups) had purposely burned a rubber garden that the Kenyah had managed to protect until May of 1998. They suspected
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Site Long Segar the Kutai of jealousy because all the Kutai gardens had already burned; and argued that Kutai hunters had made a cooking fire while looking for turtles, and purposely let the Imperata burn, adjacent to the Kenyah rubber gardens.
A Kenyah man in the transmigration area reported his coconut/cacao orchard purposely burned, with a group of people from NTT as the suspects. The Kenyah man had repeatedly caught people stealing from his orchard during the monetary crisis and brought them to the village headman or the police who required an apology of eight and put four in jail. Perceived motivation: Jealousy that the Kenyah's orchard remained when theirs had already burned, tinged with revenge.
Revenge was also considered the motivation when a timber company was accused of having set fire to a new oil palm plantation. The plantation was clearing land on the timber company's concession, without permission.
Gönner (1999) reports similar stories from his sites: "…those villagers who had not yet been compensated [by another oil palm plantation] became more and more envious about their neighbors' newly bought TVs and motor cycles….Enhanced by the drought and the beginning of the economic crisis the social situation became increasingly tense and unstable, while financial problems were also getting worse. When the first fires (maybe even unintentionally caused by the company) destroyed people's gardens the trigger was pulled, and a vicious circle started. Although the biggest fires were either directly or indirectly related to the company's land clearing activities, the social conflicts (often induced by the compensation system) caused many smaller forest fires….it remains speculative, whether these "social fires" would have happened without the presence of the oil palm company." (1999: 16).
In several locations, disgruntled workers, unhappy with their treatment by a logging or plantation company, were thought to have started fires in the timber concession or plantation.
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Site Long Segar
7. As perceptions of insecurity of access to resources increases, so does the use of fire as a weapon
People from an indigenous village with whom an oil palm plantation had clashed over land, were accused of setting the plantation ablaze in retribution.
Four hundred villagers from nine villages burned down four buildings belonging to an oil palm plantation that had taken over considerable amounts of local land in an unspecified location in East Kalimantan in December 1998 (Gönner, 1999).
One proposition relates to fires caused by carelessness.
8. As social capital decreases, the danger of fires caused by carelessness increases.
People who are not closely bound by feelings of respect, affection, and trust, to their neighbors are likely to take less care with fire than are those who are enmeshed in such systems. In one Kenyah village, the ties that bind people with neighboring fields are typically strong enough to withstand the losses occasionally incurred from wildfire due to carelessness22. In the transmigration area, neighbors, having little respect for each other, have little motivation to take extra precautions to prevent fires spreading (particularly in the absence of more formal sanctions).
The last two propositions relate to the undesirable use of fire as a tool, when there are no effective sanctions against burning that adversely affects others.
22 Although there are customary fines for setting fires that escape (without the proper preventive measures, like making a firebreak and notifying the other landowner beforehand), they are rarely either sought or levied. Technically such fires are considered purposeful (sengaja). An assessment of motivation also enters the decision by the "customary committee" (kelompok adat) to fine or not to fine.
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Site Long Segar
9. As possibilities for financial gain from potentially uncontrollable uses of fire increase, fire danger increases.
Some accused the oil palm plantation of intentionally burning their own fields as an inexpensive land clearing method (either directly or via their sub-contractors; this interpretation is widely reported in the literature as well). This accusation was supported to some extent by a criminal court case brought against the oil palm plantation, which reportedly had to pay the court costs and reimburse farmers who had re-planted trees supplied by the timber company, near roads. That they did not have to reimburse the timber company for burned forest (due reportedly to insufficient evidence of culpability) was widely viewed as due to illegal payments made by the company to Government officials involved in the decision.
Harwell (2000) found a similar suspicion among the indigenous people living near the Mahakam lakes, who believed the oil palm plantation owners had purposely burned their lands as a means of acquiring lands (newly cleared by fire and thus without the previous value) the people had refused to sell to the company.
10. As unfulfilled subsistence needs increase, potentially uncontrollable uses of fire as a tool may increase
In one Kutai village, people are believed to use fire to encourage the regrowth of young shoots of Imperata to draw deer that are then caught in snares for sale (as in the area Gönner (1999) studied). During the drought when the rice harvest had failed, people may have burned in conditions they would otherwise have eschewed because of the need for a source of income/food.
Some have accused the Kenyah of burning fields, either to plant their rice fields in August 1997 or subsequent crops in early 1998 (though the Kenyah vehemently deny this)23.
These ten propositions are offered as a starting point to contribute to the development of a
23 Colfer’s own focus has been on the Kenyah, so she tends to have heard more thorough and convincing rebuttals from the Kenyah about the actions of which they have been accused—in contrast to my lesser experience with the other ethnic groups and parties involved.
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Site Long Segar typology of causes of fires in Kalimantan. Table 5-1 is an initial attempt to score each study site along the continua stipulated by the propositions. The higher the number, the more accurate and intense the relevance of the proposition in that context (1= not too important; 3 = very important).
LA LU LT BB LM LB 1. Environment becoming drier 3 3 3 3 3 2. Actors are unused to combating fire 2 2 3 3 2 3. Government acting in an uncoordinated and corrupt 3 3 3 3 3 fashion 4. Number of new, external actors 1 1 3 2 1 5. Diversity of value systems and natural resource use 1 1 3 2 1 patterns 6. Perceptions of inequity/injustice [revenge] 2 2 3 2 1 7. Perceptions of insecurity of access to resources 2 2 3 2 2 8.. Internal suspicion and lack of respect among people 2 1 3 2 1 (soc. Cap.) 9. Possibilities for financial gain from potentially 1 1 3 1 1 uncontrollable uses of fire 10. Unfulfilled subsistence needs linked to uncontrollable 1 1 3 2 2 uses of fire 1 = low; 2 = medium, 3 = high Table 5-1 Scores on factors affecting fire danger in research sites
To clarify some of the internal links among these propositions, a few possible causal chains are postulated below. Historically in East Kalimantan, there has been strong political pressure to convert lands from forest to agriculture (offset by other parts of Government). These pressures (particularly from transmigration and plantation agriculture) have resulted in increasing numbers of new, external actors. The increase in new actors has resulted in insecurity related to continuing access to resources (reinforced in the Kalimantan case by the political will to convert). Such pressures can easily evolve into unfulfilled subsistence needs. The increase in new actors also means a greater diversity of value systems, which can lead to perceptions of inequity and injustice.
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The causal chain can go a different way as well. The introduction of new actors can occur spontaneously, with resulting insecurity of access to resources and feelings of injustice/inequity for original inhabitants, and eventual unfulfilled subsistence needs. These can result, at any step along the way, in degradation of the environment (e.g., more fires), prompting a greater political will to convert than existed earlier.
Possibilities for financial gain from uncontrollable uses of fire are closely related to the political will to convert, each reinforcing the other. The political will to convert encourages alternative uses; alternative uses tend to degrade forest lands, encouraging policies that recognize that and attempt to “rehabilitate” such lands to make productive use of them.
A low level of social capital can occur with or without the introduction of new actors, but the introduction of new actors is likely to result in at least a short term lowering of the level of social capital due to disagreements and misunderstandings among people unused to each other.
In sum these issues are interrelated, and all potentially contribute to the fire sensitivity that we can now see in the Kalimantan context. This analysis is intended as a preliminary step in a longer term process of identifying the underlying causes of fires in Indonesia, in pursuit of the most effective steps to minimize their negative effects, both on the people and on the forests.
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6. POLICY IMPLICATIONS
We close with six policy implications that derive from this research. The implications relate to various scales.
At the local level, significant evidence was accumulated that indigenous Bornean forest management includes a significant knowledge of fire management. This includes knowledge of fire and its use, a series of institutions (that could now be strengthened) that serve as a local jural basis for fire control, and understanding of the negative impacts of wildfire on their environment and their way of life. Policies to prepare for, and control fire in the future, should build on these local capabilities. Local people are always available in the region for monitoring, and they have the strongest motivation, under certain circumstances, to protect the resource.
The question of which circumstances contribute to local people’s willingness and interest in protecting local resources is closely tied to the issue of rights to land, whether ownership or use. If people feel either that their rights in local resources have been transgressed or that they are losing their access to vital resources, they are less likely to go to great lengths to protect that resource. Policies are needed that clarify legal rights to land, and strengthen the traditional rights of local communities in an equitable manner. Without such security of inter-generational access to resources, conflicts are likely to increase, and with increasing conflict comes increasing danger of fire.
Our findings suggest that those areas that were worst affected by the fires were also those in which there was the most pressure on local resources, and the most interaction among different ethnic groups, and between newcomers and indigenous groups. This should serve as a warning signal, since many of the government’s development plans have contributed significantly to the creation of such contexts. Policies should recognise these inherent difficulties linked to development efforts as implemented, and devote explicit attention to processes likely to decrease such conflicts (which in turn lead to increased fire danger). These could include wider involvement in decisions about settlement and use
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Site Long Segar patterns; orientation for transmigrants and receiving communities toward inter-ethnic cooperation and complementarity; or the development of explicit conflict resolution mechanisms in multi-stakeholder contexts.
Although the intentions of many involved in development are benign, the environmental (and social) effects have often not been positive. The areas hardest hit by the fires were just those areas in which the most “development” had occurred. Policies should be strengthened for assessing and acting on the results of studies about the environmental impacts of development activities. Such efforts can build on existing assessment guidelines, with strengthened implementation.
Land use planning in East Kalimantan is chaotic. Each location is likely to be claimed by a variety of stakeholders, each with some claim to legitimacy. Local people have unrecognised traditional claims; timber concessions have been given out, overlain on local claims; sometimes conservation areas are gazetted in the very same areas; etc. Policies need to be fashioned that allow for resolution of these conflicting claims, and greater coordination in the future in the allocation of rights to stakeholders. This could occur by continuing the trend toward clarification of traditional rights; and by strengthening coordination mechanisms among government departments. This is particularly important now that decentralization processes are underway.
Decentralization, though apparently proceeding with too much haste and without appropriate attention to the implications of new, regionally defined regulations, represents a potentially positive move. Indonesia has suffered from years of over-centralised planning, with negative impacts on the local environment and on local human well being. Policies need to be developed that can place fire management concerns in the hands of those people closest to the areas in danger; and that logically should be local people, supported by regional government. Capacity, within the region, is necessary if fire is to be managed to the benefit of the people and the environment.
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APPENDICES
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APPENDIX I: Sources for Hot-Spot Data
Source Dates Analytic technique EU-Palembang station 1997: 11 Sep – 31 Dec see below 1. 1998: 18 Jan – 20 Oct 1999: 26 Mar – 26 Oct EU-JRC 1996: 19 Jan – 28 Dec processed by a contextual algorithm 1997: 2 Feb – 15 Oct ESRIN 1993: 3 Jan – 3 Dec processed by a contextual algorithm; day time images CNRM 1992: 26 Apr – 31 Dec processed with same contextual algorithm 1993: 1 Jan – 28 Mar as EU-JRC data ATSR 1996: 1 Nov – 31 Dec background value of 308 Kelvin used; 1997: 1 Jan – 31 Dec night time data 1998: 1 Jan – 31 Dec 1999: 1 Jan – 31 Dec DMSP 1997: 1 Jun – 31 Dec various extraction methods
1. These hot-spot data were hand processed. Both night and daytime images were used. Initially, several objects that might be fire were calibrated to establish background temperatures, after which fire locations were extracted. Subsequently, limited tests were carried out to check data and consistency.
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APPENDIX II: Community descriptions
These are snapshot descriptions of the communities visited. Pseudonyms are used.
LA: Long Apui is a Kenyah village, originally settled in 1962, by people who moved from the remote interior of Borneo. It is adjacent to a Kutai village, in the center of East Kalimantan, within a timber concession, not far from industrial timber estates, transmigration and oil palm plantations.
LU: Lung Umit is an offshoot of Long Apui, originally settled in the 1980s by Kenyah. It is along a logging road, within a timber concession, and like Long Apui not far from other developments.
LT: Long Tutung is a large transmigration area, with oil palm, logging, and industrial timber concessions immediately adjacent. It is composed of at least four ethnic groups, including Kenyah who moved from Long Apui in the late 1980s, all in routine conflict, among themselves and with indigenous communities not far away.
BB: Batu Bulan is a basecamp for a major timber concession, which now has industrial timber plantations (HTI) nearby and associated HTI transmigration communities of four ethnic groups. The population of Batu Bulan itself was originally the indigenous Kutai, but is now very mixed. The conflict levels are less obvious than in Long Tutung.
LM: Lepo’ Mading is another offshoot of Long Apui, located about a half hour walk from a paved road that is less than an hour from Samarinda. There is talk of developing oil palm. So far there seems to be minimal conflict with the other ethnic groups, with the most obvious disagreements relating to land and the political contacts and savvy of Bugis settlers who live along the paved road.
LB: Lalut Bala is another offshoot of Long Apui, located about three hours up a river that is about an hour out of Samarinda. A road was built, but has not been maintained. The community is surrounded by other ethnic groups, and is located on the previous basecamp
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Site Long Segar of a timber concession that is no longer operating. There is industrial timber estate development nearby, with whom the community has had both positive and negative interactions.
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APPENDIX III: Coping strategies
Wooden RequestRequest Logging Tree Cassava Rattan Gold Pan Pigs Fish Beams Shingles (General) Family Company Plantation Other 1972-73 1.18 2.57 2.93 2.15 2.18 4.36 3.21 3.29 3.14 4.50 4.57 4.88 1979-80 2.61 3.11 3.50 2.29 2.18 3.46 3.54 3.86 4.18 4.57 4.68 4.80 1982-83 1.57 2.86 2.04 2.18 2.18 3.64 3.71 3.36 3.50 4.07 4.18 4.56 1989-90 2.93 3.46 3.07 2.18 2.21 3.50 3.71 3.75 4.04 3.93 4.43 4.35 1997-98 1.93 4.00 1.36 2.14 2.11 3.57 3.93 3.54 3.71 4.04 4.46 4.33 Note: without Lepo’ Umit or Payau Table III-0-1 Changes over time in Kenyah coping strategies in Lg. Apui
Wooden RequestRequest Logging Tree Cassava Rattan Gold Pan Pigs Fish Beams Shingles (General) Family Company Plantation Other 1972-73 1.40 2.47 3.73 2.73 2.67 3.73 3.80 4.47 4.53 4.27 4.73 4.50 1979-80 2.00 3.60 3.53 3.00 3.07 4.13 4.27 4.60 4.67 4.20 4.67 4.93 1982-83 2.33 3.53 3.07 2.93 3.20 4.13 4.47 4.53 4.60 4.40 4.80 4.86 1989-90 2.47 4.13 3.53 3.00 3.60 4.00 4.07 4.40 4.67 4.53 4.87 4.57 1997-98 2.00 4.60 1.53 2.80 2.47 2.93 4.40 4.33 4.07 4.73 4.80 4.07 Note: The first three dates reflect experience in Lg. Apui Table III-0-2 Changes over time in Kenyah coping strategies in Lepo' Umit
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Wooden RequestRequest Logging Tree Cassava Rattan Gold Pan Pigs Fish Beams Shingles (General) Family Company Plantation Other 1972-73 1.00 2.74 4.05 2.05 2.05 3.68 3.58 2.42 2.42 4.42 4.42 4.50 1979-80 3.11 2.89 3.68 2.05 2.05 3.37 3.53 3.68 3.84 4.37 4.37 4.50 1982-83 1.53 2.95 1.95 2.05 2.05 3.42 3.53 2.79 2.95 4.37 4.21 4.50 1989-90 3.04 4.22 3.93 2.04 2.04 3.00 3.30 3.85 3.81 3.30 3.70 4.25 1997-98 2.30 4.48 1.52 2.04 2.04 3.67 3.85 3.07 2.93 3.44 4.22 4.25 Note: First three years in Lg. Apui Table III-0-3 Changes over time in Kenyah coping strategies in Lg. Tutung
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