Fire and Landscape in Sanggau, West Kalimantan, Indonesia Socio
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Fire and Landscape in Sanggau, West Kalimantan, Indonesia Judith Mayer Bagus Suratmoko and assistance from staff of PPSDAK - Pancur Kasih, Pontianak (Program Pembinaan Pengelolaan Sumber Daya Alam dan Kemasyarakatan, Yayasan Karya Sosial Pancur Kasih) Socio-Economic Report August 2000 Table of Contents Page No. 1. INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................................1 2. SITE AND REGIONAL CONTEXT (SOCIAL ASPECTS IMPORTANT TO LANDSCAPE)...........5 3. METHODS – RESEARCH APPROACH..................................................................................................20 3.1 GENERAL BACKGROUND FOR THE SANGGAU STUDY SITE........................................................................20 3.2 ASSUMPTIONS .........................................................................................................................................21 3.3 RESEARCH STEPS ....................................................................................................................................23 4. FINDINGS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE .............................................................................................29 4.1 GENERAL SUMMARY ...............................................................................................................................29 4.2 LIMITATIONS OF FINDINGS AND COMBINING RESEARCH APPROACHES .....................................................30 4.3 TYPES OF FIRES DOCUMENTED ................................................................................................................34 4.4 EXAMPLES OF FIRE TYPES FROM THE SANGGAU SITE...............................................................................36 4.4.1 Routine burning of swidden fields by members of village households, as part of “traditional” smallholder shifting cultivation/ agroforestry cycles with customary (adat) norms of practice and liability for damage; forest farmers may subsequently plant cleared areas in perennial tree crops (especially rubber): NOT generally cause for local concern ........37 4.4.2 Fires deliberately set by village smallholders for shifting cultivation, but which escape their intended limits; escaped swidden fires considered accidental, arising despite actions that local community members consider responsible fire use; customary fines and repair of damages indicated under adat judgements are not necessarily enforced on the fire setter, even where damage to agroforestry property occurred................................................................40 4.4.3 Escaped swidden fires due to irresponsible burning by village smallholders (includes fires affecting local community members’ land, plantation lands, degraded grassland or scrubland common property, or remnant natural forests), subject to customary sanctions against the fire setter in the case of local community lands; in principle subject to civil liability for damages to plantation trees .......................................................................................43 4.4.4 Fires set for hunting, with repeated burning causing long-term land degradation and formation of grasslands, fern mats, and slow-succession scrub forests; cause for longstanding disputes between adjacent communities..................................................................48 4.4.5 Extensive wildfires that burn grasslands that had been historically formed by repeated wildfires; specific causes of recent fires are unknown, but local people recognize high fire risks in these fire-prone areas of their community landscapes. (Some of these recent fires are complicated by contested rights with timber plantations, leaving a lack of effective responsibility for protection against fires in recently disputed areas)..........................................50 4.4.6 Fires set by plantation developers or outside contract labor to clear land, with burning contained within relatively uncontested boundaries (since 1995 such burning was illegal)........58 4.4.7 Fires set by plantation developers or outside contract labor to clear land in areas of contested land rights, leading to potential for retaliatory action; subject to sanctions under local customary law; illegal since 1995........................................................................................60 4.4.8 Fires that local people believe were set to intimidate them into ceding their customary land rights or other resources to plantation developers (corporate arson; this research did not substantiate any incident by accounts from plantation staff themselves, or by official investigation).................................................................................................................................61 4.4.9 Fires set by local customary landholders for land clearing prior to ceding their land to a plantation concession (burned using techniques similar to conventional swiddening, but often without traditional fire safety measures)..............................................................................66 4.4.10 Fires set by local customary smallholders for routine swidden land clearing, but which escape and burn adjacent commercial plantation trees................................................................70 The Underlying Causes and Impacts of Fires in South-east Asia Site 7, Ketapang, West Kalimantan Province i 4.4.11 Fires set by local people in reoccupying plantation land previously ceded by customary owners; also fires set by village members and allowed to burn out of control, where community members assume they have no long-term stake in plantation trees once they have ceded their customary land to the plantation .......................................................................75 4.4.12 Fires set by members of local communities to protest perceived injustice or unresponsiveness by plantation developers (protest arson; openly admitted in some cases, hidden in others) ...........................................................................................................................82 4.4.13 Fires with unknown immediate causes, but located in areas locally understood to be fire prone, especially adjacent to customary borders..........................................................................83 4.5 COMMUNITY-BASED FIRE MANAGEMENT MEASURES...............................................................................84 4.6 PLANTATION FIRE MEASURES..................................................................................................................87 5. UNDERLYING CAUSES AND IMMEDIATE CAUSES........................................................................90 6. POLICY IMPLICATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS..................................................................................95 7. REFERENCES CITED .............................................................................................................................101 8. REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................................105 APPENDIX I:.....................................................................................................................................................106 APPENDIX II: GLOSSARY............................................................................................................................107 FIGURE : FIGURE 2-1 GENERAL MAP OF THE SANGGAU STUDY SITE .....................................................................................6 FIGURE 2-2 GOVERNMENT DESIGNATED USES AND CONCESSION AREAS, SANGGAU, WEST KALIMANTAN...........8 FIGURE 2-3 EASTERN JANGKANG/WESTERN BELITANG, LANDSAT TM IMAGE, 16 SEPTEMBER 1991.................11 FIGURE 2-4 EASTERN JANGKANG/WESTERN BELITANG, LANDSAT TM IMAGE, 8 MARCH 2000 .........................12 FIGURE 4-1 ESTIMATED LOCATION OF 1991 FIRE IN KERINTIK, TINTING BINDANG, AND BIAWAK (KECAMATAN BELITANG HILIR)........................................................................................................41 FIGURE 4-2 NORTHEASTERN BELITANG HILIR SUB-DISTRICT AND SOUTHEASTERN JANGKANG SUB- DISTRICT............................................................................................................................................42 FIGURE 4-3 1991 AND 1999 FIRES IN MENTAWAI TEKAM, MENAWAI LINGKAU, AND TAPANG BAROH ..............45 FIGURE 4-4 INHUTANI III AND P.T. FINNANTARA INTIGA TIMBER PLANTATION AREA IN JANGKANG, AREA ALONG WESTERN BORDER OF BELITANG HILIR................................................................................46 FIGURE 4-5 FIRE AFFECTED AREAS IN RESAK BALAI...........................................................................................46 FIGURE 4-6 FIRE AFFECTED AREAS IN BELITANG HILIR SUB-DISTRICT................................................................51 FIGURE 4-7 SOUTHEASTERN BELITANG HILIR, LANDSAT TM IMAGE, 16 SEPTEMBER 1991................................62 FIGURE 4-8 SOUTHEASTERN BELITANG HILIR, LANDSAT TM IMAGE, 8 MARCH 2000 ........................................63 FIGURE 4-9 CONCESSION BOUNDARIES AND AREAS PLANTED BY P.T. FINNANTARA INTIGA, JULY 2000.............73 FIGURE 4-10 FELLING INHUTANI III TIMBER PLANTATION TREES IN PREPARATION FOR PLANTING SWIDDEN FIELD ON THIS SITE; REOCCUPATION OF TIMBER PLANTATION LAND BY PEOPLE OF SUNGEI OMANG AND SEBUDA VILLAGE (IN DESA SAPE), JULY 2000..............................................................76