Views Towards the Sun Bear and Frames on the Human- Sun Bear Conflict of Local People in West Sumatra, Indonesia

Home , Jaguar, Sun bear

Views towards the Sun Bear and Frames on the Human- Sun Bear Conflict of Local People in West Sumatra, Indonesia

MSc Thesis Forest and Nature Conservation FNP 80436

Anne Margarete Windler Reg. no. 871223961010 Supervisor: Dr. Esther Turnhout Wageningen, December, 26th, 2014

Views towards the sun bear and frames on the human-sun bear conflict of local people in West Sumatra, Indonesia

Anne Margarete Windler

Student Reg. no. 871223961010 M.Sc. Forest and Nature Conservation

December 2014

FNP-80436

Supervisor Dr. Esther Turnhout

Chairgroup Forest and Nature Policy

The M.Sc. report must not be copied in whole or in parts without the written permission of the author and the chair group.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Linda for giving me this great opportunity to work on a project in West Sumatra. Thank you for organising an interpreter, a village and a home for me during these weeks and for making sure that everything went fine and that I was okay! Anggi, thank you for being patient with me and my Minang and helping me in Botan to understand customs and people and of course helping me with all the interviews! Emil, thank you for joining in the village as well for your own research and taking me to all the places in the villages with you. Pah Mawardi, thank you very much for introducing us to everyone in the village and guiding us through the area and special thanks to your wife for making us feel at home and caring for us everyday by bringing us food and welcoming us in your home. I also would like to thank the chief of the village for giving us such kind permission to stay in Botan for this research. Also I would like to thank the staff of the Ministry of Forestry (BKSDA) in Lubuk for being so open and positive towards this research and supporting me during these weeks. I am also very grateful to all the people in the village for welcoming us in their community and taking care of us and making my stay so special and unforgettable. Here I would like especially to thank Ermisal and his wife who made us feel like part of their family and Riki who involved us in the daily life and showed great interest in us and our work. And of course many thanks to Esther Turnhout for being such a positive and constructive supervisor throughout my research- and writing process. I also want to thank my parents for always supporting me in what I´m doing and where I´m going. This thesis was more than just an MSc thesis to me. Being part of a village in West Sumatra was a unique experience and it was very special getting to know the people and the Minangkabau culture and seeing the beautiful landscapes.

Terima kasih!

III

Table of contents Acknowledgements ...... II Table of contents ...... IV List of Figures ...... VI Abbreviations ...... VI Summary ...... VIII Chapter 1- Introduction ...... 1 1.1 Human-wildlife conflict ...... 2 1.2 Sun bears in Southeast Asia ...... 3 1.3 Threats to sun bears ...... 4 1.4 Sun bear case in West Sumatra, East Pasaman ...... 4 1.5 Problem statement ...... 5 1.6 Research objective ...... 6 1.7 Research questions ...... 6 Chapter 2 – Theoretical framework ...... 8 2.1 Views of people towards wildlife ...... 9 2.1.1 Culture ...... 9 2.1.2 Inter-human relations ...... 10 2.1.3 Perception of risk ...... 11 2.2 Theory of framing ...... 14 2.2.1 Issue frame ...... 15 2.2.2 Social control frame ...... 15 2.2.3 Power frame ...... 16 2.2.4 Conflict management frame ...... 16 2.3 Integration of framework ...... 18 Chapter 3 - Methods ...... 19 3.1 Research area ...... 20 3.1.1 The Minangkabau ...... 22 3.1.2 The Nagari ...... 22 3.2 Research design and data collection ...... 23 3.3 Sampling ...... 26 3.4 Ethical considerations ...... 26 3.5 Reflection on methodology ...... 27 Chapter 4 – Local views on the sun bear ...... 30

4.1 Narrative about the views people have towards the sun bear ...... 31 4.2 Views of people towards the sun bear ...... 38 4.2.1 Threatening life safety ...... 39 4.2.2 Economic loss ...... 40 4.2.3 Mysterious bear ...... 42 4.3 Conclusion ...... 43 Chapter 5 – Frames of the human sun-bear conflict ...... 45 5.1 Sub-Frames ...... 46 5.1.1 Issue frame ...... 46 5.1.2 Social control frame ...... 50 5.1.3 Power frame ...... 52 5.1.4 Conflict management frame ...... 53 5.2 Conflict frames ...... 55 5.2.1 People versus bears ...... 56 5.2.2 Lack of coordination ...... 57 5.2.3 Left alone ...... 57 5.3 Conclusion of conflict frames ...... 58 5.4 Relation of the views and the conflict frames ...... 59 Chapter 6 - Discussion ...... 61 6.1 Conclusion of findings ...... 62 6.1.1 The different views of local people towards the sun bear ...... 62 6.1.2 Factors that shape local people's view towards the sun bear ...... 62 6.1.3 Frames people have about the human-sun bear conflict ...... 63 6.1.4 Articulation of the people's views in the conflict frames ...... 66 6.2 Reflection on the theoretical framework ...... 66 6.3 Contradiction between traditional belief and practices ...... 70 6.4 Trade-off by the local people: Economic- versus life safety ...... 71 6.5 The role of the Ministry of Forestry for local people in the conflict ...... 74 Chapter 7 – Conclusion and Recommendations ...... 77 Bibliography ...... 80 Annex I ...... 84 Annex II ...... 89 Annex III ...... 92 Annex IV ...... 94

List of Figures Figure 1 Conceptual framework of 'Views'...... 13 Figure 2 Conceptual framework of 'theory of framing'...... 17 Figure 3 Relation of conceptual frameworks 'views' and 'conflict frames'…………………………………………18 Figure 4 Map of Indonesia...... 20 Figure 5 Map of research area...... 20 Figure 6a Rubber tree...... 21 Figure 6b Collection of tapped rubber...... 21 Figure 7a Women working in the field...... 22 Figure 7b Men socialising in a café...... 22 Figure 8 Interview with the interpreter and the volunteer...... 24 Figure 9 Focus group discussion with local villagers...... 25 Figure 10 Victim of sun bear attack…………..…………...... 34 Figure 11 Rubber plantation...... 34 Figure 12 Meeting with forest rangers from West Sumatra………………………………………………………………47 Figure 13 Traditional Minangkabau Palace……………………………………………………………………………………….92 Figure 14 Traditional Minangkabau roof…………………………………………………………………………………………..93

Abbreviations MoF Ministry of Forestry

FGD Focus group discussion

SE Asia Southeast Asia

VII

Summary Sun bears (Helarctos malayanus) occur within Indonesia on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo and are seriously threatened by the forest decline. Recently conflicts between people and sun bears have increased in West Sumatra. The Ministry of Forestry had to translocate sun bears on a bigger scale after reports of attacks on local people. The research objective of this thesis was to understand the views of the local people towards the sun bear and to understand the frames local people have on the human-sun bear conflict.

After an attack of a sun bear on a person many people that work in the forest do not dare to return for some time, with a decline in income as a consequence. For the victim itself the attack can have traumatic consequences, injuries that need medical treatment and fear to go back to the field. Especially people who work in the rubber business are vulnerable towards attacks. People also share a traditional belief about the bear, where the bear might not be real and comes as a warning to the village. The bear gives a warning that bad things are going on, like drinking or gambling and that the person who saw the bear might have a disease called 'darah manis' and should go to the local Shaman.

This study revealed three views: 1. Threatening life safety (the bear threatens people's lives, when they go into the forest to their rubber plantations) 2. Economic loss (If people do not go to the rubber plantations, their income may decrease) 3. Mysterious bear (people believe in the bear as coming as a warning to the village). The view of the 'mysterious bear' seems valid for most people until a real attack has happened, and people want the bear to be captured and translocated or even shot, even though the logical consequence of this common belief would be that the attacked person should get healed from 'darah manis'. Interestingly, the same person can share the three views even though from the perspective of the views of 'threatening life safety' and 'economic loss' the view of the 'mysterious bear' seems to contradict the practice of the people.

In the conflict two groups of people have a stake, namely the Ministry of Forestry (MoF) and the local people from the village. In the conflict frames it becomes clear that the people feel dependent on the MoF and also expect them to take action and responsibility in the conflict. At the same time they feel disappointed by the MoF, because of a lack of attention paid to the conflict. The MoF has the power in terms of authority, knowledge and resources, while the local people are lacking these and therefore feel constrained in taking action themselves. In addition, the bear is protected, even though people have to fear for their lives when working in the forest and it also means that people are not allowed to hunt the attacking bear. In the conflict frames the local people agree with the MoF that organisation and communication are not clear. The staff of the MoF feels that the people

VIII are not aware of what the MoF is doing and therefore do not appreciate their work, while for the people it is not clear how the procedure works in case of an attack.

These aspects considered I identified the three conflict frames: 1. People versus bears (what is the priority of the government? To protect the bear or to make sure that the people can work and sustain their livelihoods) 2. Lack of coordination (how does the procedure work, who is in charge and what should be done) 3. Left alone (people feel left alone in the conflict and criticise that the MoF is not taking it seriously).

From my results I can conclude that people´s beliefs can differ from practices. Furthermore, only the views of threatening life safety and economic loss get reflected in the conflict frames of people, while the view of the mysterious bear is not part of it. From there I can conclude that people´s beliefs may differ from practices and might not follow consistencies and logics. In Botan it seems that people who depend on rubber as their only cash income are most vulnerable to sun bear attacks. Income diversification might be a strategy in order to gain higher resilience. In the conflict the local people and the MoF could benefit from a better participation. From both sides, but especially from the local people there is a demand for more action taking in the conflict. The MoF should take the opportunity and develop conservation strategies to mitigate the conflict together with the affected villagers.

Chapter 1- Introduction

Image from http://www.indonesianfauna.com/sunbear.php , visited on December, 22nd 2014

1.1 Human-wildlife conflict Worldwide increasing human population and habitat destruction, like the conversion of forest and nature areas into agricultural land, causes loss of habitat and prey for wildlife species. The reduction of natural habitat and available food for these wildlife species can force the wildlife to live closer to human settlements where they enter to forage (Inskip and Zimmermann 2009; Nyhus and Tilson 2004; Treves and Karanth 2003; Woodroffe et al. 2005). Consequently, wildlife living in the proximity of humans increases human-wildlife interaction augmenting the potential for conflicts (Gullo and Lassiter 1998; Woodroffe et al. 2005).

Habitat destruction and decline of populations turns many species into the paradox of an 'endangered pest', whereby the 'pest' animal often enjoys national protection (Knight 2000). Especially forest-edge settlements are much more prone to conflicts than settlements further away from the forest (Knight 2000). These communities can be seen as 'borderland communities' in which people and wildlife have to share the same space (Emel, Wilbert, & Wolch, 2002).

Competition for resources between people and animals and predation of animals on humans and the other way around, i.e. hunting, are important aspects of the conflict (Knight 2000). The conflicts can be caused by crop raiding (e.g. elephants, wild boars, bears), predation on livestock and even attacks on humans (e.g. tiger, lion, jaguar, bears). The conflict can cause loss of human life and livelihoods (Woodroffe et al. 2005). Consequently, humans often kill the wildlife as a direct response or as prevention against damage and attacks (Fredriksson 2005; Woodroffe et al. 2005). For the wildlife this can pose a threat on the population, by reducing it to non-viable or by changing social structures or behaviour within the population (Inskip and Zimmermann 2009; Woodroffe et al. 2005). With regard to bears, attacks on people have been reported for Europe, North America and Asia. As to brown bears most fatal attacks were caused by mother bears defending their cubs, whereas black bears were seen to attack being scavenging (Woodroffe et al. 2005). For conservation efforts wildlife attacks on humans should be seriously considered. The risk of being attacked might be potentially low, but perceived as highly threatening by people. This can have tremendous effects on conservation efforts, even if it only concerns a small group of people that might be at risk (Woodroffe et al. 2005).

Since poverty and the lack of economic opportunities force small farmers to move to forest-edge settlements (mainly in tropical regions), the conflicts will persist and probably increase in the future (Rudel and Roper 1997).

1.2 Sun bears in Southeast Asia In Southeast Asia (SE Asia), which is considered a biodiversity hotspot, natural areas are under immense pressure due to human encroachment and degradation. Forests are converted on a big scale into agricultural areas and plantations at a rate of deforestation that is more severe than in other tropical regions (Miettinen et al. 2011; Sodhi et al. 2004; Sodhi et al. 2010). This also accounts for Indonesia where unsustainable logging practices, conversions to plantations as well as forest fires (partly due to the EL Niño event in 1997-1998 whereby large forest areas got destroyed) pose an immense threat onto the remaining forest and onto wildlife species (Curran et al. 2004; Fuller et al. 2004; Siegert et al. 2001). The conversion of forests into agricultural land and plantations is supposedly leading to economic development. However, this clashes with conservation practices (Hansen et al. 2009; Siegert et al. 2001).

Sun bears (Helarctos malayanus), whose natural habitat is tropical evergreen rainforest, occur in SE Asia and are one of the many species that are seriously threatened by the forest decline (Fredriksson et al. 2008; Nyhus and Tilson 2003). In Indonesia they only occur on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, where they are protected since 1973 (Servheen et al. 1999). However, the human population is increasing on these islands and resettlements of people from the crowded cities of Java to forest areas on Sumatra have taken place on a big scale (Servheen et al. 1999).

Sun bears are categorized as 'vulnerable' by the IUCN of red list species (Fredriksson et al. 2008) and it is illegal to hunt and kill them in any country. However, governments are unable to control this (Servheen et al. 1999). Sun bears are omnivorous, but prefer fruits if they can find them. Therefore, especially farms that grow fruits are attractive for them. Sun bears have been reported to mostly damage snakefruit and coconut palm farms (Fredriksson 2005). Also they have been found increasingly foraging on fruits in palm oil plantations (Normua et al. 2004). In Indonesia people often hunt the sun bear when it enters fields and damages crops (Servheen et al. 1999).

Sun bears are usually not seen during the day and probably only come during the night to fields in order to avoid human encounters (Normua et al. 2004). This nocturnal behaviour is especially seen in areas with higher human traffic (Griffiths and van Schaik 1993). However, even though in old literature they are described as nocturnal, in recent research by Fredriksson it has been observed that they are actually diurnal, being active from just before sunset until two hours after sunset. The bears seem to rest during the hottest hours of the day (10 – 14h) (Fredriksson 2012). This means that the activity pattern of people and bears overlaps, which can explain the encounters during the day in the forest. However, the activity pattern of the bear depends on the location with its circumstances such as human traffic (Fredriksson 2012). Even sun bears have a rather small home range, forest

3 decline and therefore less available food inside the forests forces them to find food near villages. Supporting this, there is also a relation found between big events of forest fires during the EL Niño years and an increasing number of human-sun bear conflicts in Indonesia (Fredriksson 2005). Yet, human-sun bear conflicts already started during colonial times when the first attractive fruits were planted on farms (Curran et al. 2004; Fuller et al. 2004). From these times sun bear killings due to foraging on fruits are reported (Fredriksson 2005). These land use changes, from forest to agricultural land, with the consequence of wildlife entering settlements, often turn wild animals into pest species (Knight 2000).

1.3 Threats to sun bears In addition to habitat loss and conflicts with humans, sun bears are also threatened by exploitation and pet trade (Servheen et al. 1999). Exploitation takes place for their body parts such as paws, gallbladder, meat, as well as live bear trade for bear dancing and fighting. For example in Chinese traditional medicine the gallbladder of sun bears is known since 3000 years for its medicinal functions. Even though it can be produced synthetically the market for real gall is large, as well as for the other body parts of the bears, especially on the mainland of SE Asia (Meijaard 1999; Mills and Servheen 1991). Bear farms are established to tap the gallbladder for this purpose (Mills and Servheen 1991). Pet trade happens with baby bears, whereby the mother gets killed in order to take the cubs and keep them as pets (Servheen et al. 1999). On the SE Asian mainland poaching is the main threat for sun bears, while in areas with forest degradation like Sumatra, habitat loss is the major threat (Meijaard 1999; Servheen et al. 1999).

1.4 Sun bear case in West Sumatra, East Pasaman In the communities of the province of West Sumatra cases of sun bears entering villages have increased (personal communication E.C. Kartika February 2014). The Ministry of Forestry (MoF) had to translocate roughly more than 45 sun bears from these villages between 2007 –and January 2014, because of reports by people to the MoF (personal communication E.C. Kartika February 2014). However, the number might be underestimated, since many cases have not even been recorded and reported (personal communication E.C. Kartika February 2014). This research was undertaken in the West Sumatran region Pasaman, where recently many bear conflicts have been reported. In the village Botan, where this research was conducted, four people have been attacked by a sun bear on their way to or from the forest or while harvesting rubber. In the same region a child has been killed by a sun bear, whereupon the bear got killed by the villagers after being captured. Capturing and translocations of the bear are not considered a sustainable solution in the long-term (Baruch-Mordo,

Breck, Wilson, & Broderick, 2009) and there is interest in mitigating the conflicts to conserve the bear and protect the people.

1.5 Problem statement Since little is known on sun bears in both its ecological and human dimensions (Meijaard 1999; Servheen et al. 1999), recently Fredriksson (2012) has investigated sun bear ecology and conservation in her PhD thesis. Her research included human-sun bear conflict focussing on crop damage caused by sun bears, reactions of farmers to crop damage, and how to protect crops and trees better from sun bears in Borneo (Fredriksson 2005, 2012).

In terms of harmfulness, i.e. damage and related economic loss, the sun bear is one of the lowest ranked species (Fredriksson 2005; Knight 2000; Kartika 2013), while it was ranked the highest in terms of antagonism people had towards the sun bear (Fredriksson 2005). Negative attitudes towards bears are usually caused by the perceived risk of bears predating on livestock or attacking people (Fredriksson 2005). However, these risks have not been reported for sun bears in Borneo (Fredriksson 2005). Fredriksson (2005) explains the antagonistic views towards the sun bear by the type of crops and fruits it forages on. She points out that the sun bear kills the coconut palm by taking out the heart, whereas other animals such as wild pigs forage on annual crops. In contrast, others argue that the reasons for the antagonistic views towards bears may be more complex, whereby economic loss cannot be related directly to the negative attitude. Often certain animals are perceived more as a pest species than others even though the damage caused is the same or even less (Knight 2000). In the case of West Sumatra in contrast to Borneo, the sun bear actually attacks people, which adds an important aspect to the conflict and explains, why it is an actual issue for the people in the villages.

Many studies show that the reduction or elimination of conflicts, i.e. damage or attacks, may not lead to a more positive attitude, i.e. less antagonistic views. And in cases where people kill the wildlife in response to or prevention of damage, this behaviour does not vanish when conflicts decrease (Inskip et al. 2013). The causal relation between damage and hostility towards wildlife does not seem to be direct. Accordingly, the reduction of sun bear damage would not necessarily lead to a more positive attitude. For example, hostile views towards carnivores have been found in cases, where people had no economic interest in farming (Kaltenborn et al. 2006). A complexity of different underlying factors, influencing human-nature relationships, can rather cause the human-wildlife conflict and antagonism (Dickman 2010; Inskip and Zimmermann 2009; Marchini and Macdonald 2012). A true risk of attack may be much smaller than the potential risk, but the potential risk can

5 make people very scared and also influence their perception (Woodroffe et al. 2005). Human attacks are the most emotional causes of conflict and the least understood (Woodroffe et al. 2005).

When looking at the human-sun bear conflict, as explained above, the conflict might be of a more multifaceted nature than expected at first sight. The sun bear has several purposes and meanings for people throughout SE Asia, i.e. wild animal, pet, medicine, food and pest. It is of importance to understand the origin of the perceptions, i.e. direct confrontations and interaction or rather stories, beliefs and cultural practices (Knight 2000). The understanding of people's perception towards sun bears and the conflict can be of great value to create a picture of the local context in order to develop sensitive conservation strategies (Knight 2000). Understanding how wildlife impacts a local person’s life also requires understanding of the local person’s perspective (Hill 2004). Therefore the people who have to coexist with the animal and are therefore the affected ones by conflicts are important to consider in the analysis. Their perception of the conflict matters and can differ from perceptions of other groups of people (Campbell‐Smith et al. 2010).

1.6 Research objective The purpose of this study is to explore the views people have towards the sun bear and the underlying drivers on the human-sun bear conflict in West Sumatra. To reach this goal, this thesis has two objectives, namely to study the view of local people towards the sun bear and to analyse how they frame the human-sun bear conflict. The first objective aims to look at the different views people have towards the sun bear. The different ideas people have about animals are therefore crucial to understand when trying to understand local people's views towards the animals and to relate this to conservation activities (Cassidy and Mills 2012). The second objective aims to look at how people frame the human-sun bear conflict in order to understand what people think the problem, causes, responsibilities and possible solutions in the conflict are. The social factors that lead to the intensification of the human-sun bear conflict will be illuminated. This should contribute to conservation strategies, whereby the understanding of local people's perspectives may help to mitigate the human-sun bear conflict.

1.7 Research questions To reach my research objectives, I want to address four main research questions:

1. What are the views of local people towards the sun bear in West Sumatra? 2. What shapes the views of local people towards the sun bear in West Sumatra? 3. How do people frame the human-sun bear conflict in West Sumatra?

From the third research question the following sub-questions are derived:

a. How do people describe the issues around the sun bear? b. What are the causes of the human-sun bear conflict according to the local people? c. Who is responsible and should take action in the conflict according to the local people? d. How should the conflict be dealt with according to the people?

My last research question links the first three questions:

4. How are the views towards the sun bear articulated in the frames people have about the human-sun bear conflict?

Chapter 2 – Theoretical framework

Image by Arthur Rackham, uploaded on Wikipedia on 25th July 2007, website visited December, 22nd 2014

In this chapter I develop the theoretical framework to address my research questions. In the first part I will explain concepts that can determine people's views towards wildlife. In the second part I will use the theory of framing and explain the different frames that can be used in conflict studies, which should contribute to the understanding of how people frame the human-sun bear conflict.

2.1 Views of people towards wildlife Concepts that can determine the views people have towards wildlife are culture (Dickman 2010; Kellert et al. 1996; Knight 2000), risk perceptions (Dickman 2010; Gore et al. 2007) and relations between groups of people (Dickman 2010; Hockings and Humle 2009; Madden 2004). The concepts are schematically shown in figure 1.

2.1.1 Culture Stories, fairy tales, symbols and traditional beliefs about bears exist in many cultures and can create a certain image of the bear. In western culture these are for example the fairy-tale of the Grimm brothers 'Goldilocks and the three bears'; 'snow-white and rose-red' as well as the book with the clumsy, naive 'winnie the pooh' (Kellert et al. 1996). Stories like myths can also influence a person's view towards an animal. An example is the myth about vampires and the created fear and hostility towards bats (Prokop et al. 2009). If people believe an animal species is innately evil or harmful even the reduction of damage might not reduce the conflict and hostility (Dickman 2010). It seems that similarities between an animal and humans do affect how people view the animal and it is rather associated with positive attitudes and the recognition that the animal is able to feel pain (Prokop et al. 2009). The ability of bears to stand upright like a person often make them seem like the wild, savage version of humans (Kellert et al. 1996). In Japan bears are called 'the lonely man' who wanders through the mountains due to their human-like appearance (Knight 2008) and in other cultures 'king of the forest' or 'king of the mountains' (Lescureux and Linnell 2010). However, bears do not always enjoy this mystical image particularly in modern times. When people rather perceive the threat bears may pose to humans, words like 'criminal', 'thieve' (when it 'steals' crops) or even 'natural born killer' (when it predates on livestock or attacks people) are used (Knight 2000).

Often in developing countries people relate to wildlife in a utilitarian as well as in a mystical and respectful manner. This means that the animal can be seen as an important resource, but it can also be imbedded into traditional beliefs (Kellert 1985). Shapeshifting beliefs are known from all over the world, relating to the predatory behaviour of people. Examples are werewolves in Europe, and people believing that humans can temporarily turn into elephants, wild pigs or chimpanzees to predate on people or destroy their fields (Knight 2000). However, animals can also evoke positive

9 symbols, as do for example wolves, tigers and jaguars (Knight 2000). The bear in Japan is the symbol of power, even though it also causes fear (Knight 2000). In West Sumatra there is a strong traditional belief about the tiger, whereby the tiger is seen as the protector of the village and an animal that leads a lost person through the forest to find the way. That can be the reason why the people of the Minangkabau ethnic group, the main ethnic group of West Sumatra, say that they like the tiger. But at the same time people fear the tiger and are scared of attacks (Kartika 2013).

Religion also influences how people relate to wildlife. In Christianity humans and nature are separated with the belief of human domination over nature (White 1967 in Manfredo and Dayer 2004), which can often lead to hostility (Dickman 2010). Hinduism sees humans as part of nature and both Hindus and Buddhists belief in reincarnation (Dwitvedi 2001 in Manfredo and Dayer 2004). In contrast to Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism are more accepting of wildlife damage and might interpret it as a punishment for their behaviour (Dickman 2010). Muslims believe in the protection, good treatment and no abuse of other species. People should treat all creatures of god in a kind way which includes all animals (Deen 2001 in Manfredo and Dayer 2004). 'In the ancient rituals of many cultures bears symbolised harmony between humans and nature', but this image disappeared gradually with increasing urbanisation, modernization and separation from nature (Kellert et al. 1996, 985).

2.1.2 Inter-human relations Many human-wildlife conflicts are not purely between the animal and the human, but also reflect conflicts between people, reinforcing the conflict with wildlife (Knight 2000). Tensions between groups of people can influence the view people have about an animal. People might feel excluded in the decision-making by local organisations and might feel that the needs of the animal have higher priority than their own needs (Hockings and Humle 2009; Madden 2004). This social exclusion can lead to conflicts between people about the animal and influences people's view towards it (Madden 2004).

A related aspect is the perceived lack of control over resources. Wildlife is usually perceived as state- owned (Naughton-Treves 1998) and, as also in the case of the sun bear, it is often protected and illegal to hunt. Therefore not only damage caused by the animal is important, but also the right people have to protect their fields and themselves from the animal (Naughton-Treves and Treves 2005). If it is illegal to hunt the animal, people can perceive this as a lack of control over their own resources, since they depend on external agencies, e.g. Ministry of Forestry, to take action

(Johansson et al. 2012; Manfredo and Dayer 2004). This can reinforce hostile views towards an animal (Hill 2002).

Human-wildlife conflict can also turn into a human-human conflict when people relate differently to the wildlife with different interests (Knight 2000). An animal can for instance be the enemy of the livestock farmer (e.g. when carnivores prey on livestock), but the partner of the crop farmer (e.g. when carnivores prey on herbivores that forage on crops) (Knight 2000).

Stories and beliefs can also reflect tensions between people. Javanese migrants in eastern Sumatra believe that the local tribe comes in the form of a wild pig to destroy their rice fields. The origin is that they do not feel welcomed by the local tribes who live in the forest and therefore believe that they destroy their fields in disguise (Knight 2000). There are also cases whereby the animal is politicised. In Sierra Leone people believed that 'power-seeking' persons with political and economic power and interest come in disguise as chimpanzees and turn into cannibals, murdering people for their body-parts (Dickman 2010; Knight 2000). The conflict between local and powerful people causes that people believe that shapeshifting takes place. However, the attacks of chimpanzees did really take place, but were attributed to a political cause (Dickman 2010; Knight 2000). At the same time the image of the chimpanzee as cannibal people might root back to slave trading times, when people frequently got kidnapped in the forest (Knight 2000). Thus, conflicts between people about an animal can have an effect on how people view the animal and can be reinforced by beliefs, e.g. shapeshifting.

2.1.3 Perception of risk People's perception of risk is seen as socially and culturally constructed (Caplan 2000 and Douglas 1992 in Hill 2004) depending on the region, culture and personal characteristics and is influenced by prior experience (Dickman 2010; Hill 2004; Lescureux and Linnell 2010). People might see the bear as 'arousing' (Johansson et al. 2012; Lescureux and Linnell 2010) or as a 'pest' depending on how they relate to the bear (Lescureux and Linnell 2010). The attitude does not always seem to be related directly to fear or the fact that they are usually categorized as predatory, fierce and threatening.

People also seem to fear large carnivores more when they live further away from potential carnivore areas than living closer (Kaltenborn et al. 2006). Fear towards an animal can be influenced by the appearance like size and also movement, particularly uncontrolled movement (Hill 2004; Johansson et al. 2012; Knight 2008; Lescureux and Linnell 2010). For people bears might rather be more of a 'pest' species in psychological terms by their appearance, behaviour and perceived danger than in terms of damage and monetary loss it may cause (Knight 2008). People's perception of risk of

11 damage is as important as actual losses and their perception more often focuses on rare extreme events than frequent small losses that may be even greater taken together (Naughton-Treves and Treves 2005). An elephant that raids crops may not do this on a frequent basis, but the rare event may be disastrous. The average damage, however, may be the same or less than that caused by rodents, but still people rank the elephant as the main pest species (Madden 2004; Naughton-Treves and Treves 2005). However, measurements of these damages have to be examined carefully. An elephant may not cause a lot of damage on average compared to rodents, but it might mean total crop loss for one farmer in a certain year (Naughton-Treves 1998).

Sun bears that attack people and damage perennials like coconut palms (Fredriksson 2005) might cause such a disaster for people that this can outweigh more frequent caused damages by other species (Sakurai et al. 2013). A one-time extreme damage event can therefore have a more important impact than frequent smaller losses.

In terms of economic damage the distinction can be made between direct and indirect economic loss. Direct economic loss is when wildlife damages crops and therefore reduces the profit. Indirect economic loss can happen when people are scared to go to their work place, e.g. in the forest, because they fear attacks of an animal. Hereby, the damage is not directly caused and visible, but rather invisible (Thirgood et al. 2005). Kartika (2013) shows this in her MSc thesis about the human- tiger conflict, whereby people did not go for weeks or months into the forest after a tiger attack. Even though there was no direct interaction with the tiger, people still experienced loss of income, because they could not go to work in the forest. Sun bears attacked people in Sumatra and, therefore, indirect economic loss might be an important aspect for the people.

Since wildlife is seen as state-owned local people might feel that the responsibility for the wildlife lies with the external agencies, which explains why people are more likely to blame wildlife than domestic animals for damage even though the damage might be the same (Dickman 2010; Naughton-Treves 1998). Domestic livestock is people's own responsibility and an alternative resource, which can relativize the damage (Dickman 2010; Naughton-Treves 1998). Memories that people have from past and present interaction with wildlife can also shape people's views (Hockings and Humle 2009; Kellert et al. 1996). If an animal caused problems in the past, the risk of damage and people's safety can still be perceived as high, even though the present situation may differ substantially (Hockings and Humle 2009).

Vulnerability can also influence the risk perception and therefore influence the view people can have towards a species. Various factors can influence vulnerability in conflicts with animals like age, gender, ethnicity, location of farm, types of crops and cultural rules (Hill 2004). The perceived

12 magnitude of vulnerability is usually the result of the comparison to other people or social groups. Poverty and wealth is often a determining factor. Poverty can be related with more human-wildlife conflict incidents compared to wealthier people who might have the resources to afford guards and protection and to live further away from the forest-edge (Dickman 2010; Knight 2000). Also, individual farms are more vulnerable to conflicts than group-owned or managed farms, where joint efforts are more capable of avoiding and reducing conflicts (Naughton-Treves and Treves 2005). Vulnerability can also be influenced by a farmers' dependence of income from farming, the size (bigger farms have the possibility to grow crops close to the forest-edge that are not attractive for wildlife), and whether it is subsistence farming or farming for cash crops, whereby crop loss will mean immediately profit loss (Hill 2004). These factors can increase vulnerability and therefore also the perceived risk.

The concepts that relate to the views people have towards the sun bear are shown in figure 1. Each of the concepts includes different factors that I identified in my theoretical framework. For culture these factors are stories and traditional beliefs. For the perception of risk these are safety, damage and vulnerability and for the concept of inter-human relations the aspects are social exclusion, lack of control and social tensions. These concepts can shape a persons view towards the sun bear.

Culture Stories Tradional beliefs Symbols

View Sun bear Inter-human Percepon of risk relaons Safety Social exclusion Damage Lack of control Vulnerability Social tension

Figure 1: Conceptual framework of 'views' This figure shows how social factors influence the views people have towards wildlife. The concepts of culture, inter-human relations and the perception of risk contain several aspects, which can determine the views people have towards sun bears. 13

2.2 Theory of framing To gain understanding of how people in West Sumatra frame the conflict between humans and the sun bear I will use the theory of framing. Framing refers to the process of how people construct and represent their interpretation of the outside world (Gray 2003). It 'involves shaping, focussing and organising the world around us' (Gray 2003, 11), in order to make sense of it. Frames are the result of the process of framing and are about people's understanding of the conflict: what the conflict is about, why the conflict is happening, how oneself and others are involved in the conflict, and how the conflict should be dealt with (Gray 2003). Frames help to make sense of complex situations, whereby a person's worldview, prior experience and personal characteristics influence how the situation is interpreted (Shmueli et al. 2006).

By looking through a certain lens one can reduce and simplify information overload in order to understand a conflict (Shmueli et al. 2006). Conflicts are not static, but can be re-framed so that shifts in frames can take place (Gray 2004). Gray (2003) argues that in conflict situations framing can be of great importance in order understand the different perspectives of the people involved in the conflict. How people frame a conflict has been shown to influence the process and the outcomes of a conflict (Gray 2003). Thus knowing the existing frames of disputants and how they were constructed can help to understand underlying drivers of the conflict (Shmueli et al. 2006). Framing includes people's 'values, norms, objectives, interests, convictions and knowledge at a certain moment and in this way reflects how people make sense of the world outside, interpret it and give meaning to it' (Aarts and Van Woerkum 2006, 229). Therefore, frames about environmental conflicts are often based on environmental values and worldviews people have (Gray 2003). People can for example see humans as dominating nature (e.g. exploitation) or as being part of nature (mutually living together). These can influence people's frames about how and who should be involved in the decision-making about the problem (Gray 2003). These environmental values and worldviews people have in West Sumatra can therefore also influence how the human-sun bear conflict gets framed. Differences in frames about the problem, causes and solutions can explain conflicts regarding the sun bear.

Current research distinguishes two approaches of framing theory within the conflict management arena (Dewulf et al. 2009). These are frames as cognitive representations and framing as interactional co-constructions. Cognitive frames are seen as static and not changing in time, being stored in the memory of a person. Interpretations of new experiences will be related to the already known (Dewulf et al. 2009; Gray 2003). Interactive frames focus on the negotiation of meaning people co-construct in interactions such as conversations (Dewulf et al. 2009). Therefore according to

14 the cognitive approach frames are created 'between the ears' of a person and according to the interactional approach 'between the noses' of people (Dewulf et al. 2009, 162). Dewulf et al. (2009) argue for the two framing approaches, which should use different methodological approaches, suggesting that the transition zones between them should be further explored, while Aarts and Van Woerkum (2006) argue for an integrated approach of the two, as they can complement each other. However, both approaches address the same objects to understand the positioning of the disputants and how disputants see cause and management options in the conflict (Dewulf et al. 2009). These objects are categorised into frames that can be relevant to conflict studies (Dewulf et al. 2009; Gray 2003): issue frame, identity frame, characterisation frame, risk frame, social control frame, power frame, and conflict management frame. The argument behind the different frames is that people do not only frame the issue at stake, but also their identity and relationships with actors around them and how they think people should deal with the conflict (Dewulf et al. 2009). When studying human- wildlife conflicts important frames are issue, social control, power and conflict management frames. The issue what the conflict is about is important and also how people relate in terms of power to other parties, who should be in charge and how it should be dealt with the conflict. But identity and characterisation of other parties does not seem to be important to understand the conflict. Therefore, these will not be included in this thesis. In this thesis I will use the conflict frames as sub- frames, which constitute the frames people have on the human-sun bear conflict (see figure 2). In figure 2 the different frames and how they are influenced is represented in a scheme.

2.2.1 Issue frame Issue frames deal with the content of the conflict, so what the people believe the conflict is about (Aarts and Van Woerkum 2006). The issue frame can highlight which aspects of the conflict seem important to the people and if there are differences between groups of people. By describing the issue, people often include what they believe the problem and causes are and their possible desired solutions (Gray 2003).

2.2.2 Social control frame The social control frame represents how people view their influence in the decision-making as individuals or a collective group (Shmueli et al. 2006). This depends on two dimensions, the degree to which people should be dependent on others for decisions and the degree of ownership over the decisions, i.e. collective or individual. Within these two dimensions there are four type of categories: fatalists (low dependency on others, low self-ownership) who believe they have no control over anything; individualists (low dependency on others, high self-ownership) who believe that they know best how to manage situations and who want the freedom to choose for their own solutions; egalitarians (high dependency on others, high self-ownership) who believe in collective decision-

15 making and strive towards equality; hierarchists (high dependency on others, low self-ownership) who believe in a top-down approach, follow rules and regulations and see the decision-making by experts as the best option (Brummans et al. 2008; Gray 2003). These categories may help to understand the social control frame of the local people, and whether they rather see the decisions lie with the individual or whether it should be a joint decision-making. The categories can also help to see whether this frame differs between different groups of people and therefore might feed the conflict or whether it is similar and therefore not the core of the conflict.

2.2.3 Power frame The power frame refers to the power relations between people and is the basis on which social decisions should be made (Shmueli et al. 2006). It determines the legitimate form of power and the form of power that refers to one's own position. According to Gray (2003) there are different ways through which a person can exert power in the decision-making: authority, resources, expertise, personal characteristics, coalitions, vulnerability, threat, voice and moral. For my research the categories of authority, resources and expertise are of importance. The Ministry of Forestry is the institution with the authority to act in the conflict and it is assumed that they have the resources and expertise to handle the conflict, while the villagers lack these sources of power.

2.2.4 Conflict management frame The conflict management frame is about how disputants believe it should be dealt with the conflict (Dewulf et al. 2009; Gray 2003) and which approach is legitimate as a solution (Shmueli et al. 2006). The more conflict management frames disputants have, the more difficult it usually is to find a consent, accepted by all disputants (Gray 2003). In the human-sun bear conflict it will help to gain insight in the conflict by identifying the conflict management frames and to see whether the frames differ or are similar and whether a consensus can be found.

The frames mentioned in this section can be of importance in conflict studies (Gray 2003). In the conflict between people and the sun bear the different frames can contribute to the deeper understanding of the conflict. How people see the problem, causes and solutions in the conflict and whether there are perceived power differences and who should be responsible should contribute to a deeper understanding of how people construct and give meaning to the conflict and implications on how to deal with it.

Personal characteristics Sub-Frames Conflict Frame

Values

Issue Worldviews

Social Norms control Frame of the human- sun bear conflict Power Convictions

Conflict Knowledge management

Interest

Figure 2: Conceptual framework of 'theory of framing' Scheme of how frames are constructed by people. Personal characteristics influence how a person constructs frames of the different categories (Issue – conflict management frame) and these constitute the frame people have of the human-sun bear conflict.

2.3 Integration of framework The framework presented in 2.1 will help to explore the views people have towards the sun bear. This again will help to understand the different views that could be identified and the factors that are important and contribute to the shaping of a view people have towards the sun bear. The understanding of how the three concepts, namely culture, perception of risk and inter-human relations influence the views of people, can contribute to the understanding of the conflict-frames people have. This relation is illustrated in figure 3. It offers a background for the explanation of why people have certain frames about the conflict and why this can differ between groups of people. Therefore, the two theoretical concepts are separated in the theoretical part and will be connected in the result and discussion chapters.

Views of local Conflict frames of local Articulation of the people on the sun people on the Views in the human – sun bear conflict bear conflict frames

Figure 3: Relation of conceptual framework 'views' and 'conflict frames' Relation between the local views on the sun bear and the conflict frames on the human- sun bear conflict. The views are influenced by the concepts of culture, inter-human relations and the perception of risk. The conflict frames are influenced by the issue-, social control-, power- and conflict management frame. In this figure is shown that the views might be articulated within the conflict frames and can also help to understand why people have certain conflict frames.

Chapter 3 - Methods

3.1 Research area I conducted the research in Indonesia on the island of Sumatra (see figure 4 and 5). Sumatra divides into 31 provinces and I stayed in the province of West Sumatra, which has about 5 Million inhabitants and an area of 42,012.89 km2. It is divided into regencies and municipalities (political sub-divisions of the province). Both, regencies and municipalities have their own local government and own legislative body (BPS 2013).

Figure 4: Map of Indonesia The research area is indicated in West Sumatra in the regency of Pasaman

Figure 5: Map of research area Map of the approximate location of Botan, close to the small town of Panti. It is located in a valley, next to a river with mountains on both sides. Partly the mountain forest is protected area and part of it is converted into rubber- and palmoil plantations.

I did my research in the regency Pasaman, not far from Panti. The population size is 266.000 and the area is 4000 km2 (BPS 2013). The Minangkabau ethnic group is the main population in West Sumatra (88%) (BPS 2013). I conducted my research in the village of Botan (see figure 5). Here, many sun bear attacks on people have taken place in recent years. My investigations also covered the surrounding villages Air Panjang, Lundar, Kuamang and Lambak, since these are very close located to Botan and the Chief of Botan lives in Kuamang. These villages also share the same nagari, a local government structure. Therefore, these villages are geographically and socially highly connected.

Botan was chosen as the main village for this research, because in the past two years 4 incidents happened with a bear, whereby people were attacked. In West Sumatra there are several regions with a high number of conflicts, but in the village of Botan the relation with the chief is good, the village is easily accessible and one of the villagers works as a volunteer for the Ministry of Forestry, who could act as a gatekeeper. Botan has around 600 inhabitants. It is a valley village, with the houses mostly located along a road. It is located near a river and in the valley there are mainly rice and corn fields, coconut palms and fish ponds. The surrounding villages are located along the same road, two further up (Air Panjang and Kuamang) and two further down (Lundar and Lambak). The rubber (see figure 6a and 6b) plantations are located in the forest up the hill from the village. Some are however next to the road, as well as some palm oil plantations. Usually these plantations are around 0.5 ha - 1 ha big. In Botan 80% of the people work in the rubber plantations, and either own them or are hired and work with a shared income system of the harvest (As a comparison, in the village of Kuamang 40 % of the people work in the rubber plantations). The rest of the people works in the rice and cornfields or own a shop. Rice is usually a subsistence crop and is only sold if there are left overs.

a b

Figure 6: a) Rubber tree Method of collecting the sap with a leaf. b) Collection of tapped rubber In the village the rubber gets collected before selling it to the cities. 21

3.1.1 The Minangkabau The people from the villages and therefore also my respondents were from the Minangkabau, a matrilineal, patriarchal ethnic tribe. There are many stories and legends about the Minangkabau, which are known to be a proud folk. See annex III for one of their legend. The Minangkabau is the original and biggest ethnic group in West Sumatra and the only group that still practices the matrilineal system (Kato 1978). In this system land is inherited from the mother to the daughter. It is interesting that the Minangkabau are at the same time Muslim, a male dominated religion, which is a quite unique combination (Effendi 1999; Kato 1978). It is striking that women would usually be in the house or in the fields (see figure 7a) taking care of the household (own observation and Effendi 1999), while men are mostly sitting in the cafés socialising and discussing things (see figure 7b). At times also men may go to the fields to work, but particularly for special jobs like applying pesticides and fertilizers or doing the work deeper in the forest, as for rubber plantations or palm oil. This was the reason why it was much easier for me to get into contact with the men of the village, since they hang out in the cafés to talk and discuss things and we could just sit with them.

a b Figure 7: a) Women working in the rice field b) Men socializing in a café

3.1.2 The Nagari The Minangkabau have a certain structure of villages and their government. Since 2000, after the fall of the Suharto regime in the 90ies, decentralisation has taken place in Indonesia. This led to the recognition of local traditional customs and governmental structures of the Minangkabau (BPS 2013). For the Minangkabau this meant that their traditional customs of nagari was once more recognized as a formal governmental system and it gained importance and legal power (Mahdi et al. 2009; Effendi 1999). The nagari is a so-called Minangkabau village, which consists of several hamlets according to traditional customs (Kesatuan Hukum Adat) (Effendi 1999). It represents the lowest- level political unit in the Minangkabau ethnic group (Naim 1984 in Mahdi et al. 2009) and it regulates

22 various social institutions such as marriage, land ownership, organization of economic resources and the general social characteristics of the nagari community (Effendi 1999). Hence, the nagari can be important regarding nature conservation and natural resource management, also because the decision-making is made by the local people (Mahdi et al. 2009). Since these customs and regulations can differ between various nagari, the Minangkabau ethnic group can be distinguished by it (Effendi 1999). In my case the village of Botan was governed by the nagari in the village of Kuamang. I did not have the chance to gain deeper understanding into the nagari in Kuamang, because of a lack of time and language barrier. However, in natural resource management, it can be an important institution.

An influential person next to the people in the nagari is the Mamak. This is one's mothers brother, a powerful, respected person of ones matrilineal family, lineage and clan (Effendi 1999). This Mamak gets selected by the people from an extended Mamak family (Mahdi et al. 2009). In Botan this Mamak was called Ninik Mamak. He was very involved with the people and also hanging out a lot in the cafés. According to the people he is the representative of the villagers and chosen because of his knowledge about the people and the villagers and can therefore make decisions according to the will of the people.

3.2 Research design and data collection I stayed in the village for 4 weeks (12th April until 12th May 2014) to understand the conflict from the people's perspective. Together with an interpreter who spoke Minang and Indonesian, I conducted 22 semi-structured interviews and 5 Focus Group Discussions (FGD) (see Annex I and II for the interview guides in English) in Minang, so people would feel comfortable speaking their own language. Using the method of participant observation (Bernard 2011), we spent every day socialising with the villagers and stayed in one of the village houses in Botan to be close to the people. People were very curious and willing to participate in the research and they organised together with us the FGDs by helping to find people to join. Every day we spent time with the villagers in order to get to know them and to involve them in the research and especially to see how their daily lives look like. We recorded all the interviews so that we could re-listen to them and transcribe them. We decided to transcribe the interviews directly into Bahasa Indonesia instead of Minang, since these languages are quite close, but it would be easier to find people to translate Bahasa Indonesia into English instead of Minang.

Mainly we were together with men, since the women had to take care of the houses, cooking, children and the fields. This made it more difficult to socialise with the women, unless we went to their houses. For me it was important that people got to know me, to gain their trust and also to let

23 them know that I am interested in their opinions and their lives (see Longhurst 2003). They appreciated a lot that we spent so much time with them and wanted to show me as much as possible of the village and their culture. By spending time with the people I could observe how they worked in the fields, when they would go there and what their relation was with the surrounding areas. Four weeks was a short time, however, since I spent every single day together with the people and people were very open to my research, I could still gain a lot of information and we were able to conduct some informal interviews. This also helped me to see how present the conflict would be in the people's lives. Since everyone in the villages knew about us and our research, they informed us when something happened. As for example twice people got chased by a bear while we were there, we got informed by villagers about these events. Sometimes when people thought they knew something useful for us they would also come to us to let us know. In this way we succeeded in being open about the research and involving people and being part of the village.

We started conducting the semi-structured interviews (see figure 8) from the beginning. This helped to quickly get an overview of the problems at stake and topics people find important.

This also gave me the opportunity to revise the interview guide regarding some of the topics and the order of the topics (seeLunt and Livingstone 1996, for information on flexibility of interview guides).

Figure 8: Interview with the interpreter and volunteer Semi-structured interviews were held with the local people from different villages.

At the end of the four weeks we started with the FGDs (see figure 9). In focus groups people discuss an issue in the presence of a facilitator in an informal setting to encourage people to contribute to the discussion (Longhurst 2003; Lunt and Livingstone 1996). In each of the FGDs 6 people participated. During FGDs the issue can be looked at from many different angles and it is the people who influence these (Longhurst 2003). FGDs make sense when it is about why people think something and when it is about the content (Bernard 2011). FGDs are therefore a good method when studying views of people and when 'the interest lies more in socially expressed and contested opinions and discourses than individual attitudes' (Lunt and Livingstone 1996, 93). A key characteristic of FGDs is the interaction between the members of the group (Longhurst 2003). Doing this, the individuals who are placed in the context of the social group 'construct meaningful social action' through their talk and articulation of the issue (Lunt and Livingstone 1996, 85). People can therefore also be studied in action (Halkier 2010). With diverse groups, more frames might be discovered and the interaction of people during the discussion can highlight similarities and differences in frames. Therefore, Halkier (2010) argues that FGDs should be understood as social enactments, whereby these discussions are a particular type of conversation.

Figure 9: Focus group discussion with local villagers Several focus group discussions were done with local people in different villages.

As I explained, I used several methods to collect data. This allows me to include different dimensions to look at the same issue and will help me to validate my findings. When several methods lead to the same or similar results the data can be taken to be more valid (Bernard 2011). Semi-structured

25 interviews and FGDs allow to study the human views towards sun bears from two dimensions that are somewhat similar, but also bear differences. Both are rather informal and allow conversations. The respondents can formulate their answers in their own words and can put more or less importance on certain topics. The main difference however is that FGDs allow interaction between participants while semi-structured interviews rely on the interaction between the interviewer and the respondent (Longhurst 2003).

3.3 Sampling I approached the villagers in their houses. In the beginning the volunteer (a villager who works as a volunteer for the MoF) took us to some houses in Botan and laid the contact between the villagers and us. The first interview was with a victim, who came to our house. And after that we went to the people's houses. The volunteer knew the people and was therefore comfortable to bring us there. After the first interviews people already knew about us and we approached them by ourselves in their houses. From then on we also used the snowball method, by asking people to suggest us next informants. Also, the volunteer kept on suggesting us people who we could interview, since he knew the people very well in all the villages. The snowball sampling method is especially useful in small communities (Bernard 2011) and therefore made sense to apply in Botan and the surrounding villages. I interviewed villagers with different occupations. Most were farmers, with various crops, e.g. rice, corn, rubber, palm oil or fishers. Some were owners of shops and some also worked for the local government. The FGDs I conducted with villagers, 6 per group, and one with the staff of the Ministry of Forestry. For the FGDs with the villagers I asked one or two villagers and they contacted the rest of the people. I was very dependent on who was available at a certain time.

3.4 Ethical considerations During the fieldwork I was open about the research I conducted. I presented myself as a Master student from The Netherlands (Wageningen University, however people did not know it) and I explained my research to them. I wanted to make sure that people understand that I want to learn from them and that for me their opinion and what they think and their observations are important to me during interviews. I also made clear that I am not in the position to generate change after my research. It should be clear that my research is related to my study programme and rather an exercise and a short study, than a study that will have a big impact. Going into the field and investigating human wildlife conflict can lead to repercussions when people expect solutions out of this research (Hockings and Humle 2009). Therefore, it is important not to make people generate too high expectations for the outcome and their community (Walliman 2006).

I always asked for permission to record and to write down notes. And I assured that no names would be mentioned in the report. As a return for what I got from them I will provide a summary of their report in Indonesian. The chief of the village was the person who gave us permission to do the research in the village. However, later we found out that the main governmental office felt excluded, because we did not ask them for permission first and we had to go there to show a letter from my friend's NGO Wildeye in order to be accepted. This was due to our assumption that the chief is the person we had to ask and he probably did not think that it would be necessary for us to go to the main office as well.

Furthermore, we tried to respect all cultural traditions, as dress code and traditional habits. As it is a Muslim region, as a girl I should always cover shoulders and legs. When you greet people you shake hands and then touch your heart. It is also not polite not to accept drinks or foods that were offered. For me it was also important to learn that you never give something with the left hand, but only with the right hand. People can get very offended if you give something with the left hand, even if it is a foreigner. My interpreter was important in these situations to tell me what to do if people offered me something or to correct me in case I did something wrong or did not know how to react or act.

3.5 Reflection on methodology Even though I was not familiar with the culture and traditions, my interpreter helped me with these unfamiliar customs and explained to me what to do in certain situations, e.g. how to greet people, how to react when they offer drinks and food, how to dress, etc. This helped to make the situation more comfortable between the villagers and me. And he could also communicate their questions regarding me. In this way misunderstandings could be reduced. Next to the cultural aspect, I also did not speak the language, neither Bahasa Indonesia nor Minang, the language people speak in that area. For the short time I was there I did learn a lot, but obviously not sufficient to understand any conversation and being able to follow the interviews. The interpreter translated the interview guide into Indonesian beforehand and conducted the interviews in Minang, so that people would feel comfortable. In between the interviews he would translate to me what has been said and I could add some questions.

Misinterpretation can take place after transcription and translation, though (Walliman 2006). However, during the research the role of the interpreter is crucial. He has a certain cultural background, education and his own expectations and interpretation about the research. Therefore, he will impose his view on the research and have an influence on which kind of questions will be asked and especially how the answers will be interpreted and translated to me. That can influence how I interpret interviews while imposing my own view on top of that on the data (Walliman 2006).

It was crucial to explain the research carefully to the interpreter to make sure he knows what it is about and what is important. Expectations from both sides should be clear and there should be a consensus found on how to interpret the interviews. In practice this, however, is very delicate and especially difficult to measure. Since I recorded all the interviews, we re-listened all of them in order to transcribe and translate them into English.

For the FGDs I relied on the villagers who organised and gathered the groups. Therefore, the composition of the groups was random. In my opinion this is not a problem for the validity of the data. I was looking for people's views and frames in the village and, therefore, whatever the group composition was, should be fine. I did do the FGDs in different villages, though: 2 in Botan, 1 in Lambak and 1 in Air Panjang. The 5th FGD was together with the staff of the MoF on an occasion when they came to the village.

The volunteer of the MoF, who is a villager from Lambak, introduced us in the beginning to some respondents. The volunteer has a crucial role in my research. People know that he is associated with the MoF and in the first interviews people seemed to be very positive about the actions taken by the MoF. At the end of our stay we went again to the first respondent, but this time without the volunteer and then his opinion about the MoF was suddenly different and much more negative than in the first interview. People probably did not dare to say negative things about the MoF in the presence of the volunteer. Especially the very first interview, which was a pilot, my friend who works for the MoF and who organised everything in the village was present and the respondent only said positive things about the work of the MoF. When we returned at a later stage to do the interview again his opinion was very different and much more negative. I realised after the first two interviews that people might be very influenced by the volunteer and therefore asked him not to join us anymore. I cannot exclude the possibility that people still associated us with the volunteer in later interviews, since they knew that we had a close relation with him and met up with him and his family almost on a daily basis. However, when he was not with us anymore during interviews people showed a more critical position towards the MoF.

Furthermore, most people were very friendly and positive towards us. However, the Ninik Mamak, who was always very friendly and trying to talk to us, kept on warning the people about me. He suspected me to be from a Greenpeace-like organisation and that they had to be careful what they would tell me. He was afraid I might publish negative news about this part of Indonesia. Another incident was, when we entered one person's house for an interview, the guy was willing to do the interview, but he was very angry at us at first, because he thought we were from the Ministry of Forestry. This was of course an important incident, since it showed how some people felt towards

28 the MoF. In general people in the village were observing with whom we were talking and sometimes warned us about certain people. Some apparently were 'liars' and some might want to poison us, so we should not have tea or coffee they would offer us. Some people especially warned us about the Ninik Mamak, because he is known for using magic and able to poison people.

Striking was the role of the coffee shops. This I also found in other literature to be very important in the culture of Minangkabau. In the coffee shops men meet to discuss and chat, while having tea, coffee or little snacks or just playing games (mostly domino) and smoking non-stop. The coffee shops are therefore extremely important places for interactions and we also used them to find respondents for our interviews and to get to know the people. We always went to the café next door and became friends with the owners and the people that would usually come there. They organised dinners for us and wanted to show us part of their lives. So we went fishing together or picking corn or just for walks in the surrounding. Women would not be in the café, unless they would work there. In the local market, however, women would either be there to sell foods or do their groceries.

Chapter 4 – Local views on the sun bear

In this chapter I will start in 4.1 with a narrative of the local people about the sun bear. In 4.2 I will show what the views people have towards the sun bear are, which I can derive from the narrative and relate the views back to the theory presented in chapter 2.1 referring to the concepts of culture, perception of risk and inter-human relations. Not every view contains all the concepts, since in my case some concepts contribute more than others in shaping the view people have towards the sun bear.

4.1 Narrative about the views people have towards the sun bear In general the people do not like wild animals, including bears. They see them as wild and describe the bear as vicious or as a wild beast. Calling the bear vicious or wild can make people feel scared about the bear and explain why the bear would be so evil and attack people.

In Botan and the villages around, many people believe that the attacking bear is not actually a real bear. This means that they believe that the bear is not the animal, but a mysterious being that comes as a sign. I saw the relation between the established traditional belief people have in West Sumatra about the tiger and the belief they mention regarding the bear. From my findings everyone has the strong traditional belief that the tiger is the protector of the village. If the tiger comes and shows itself or a sign like a trace or a roar to a person, it means that the tiger wants to warn that person. Following stories, it may mean that the person has a disease, called 'darah manis' (sweet blood) and should go to the local shaman (traditional healer) to get cured. It can also mean that bad things are happening in the village like for example gambling or drinking. The villagers told me that if you have this disease you usually can also see a sign in your neck like scratches from the tiger. The role of the tiger, however, is to protect the village.

Yes, because the open field, where the bear lives is destroyed and therefore it is starving. So, the bear comes here. Maybe. Maybe. But the bear is magical, since we set a cage, but we could never catch it (Housewife, rubber field owner, Botan).

In the area of Botan people believe in the tiger as the protector of the village, but since the sun bear is very present in the village and the surroundings, attacking people and leading to a conflict, many people said that they believe that the bear might not be a real bear, but also a sign, just as the tiger. Some, but not all believe that the tiger is coming in disguise of a bear and warning the villagers that they either have the disease darah manis or that something bad is happening in the village. One of the reason people believe that the bear might not be the real animal, but a sign, is because several times a cage with baits was put in order to capture the bear, but it never worked and the bear could

31 not be caught (while in other regions the bear could be captured). That makes people say the bear might be magical and not real, or even the tiger in disguise and show itself to the people as a warning.

What also reinforces this believe is that until a few years ago there were no bear attacks. The bear used to enter the villages to forage on coconuts and durian fruits. According to the people, the bear used to be scared of the presence of people and would run away, but never attack. Nowadays it is not scared of people, but dares to attack them. In their view it could be that there is one bear attacking people, which is actually not a real bear and therefore not possible to capture.

However, some people claim that the bear cannot be the tiger, because it is attacking people. If it were the tiger and therefore the protector, it would only warn and not attack. It seems that people try to find an explanation for the bear encounters and the attacks and therefore, since the traditional believe about the tiger is familiar to them, project this onto the bear and use it as an explanation.

The logic consequence of the traditional belief would be that the conflict might be solved, if people would visit the local shaman to get healed from the disease darah manis and if no bad things were happening in the village. Only one respondent thinks that the bear attacks people, because they have the darah manis, and that the only solution to stop the attacks is that those people should get treatment. Most people, as said, describe the bear as vicious and most think the bear should be captured and moved to another area or even be shot. Therefore, the traditional belief does not necessarily lead to the toleration of the bear. This suggests that the consequences of the attacks weigh too high to actually accept them in the perspective of the traditional belief. It seems that people believe this, because they do not know how to explain the conflict, especially because after four attacks the bear could still not be captured, which makes it a 'mysterious bear', since in other regions bears could be captured. That the bear gets integrated with the traditional belief about tigers, because of a lack of explanation and a mysterious status or, seems to be because people do not have control over the situation. However, one respondent mentioned that this traditional belief hinders people to actually take action themselves. He was active in trying to gather people to hunt the bear and was disappointed, because in the end no one showed up to help. He blamed this on the belief people have about the bear. Two respondents said that they are not scared and not angry at the bear, because they believe in the bear as a tiger, no matter what happens and see it as a sign or a warning. One of them was a victim and said that he went straight back to the field and that it did not affect him further, because he just thinks that either him or the bear will win. And if he loses, the bear will kill him, and that is how it goes. One female respondent also said that she is not angry at the bear and told us that she really likes animals. However, her concept of liking animals was that she said that the bear should be kept in the zoo, so the bear and the people would be in peace.

One of the villagers from Lambak told us that 15 years ago a bear entered the village and people felt disturbed and then shot the bear. Even though in general villagers said that they would not eat the bear (because as a Muslim it is not allowed to eat animals that have claws), in this case the bear was eaten and the respondent ate the heart of the bear. After this experience he believed in the healing power of the bear, since a friend who also ate the heart got healed instantly from toothache. However, he was the only respondent mentioning this healing power, which seems a clear concept in other Asian countries.

Besides the belief that the bear might be warning people and the village, there are also other reasons mentioned why the bear attacks people. Some say the bear attacks when it has a cub to protect the young. And also several respondents mentioned that bears are usually in pairs: When a human crosses a line between the two bears, the male gets jealous and attacks the person.

Based on the people's story, usually the bears walk in pairs, male and female, with the male leading in front. Maybe at that time the male was already in front, I heard the sound of a broken branch, and when I came down, the female passed by me. According to the villagers, the male bear attacked me because he was jealous of me, because at that time I made a sound "huuuu..." but it's common for us to make that sound while we are on the field. But apparently because of that sound the male bear felt that he had to protect the female and attacked me at my arm. Before the surgery my arm could do this, but after the surgery, it can't, I don't know why (Victim, rubber harvester, Botan).

This explanation shows that some people also try to put themselves in the position of the bear in order to understand why the bear attacks.

In general I can say that the traditional belief is accepted, but for most people it is only valid until someone gets attacked. For most people the traditional belief and stories about the bear do not make the people feel safer or accept it as the only explanation and solution for the attacks. Consequently the villagers experience the bear as threatening one's life. It does not necessarily mean that people think that their own life is at risk, rather that particularly the lives of people who work in the rubber plantations is at risk. People are poor in the villages and most of them (in Botan 80%) are dependent on the rubber harvest. At the same time this is the most dangerous working place, since it is located near or in the forest, where the bear can be encountered. Villagers that work in the rubber business are the most vulnerable ones in the conflict, because all bear attacks happened during rubber harvest or on the way there and back (see figure 10). In the village of Botan, where most conflicts happened, 80% of the people work in the rubber business and only 20% have corn or rice fields or own a shop. In the village of Kuamang only 40% work in the rubber business and the

majority has corn and rice fields. In this village no attacks have happened, yet, which could be, because fewer people work in the forest than in Botan. Therefore, people living in Botan and having their plantations in Botan (see figure 11 for an impression of a rubber plantation) are more vulnerable than people in the other villages.

Figure 10: Victim of sun bear Figure 11: Rubber plantation Close to the village of Botan as attack During rubber harvest the well as further away, deep in the forest the rubber plantations sun bear attacked a villagers and are located. bit his hand when he tried to defend himself.

Villagers differentiate between direct and indirect economic loss. The sun bear does not cause a lot of direct economic loss by damaging crops. Now and then coconut trees are damaged or fruits get eaten. But it seems that this happened in the past more than nowadays and not on a big scale. Bears do not seem to cause much direct damage to crops. Even though bears are known for climbing high up into coconut trees people were usually referring to 'before' when that happened, but that nowadays the bear attacks people. So people that work in the rubber plantations feel an economic impact, because they do not dare to go to the forest when there was a bear and then lose income. So people do not experience this as a threat to their livelihoods. Last year there was also a bear found in a palm oil tree eating the fruits, just at the back of a house in the village. The issue is not so much that it would cause damage though, but rather that people are scared, seeing the bear so close by. In this case people gathered with dogs to chase the bear away into the forest.

Indirect economic costs play a much bigger role. The indirect damage can be quite detrimental especially for people that work in the forest. People are scared to go to the forest of the rubber plantations after an incident with a bear. It can make them change their job for a while, for example in rice or corn fields which is considered to be safe, because of the location closer to the actual village, or they stay without work and hence without income. In case of the victim, when there was an attack, first of all the victim needs to go to hospital, needs medical treatment and is probably not able to work for days and weeks or even months. While I was there the last victim from February still had to recover and was not back in the village, yet. Victims do not only get injured physically, but get traumatized. In case of no injury, people that encountered a bear can still be traumatized and too scared to go back to their work. So this person will not have any income during this time and until now injured victims do not receive any compensation payment. This obviously causes loss of income. Farmers who depend on the rubber plantations as their main income will also be more vulnerable to bear attacks on people, since they do not have an alternative income.

Yes I am angry, and why am I angry? Because we did not dare to go to the field again, so there is less income and there is not enough for groceries and food (Farmer working in rice field, owns rice, rubber, cocoa).

People demand safety in order not to become a victim of a bear attack and in order to be able to sustain their livelihoods. A bear threatens people’s lives and their livelihood in economic terms. It can injure a person and people might be scared to go to the forest to work and this influences their economic stability. They do not care so much about what happens to the bear, as long as they are safe and can go to their plantations in the forest to work. In the village itself people do feel safe, but if they have to go to the forest to work, they fear the bear. People therefore experience a tension between economic safety and life safety.

Bears have been very disturbing for the people. Actually a bear should not be killed, but this bear has been disturbing the villagers. There are many people who feel unsafe. To work as a rubber harvester is not easy. We have to go up the hill to reach the plantation. Sometimes we use the motorcycle to go to the field, but only half way up. The rest of the way we have to go by foot. We are very grateful if we can do our work in peace. Now we have to work with the additional weight of the fear for the bear. Therefore, the bear should be killed. The bears do not seem to kill people, but only persecute a person when the victim wants to escape, and the bear would bite him (Victim from Air Panjang, rubber harvester).

The conflict puts people under pressure that have the responsibility for their families. For a couple from Air Panjang, when they encountered the bear during the rubber harvest in the morning, they

35 realised how detrimental it would be for them, if the husband would have gotten injured and then not been able to work anymore. He is the head of the family and without him there would be no income. He had to go back to the plantation after a week, but his wife did not dare to go back. I visited her one week later again and she said that she is too scared and cannot go back there. If the husband cannot go to the forest to harvest rubber, their family will not have enough for their daily life. The husband had the pressure though to go back to work, because otherwise they cannot survive. Working alone in the forest is also more dangerous. People said that after the attacks that if they went to the forest again, they only went in groups. The husband had to reorganise his work and after a week, the first time after the incident that he went back to the plantation, he went in a big group and after that started going with his brother, so the wife could stay in the village. Therefore, people who cannot go in a group, but have to work by themselves in the field, are also more vulnerable to attacks. But people can often not choose with whom they work in the field. Some own the field and can choose to hire someone to harvest (and share the income), some own and work there and can go with family members and some are the ones hired to work in the field and cannot themselves hire other people not to work alone. Also, people say that their work is already a tough one and the risk of attacks make it even more difficult.

In year 2012, the point is, I haven't been going to that field since the last 2 years. I own that field, but I don't dare to go there anymore. I am traumatized. That is why now I make a living by working in other people's field, with a 50-50 share (Victim from Botan, rubber harvester).

One victim told me how traumatizing the attack was for him and that even now that he can go back to the field, he is always scared as soon as he hears something cracking. He also had to change the plantation where he worked, because he could not go there anymore for fear of the bear. After an attack the damage is quite massive for the victim, since a physical injury means that he has to go to hospital, needs medical treatment and cannot work for a long period of time. One of the victims could not work for 7 months and now his hand that got bitten is still so weak that he cannot work the same speed like other harvesters. He also says that he is traumatized since the attack. Whenever he hears shrubs cracking nearby, he thinks it is a bear and gets very scared. He did not receive any compensation payment or any help for the medical expenses, which makes the economic damage detrimental.

Even the sales power decreases. One respondent who owns a shop said that he could feel the effect of the attack, because people bought less in his shop. Since the economic loss when people cannot go to the forest to harvest are invisible compared to crops that are directly and visibly damaged, people might or might not perceive bear attacks as having an impact. Especially people who do not

36 work in the rubber business might not feel the costs the bear can cause with an attack or a direct encounter. Especially angry at the bear are the people who have rubber plantations. Some would even blame the bear for having less income now from the rubber, because less people are willing to work in the rubber harvest. However, other views are that this is due to the lower rubber prices on the market and some opinions are that there has not been a change in how many people actually work in the rubber harvest business. So the perception can be very diverse about this issue and whether or not the sun bear gets blamed for it. All of the respondents agreed that the rubber prices have been declining the past years or at least have been very unstable and are very low at the moment. Some blame this on the fact that there is less income, and some blame the conflict with the bear that there are less people working in the rubber harvest and therefore there is less harvest and less income. Some claim that since the attacks more people switched to other jobs, however, some say that this is due to the bad prices, while some think that there is no change in the number of people that work as a rubber harvester. A female respondent did say though that there are less women working now in the rubber harvest because of fear. And when considering the couple that got chased by a bear, the husband went back to the field after one week, while the wife did not have the intention to ever go back to the plantation in the forest ever again. If their livelihood depends on the rubber harvest, a bear attack, no matter if they are the victim or not, does have a negative effect on their income. If the harvesters do not dare to go to the forest for a while, less will be harvested, while people who work in the corn and rice fields can continue their work there, because the fields are closer to the houses and further away from the forest and therefore safer. Consequently, depending on whether people have rice and corn or rubber fields and in which village they live, they experience the economic damage differently. After a bear attack people who work in the corn and rice fields can continue their work as normal and will not feel the consequences of the conflict. For them rather the wild pig or even other animals (e.g. monkey) were a bigger issue in terms of economic damage.

In general, the area of the villages and rubber plantations is close to the protected area, which causes that the bear habitat and the villages are not that far from each other and confrontations can occur easier. It also plays a role in which village people live. Botan is known as the village where the conflict cumulates, even though there was also one attack and one couple that got chased by a bear in Air Panjang and Lundar, the villages next to Botan. Respondents from the villages around always say that the conflict happens in Botan and not in their village, so the bear is not such a problem for them, but they still see it as a problem and life threatening to people in general. Since the sun bear is protected by law, it is seen as 'national property' and most people know that it is therefore illegal to hunt. Thus, people are not legally able to protect themselves from the bear. It reduces people's independence to

37 act in the conflict and makes them dependent on outside organisations, such as the MoF. Several respondents said that if they had the opportunity and if the decision was up to them, they would kill the bear. But since they do not so and the chief also wants to follow the rules, the MoF is the deciding party. Therefore they depend on the MoF to set the cage and try to capture and translocate the bear. Also the protected area in the forest nearby limits the people in their freedom to choose where they might go for hunting. On the other hand, even if they wanted to, they do not have the right arms to actually be efficient and safe during a bear hunt.

In another area a child got killed by a bear. In that region the situation got out of control and the people got extremely angry and upset with the bear, but also about the MoF. They did not accept the MoF anymore and took action themselves by burning the bear and threatening the staff of the MoF. Thus, the conflict between the bear and the people also led to tensions between the villagers and the MoF, which might enhance the conflict between the people and the bear in return. In this case the tension was very obvious. However, also in Botan there is a slight tension between some villagers and the MoF. Several respondents indicated that they think the MoF should take the sun bear conflict more serious and act more. Some feel that the MoF only does something after an attack and as soon as the people have calmed down, leaves them alone. One respondent got very angry when we arrived for an interview, because he thought we were staff of the MoF. This made quite clear that people have expectations towards the MoF in the conflict and that this also influences how they view the bear conflict.

4.2 Views of people towards the sun bear In this paragraph I will show which views I can derive from the narrative above and I will relate these to the three concepts from Chapter 2.1:

1. Culture with aspects of traditional belief, stories and symbols 2. Perception of risk with the aspects of damage, safety and vulnerability 3. Inter-human relations with the aspect of social exclusion, social tension and lack of control

The views I identify are: “Threatening life safety”; “Economic loss” and “Mysterious bear”. I will discuss these views and show which concepts and aspects contribute the most to shaping each of the views. To analyse them I will not stick to the order of 1. Culture 2. Inter-human relations and 3. Perception of risk, because the relevance might differ per view and I will start with the most relevant concept.

4.2.1 Threatening life safety

Perception of risk People call the bear 'vicious' and 'wild animal', and perceive it as angry and are therefore afraid of the bear. According to some people the bear is angry and attacking people out of revenge, because people disturb its habitat and also because the bear might have been trapped in wild boar snares and even got hunted. People cannot actually know whether the bear is taking revenge or not or feels disturbed by the people, but saying this people try to put themselves in the position of the bear and recognize the disturbances they might cause. This leads to the assumption that the bear is angry and because it attacks people that it is a vicious, wild animal. Most people perceive the bear therefore as life threatening, which makes them afraid to go into the forest to work in their plantations, especially when there was an attack. Some of the women even said that after the attacks they would never go back to the forest to work again, but rather stay home or work in the rice or cornfields close to the village. The most important concept that shapes this view is perception of risk, with the aspect of safety contributing the most. People say that they just want to feel safe and be able to work in peace. But the perception of risk, where they potentially risk their lives when entering the forest hinders them. People share this view because of the risk of encountering a bear and even becoming a victim, so people are scared to go to their work in the forest on their plantations when there was an attack. Since they perceive the bear as life threatening, this view is mostly as said, related to the aspect of safety. The view of the bear as life threatening is also influenced by the aspect of vulnerability within the concept of perception of risk. The location of the field relates to the magnitude of vulnerability of the people. The closer and the deeper the field or plantation is located in the forest, the more vulnerable the person is to bear encounters, which makes it more life threatening.

Inter-human relations The concept of inter-human relations contributes to this view in a more indirect way. Since the villagers perceive the bear as life threatening, people expect that something should be done about it. They cannot actually protect themselves from it, since they are not allowed and do not have the resources to hunt it or scare it away. The aspect of social exclusion and lack of control is especially important in this context. Official authorities such as the forest rangers would need to help them, and people would not be able to deal themselves with it in an organised and effective way. This can reinforce the view of the bear as life threatening. People might feel that they are excluded from the decision-making in whether or not the bear should be protected and especially the consideration of the villagers with this decision. The lack of communication and coordination can increase this feeling, related to the aspect of social exclusions, which can lead to social tensions between the villagers and

39 the Ministry of Forestry. It seems however, that this differs per village and that in Botan the situation is not out of control, yet.

Culture The concept of culture with especially the aspect of stories contributes to this view as well, because most people have not actually encountered the bear themselves, but only heard about it from other people. Sometimes it was also not clear, whether the impact of not going to the forest was a personal one or something the respondent would know about other people. When there was an attack or when people encountered a bear, all the villages nearby get informed by people hearing about it and telling it to other people. Life takes place a lot outside the house along the street, so a lot of interaction amongst the people takes place. Only hearing stories about what can happen when a bear encounter takes place can make people perceive it as life threatening, even though the risk might be very low that they themselves might encounter it. But since the potential risk is there the people also have this perception. Stories can therefore reinforce this view. If there was one victim, many people do not dare to go to the forest. The aspect of traditional belief does not contribute to this view. The belief would rather favour the bear, since it is doing something good for the village or person, as it warns of a disease and bad things. In that sense the bear would rather be 'life saving” and improving the moral of the village.

4.2.2 Economic loss

Perception of risk People experience economic loss by indirect damage. This means that they have a decline in income when there was an attack, because they stop working in the plantations for some days, weeks or months depending on the person or have to reorganise their work. For the victim the economic loss can be even higher, if he got injured or traumatized. Therefore the concept of risk perception with the aspect of damage contributes the most to the view people have towards the sun bear. In the period when they do not go into the forest people harvest less rubber and also sell less, so the damage is in monetary terms and not a direct damage to crops. Even though the bear can also forage on fruits and coconuts, this has not been mentioned as a main problem. The victim experiences a bigger loss, because of injuries and therefore medical costs and more time not being able to work, either because of injury or the traumatic experience. The aspect of safety also contributes to this view, because the bear threatens the economic safety of the people that depend on the rubber business in the forest. In terms of safety the trade-off between economic and life safety can be seen. If people do not go into the forest, life safety is more important in that moment than economic

40 safety. Some indicated that they would still go into the forest, because otherwise they cannot sustain their livelihoods, so they have to risk their life safety. Vulnerability influences the view of economic loss, since people who are more vulnerable, i.e. having their plantation deep in the forest and depending on rubber, rather experience economic loss compared to other villagers and are therefore more at risk for economic loss. People are more vulnerable if they depend on the rubber as their only source of generating cash. This makes the economic loss they experience and therefore the view they may have on the sun bear even more important and influencing their livelihoods in a negative way. Many people indicated that they depend on the rubber for their groceries and food in a very direct way and therefore when there was an attack and they immediately feel the decline in income, this influences their livelihood.

Inter-human relations This view is also shaped by the concept of inter-human relations. The aspect of social tension plays a role. Victims might expect compensation payments by the government for medical expenses and also the loss of income when they cannot work, but until now, there is no help provided. This can cause frustrations by the victim and the villagers, since also villagers can have expectations that the government should pay for their loss, especially in the light of the fact that the bear is protected and therefore the government has the responsibility. The protection status of the bear is related to the aspect of lack of control and social exclusion, since people cannot act themselves upon the conflict and they are excluded from the decision-making and by law cannot act in their way (e.g. hunting) upon the conflict. They cannot themselves improve their economic safety. For economic safety they would have to risk their lives, by entering into the forest regardless of the attack. People are not informed about possibilities and rights, whether they could receive compensation payment or not and how to ask for it. The ones that did ask for did not receive any payment. But it is also not clear whether there is the possibility or not. In this sense people are excluded from the knowledge about possibilities and how to improve their situation in economic terms.

Culture Again, not everyone experiences damage by a bear, yet, many people still are conscious about it and recognize this issue, even though it does not affect themselves, but because of stories told in the village. Traditional belief does not influence this view, because if people would only belief in the stories about the bear as a warning it would not have an effect on the economy, since people would not have a reason to stay away from the forest.

4.2.3 Mysterious bear

Culture Culture is the concept mostly shaping the view of the sun bear as a mysterious bear. The aspect of traditional belief is the most important one explaining the mysterious bear. Because the bear could not be captured people believe that the bear might not be a real bear, but magical. Since the traditional belief about the tiger as a protector and warning is well established throughout West Sumatra, they also believe that the bear might have the same role. It became, however, not clear to me, whether the villagers always believed in the bear as something mysterious or magical or if that is only since the bear could not be captured by the MoF after the attacks. Most people put this forward as a reason why they believe that the bear might not be real. Therefore it seems that the belief only exists since the recent attacks, when the bear could not be captured. Stories also influence the view. There are stories that belong to the traditional belief that people should go to the local Shaman, if they saw the bear or if they were attacked. The reasoning is that he bear is warning them of having the disease darah manis. The mysterious bear can also be a symbol for bad things happening in the village like drinking, pregnancy before marriage, gambling. So encountering the bear can be seen symbolic for the 'bad things' and a warning for the villagers. One respondent sees the bear as the 'mysterious' bear after having eaten the heart of the bear and discovering the 'healing power'. However, he was the only one having experienced this, even though in other countries such as China and Vietnam the belief in the healing power of the bear (particularly its gall bladder and paws) seems to be widely spread.

Inter-human relations That people suspect other villagers to do 'bad' things like drinking, pregnancy before marriage or gambling and see the bear as a warning, suggests that social tensions also play a role amongst the villagers. However, there was no visible tension and no one would directly blame another person or think bad of the people that actually got attacked. Shapeshifting, as it might be the case since the bear is believed to not be the real bear, can be part of this, reflecting the social tensions. Encountering the bear can be seen also as a punishment, since it would not happen if people would behave according to the moral rules or go and see the local shaman.

4.3 Conclusion The three views described above (Threatening life safety; Economic loss; Mysterious bear) cannot be seen as separate views, but as views that can exist parallel, shared by the same person.

These views are shaped by the concepts of culture, inter-human relations, and perception of risk. However, I can conclude that perception of risk is the most important concept regarding the view of 'threatening life safety' and 'economic loss'. Within this the aspect of safety influences to the view of 'threatening life safety' and damage to the view of 'economic loss'. Vulnerability influences both views. The more vulnerable a person is, the more likely that the life safety is at risk and that economic loss is experienced. This applies especially to people that depend on the rubber business and are therefore most vulnerable to the sun bear attacks. Culture is the most important concept regarding the view of the 'mysterious bear'. Traditional belief is the aspect that influences this view, but stories can influence all three views, since the views of the people are very influenced by what people tell in the village. Many people share views even if they have not experienced the sun bear issue themselves, but only heard about it from other people. The aspect of symbols can only be seen in the view of the 'mysterious bear', whereby the bear stands as a symbol for 'bad things' happening in the village and a 'warning' to the villagers. The concept of inter-human relations influences all three views. Regarding the view of the 'mysterious bear', shapeshifting, i.e. the bear might not be the real bear, is reflected in the social tension between people, since according to the belief it might be the people's fault (immoral behaviour) that the bear attacks people. Lack of control influences the views of 'threatening life safety' and 'economic loss' since people feel that they cannot control the situation themselves. Partly, because they lack the resources and partly, because the sun bear is protected by law, which limits their legal capabilities. Social exclusion especially influences the view of threatening life safety, pointing to the protected state of the bear. The people often mentioned that they cannot do something in the issue, because the bear is state-owned, and that the authorities, i.e. the MoF should therefore act in the conflict.

Striking is that the views can exist in parallel and are not exclusive to one person. One could argue that it would not make sense to believe in the bear as mysterious and the protector or warning and at the same time see it as life threatening. Logically, if a person believes in the mysterious bear that comes to warn people about having a disease or comes to warn the village of bad things happening, the consequence would be that the solution is to go to the local shaman and to make sure that villagers are not involved in immoral behaviour. However, there seems to be no consistency behind the views towards the bear. So someone who believes in the mysterious bear can at the same time

43 say that the bear should be killed or removed to another place. The traditional belief and wanting the bear to be captured and translocated does not exclude each other in the views of the people. People might believe in the 'mysterious' bear, but only until a certain point. When an attack happened and people get scared, they do not accept it as the bear being part of the belief, but see the bear as harmful threatening their lives and causing economic loss. Also, people who do not experience the economic loss themselves know that it affects harmed people and therefore recognize it as an issue, even though it does not count for them. The views people have, do therefore not necessarily apply for the person itself, who is sharing it, but can also be a reflection of what a person knows from other people. Aspects of life safety and economic safety in the end seem to outweigh the traditional belief about the sun bear when it comes to an actual attack. Therefore people, except one respondent, say that the bear is dangerous and keeps them from going into the forest and therefore blame the bear for having a lower income.

Chapter 5 – Frames of the human sun-bear conflict

In this chapter I will discuss the different frames that exist for the human-sun bear conflict (Chapter 5.1). For a good overview I will use the defined issue, social control, power, and conflict management frames as sub-frames. From the sub-frames I will derive the conflict frames people have, discussed in chapter 5.2.

5.1 Sub-Frames

5.1.1 Issue frame For the people in the village of Botan and the surrounding villages, the main problem is that the bear attacks people and that villagers get injured or even killed and are scared to go to the plantations. Previously, this never happened and according to many villagers the bear was always present, but only foraging on the coconut trees or the fruits near the village. But recently in Botan there were 4 attacks and twice people got chased during the month that I was there. In another area in Pasaman a little child got killed by a bear, which led to tension between the forest rangers and the villagers and the situation got out of control.

So in a chronological order about what happened in the conflict where the bear got burnt: There was a family that lived in the field, about half a mile away from the village. The house was made of bamboo. Usually the children would be sleeping in the house. The house was already old and partly rotten with holes in the walls, so we can see it from outside. It is very likely that the child of the family got caught by the bear from between the holes. The condition of the child was very sad. The organs of the stomach were all out and the liver was eaten by the bear. It is possible that the bear came near the house of the family, because it wanted to eat the cattle below the bamboo house. Below the house there was livestock like ducks and chickens. This fence was closed, while the house had gaps so the bear could see the child sleeping in the house. After we heard the report we immediately went there to quickly set the cage. We set the cage for 3-4 days and finally caught the bear. Because the family of the child was very upset and angry, they shouted that the bear should die and “life will be replaced with life”. After the bear was captured, the community and the families of the victims immediately gathered around the cage with the bear. Even the police could not control and handle the masses anymore. The villagers poured gasoline over the bear and burned the bear inside the cage. When we pulled the body out of the cage, we saw that there was a spear inside the bears body. I also saw that the grandfather of the child was eating the meat of the bear raw as a revenge. The grandfather of the child thinks that this bear ate his grandson. We did not want to risk an argument with the family of the child. We could not do anything, since they already shouted that the bear should be killed. We also understand now,

why the family was mentioning “life will be replaced with life”. At that time there were only 5 forest rangers and we had to face hundreds of villagers and were not able to handle the villagers and neither did the police (FGD, Forest ranger, MoF).

The attacks therefore do not only have an impact on an individual scale, but on a village scale. In the case of the child, the whole village stood up for the victim's family. And in Botan where the attacks caused injuries, villagers helped the victim and did not go to the forest themselves for a while out of fear. Since the bear is 'state property' people expect the MoF (see figure 12) to take responsibility for the attacks and also the victims expect that for instance costs for medical expenses get covered, which has not happened.

Figure 12: Meeting with forest rangers from West Sumatra This meeting took place in the town of Panti where conservation strategies and issues

were discussed.

Because these animals are protected it is up to the government to capture or kill the animal. In the people's minds the bear should be killed, because it threatens their lives. It is better to kill than to be killed. If people and animals are both protected, the bear must be caught. The villagers need to farm in order to sustain their livelihoods (rubber harvester, owns rubber and corn, Lundar).

Many people also think that the problem in the conflict is that the MoF does not take it serious enough and leave the people alone with the issue. Since the bear could not be captured in Botan, people are left alone with the fear that the bear might still be around. People feel like the MoF

47 comes to help when an attack just happened, but as soon as people have calmed down, the interest is gone and the people are left alone until the next attack happens. Officially the bear is protected by law and the people are aware of this. It might seem to them, that the bear is protected, but they, as people, are not. Therefore, some people question the priority of the government: Is it to protect the bear or to help the people?

There are several opinions about the causes of the conflict. A common assumption is that the bear is 'hungry' and looking for food. Some people blame this on the habitat loss and say that because the forest is being depleted, the bear comes to look for food in the villages. Also, some say that the villages are more crowded nowadays and the bear feels threatened by the activities of the villagers and therefore gets angry. Or it is angry because people disturb the habitat or trapped bears, so it attacks people in revenge.

For the staff of the MoF a problem in the conflict is lack of coordination in some of the villages, whereby it is not clear what people should do, what the MoF should do and what they expect from each other.

A problem we face with the conflict between bears and people is that we lack coordination with the villagers. For example, as it was the case in Alahan Mati. In Alahan Mati the villagers did report to the office of the BKSDA. Once we got to the location to respond to the report, the villagers got angry at us, saying rude words, because we did not directly bring the equipment for anaesthetising. The villagers were so emotional, that the villagers killed the mother bear that was caught in the cage. The cub of the bear also got caught, but the villagers did not want to give it to us. As a result we had an argument between us and the villagers. In the end the cub was taken for a few months by one of the military officers until it got handed over to the Ministry of Forestry. We always get offended by the villagers. These are obstacles we have to deal with. The villagers expected us to kill the bear, while we came to rescue the bear (FGD, Forest ranger, MoF).

According to the villagers from Botan and the staff of the MoF these different expectations also exist in Botan, since many villagers said that they would rather want the bear to be killed, but this has not led to big arguments yet between the groups as in the village described above. However, the potential is there, since the MoF wants to rescue and conserve bears and the villagers want the attacking bear rather to be dead. The MoF has to deal with many different villages where the conflict takes place and in some it is more difficult to them than in others to deal with the situation and the villagers. They describe Botan rather as a village, where it is easy to cooperate and compromise.

In fact, there are many conflicts between bears and people, especially in East Pasaman. For example, in addition to Botan, in the Talu area, about a month ago in February, people put snares around their plantation to trap the wild boar, but they caught a bear. So, we as the forest rangers went to the location and rescued the bear by anaesthesising it and treat the bear until it recovered. After that we took it to Kalewait in South Solok (rehabilitation centre for sun bears). There was another incident in Tanjung Aro, where a bear got caught by a snare and we rescued it and took it to Kalewait. I think the reason why the bear comes to the village is because of habitat destruction. Because a lot of land clearing takes place in the forest. So the bears leave their habitat and come to the village to find food. In fact, there was this terrible incident in Dalik where a child of about 11 years became a victim of a bear. The little boy died. When we put a cage in the village with a bait of ripe jackfruit, we managed to catch the bear. So this issue with the bear happened, because of habitat loss and then the bear came to the village to find some food (FGD, Forest ranger, MoF).

The MoF agrees with the villagers about habitat loss as one of the causes of the conflict, why the bear attacks people and comes close to the villages. But they also claim that it is the villagers that go too deep into the forest and even have some of the plantations in protected areas. According to one respondent of the MoF the problem is that people do not know what the ministry is doing and therefore also do not appreciate their work. This is also attributed to a lack of coordination, whereby it is not clear who is doing what and who should be responsible and informed. For the staff of the MoF it is important that they are the responsible ones that deal with the conflict and that the villagers let them do their work and report to them if there is a conflict, but do not take action by themselves. This can differ between the different villages. In Botan in the perspective of the MoF the coordination when a conflict occurs is quite well. For the MoF it is important that the coordination and communication works well between them and the village. However, opinions differ about whether this is going well or not in Botan. In one case it took so long until the MoF was informed, that they did not even bother to go to the location anymore. The people however, perceive that as a lack of interest and being left alone with the problem. Also, there were cases that villagers tried to take advantage of the fact that the bear is protected and asked for money and only after a positive response the bear would return. So people know the bears are of value. Actually, the same is happening with tigers. However, this kind of 'kidnapping' has not happened in Botan and none of the respondents mentioned this option. Reasons for the conflict and the bear attacking people is according to respondents from the MoF the fact that illegal logging is taking place and that some of the fields of the people lie in the protected areas of the forest and people enter the territory of the bears.

The government did not respond very serious to this issue. There was evidence that the bear was not caught and there was no reaction from the government. While the victims were still exposed to the attacks by the bear and had the costs of the treatment due to the attacks and also could not work because of this. The government also does not provide compensation or assistance to the victims of the attack (Rubber harvester, owns rubber and corn, Lundar).

Next to the lack of interest people feel from the MoF, there is also the discussion of compensation payment. This is especially important for the victims that might need medical treatment and might not be able to work for some time. Apparently one victim tried to ask for it, but never received any payment for the medical treatment. The issue of compensation payment was not raised many times, but it seems that people especially expect payment for medical expenses and not so much for not being able to go to work in the forest. This can also be, because they do not know about the option of compensation payment. However, from the government side it seems that for wildlife attacks on people there is no such scheme and procedure.

5.1.2 Social control frame All villagers agree that the MoF is the official authority in the conflict, and should therefore deal with the conflict and take the decisions. Some also include the chief and the Ninik Mamak as authorities that should be involved in the decision-making.

No, the people cannot act themselves, they need to report the incident first. Here we are close to protected forest, nature reserve, we need to take care of each other, and a cage should be placed as fast as possible, so the bear can be caught and translocated (Ricefarmer, Lambak).

However, not all think that they should do that alone. Some of the respondents also say that the villagers should be involved, since they and their livelihoods are affected by the conflict. People are aware of the fact that their actions would be illegal if they acted alone in the conflict, which also makes them say that the MoF has the responsibility.

This problem must be resolved together, in order for people to be safe. Because people make a living from rubber plantations. If this situation continues, how can the people make a living. So it must be addressed together (Housewife, FGD).

In general the villagers do not feel that they can influence the decision-making. The chief can have some influence, because he needs to be asked for permission in case of a conflict. But this would not necessarily reflect the opinion of the villagers, since they do not get asked directly.

On the one hand all the responsibility should be with the MoF and on the other hand people want to be included in the procedure. There does not seem to be a clear procedure and coordination in the conflict between villagers and the MoF. According to the law the villagers should not act alone and should report to the MoF. In the village there is one volunteer who works for the MoF. He should be like the mediator between the villagers and the MoF. But this does not seem clear to the villagers, the chief and is not even mentioned by the staff of the MoF.

The MoF does appreciate the cooperation. And they need the help to for example find the location and see what has happened. The MoF is satisfied when the people directly contact them. Even though most see the MoF as the authority to act, when people get emotional and angry, they do not have the respect towards the staff of the MoF, as the MoF would wish.

It was very difficult for us, as the forest rangers, to control emotions of the villagers that were mad about the bear and villagers did not respect us as forest rangers anymore, so they just decided themselves what to do with the bear (FGD, staff, Ministry of Forestry).

There might be a lack of trust in the authorities and people might only see them as the authorities, because that is the official status. But when it comes to attacks and real conflict situations, villagers not always seem to agree and want to do what the MoF wants. The MoF feels disturbed in their work, when villagers do not want to cooperate the way they want it, as it was the case with the little child. The forest rangers are dependent on the cooperation with the villagers, because if the villagers are in rage and do not want the forest rangers to act, they simply are outnumbered. As cases showed, the forest rangers may not be accepted as in the case with the little boy, when the bear got burnt, even though the authorities were present. They need to keep a good bond with the villagers in order to fulfil their work. To sum up how people frame the social control is that they expect most action to be done by the authorities such as the MoF, the chief and the Ninik Mamak. Some would like to be involved in the action taking, but people do not want to be in charge by themselves. Also it was said that, actions would be taken at random and the protected status of the bear would not be respected, if the villagers had to take responsibility alone. Therefore, it seems crucial that the official authorities take responsibility, but also give room for the villagers to participate in the decision-making.

5.1.3 Power frame The villagers in general consider the MoF as the institution that should take action and deal with the conflict. The reason for this is that the MoF has the power in terms of resources (staff, rifles, cages), authority by law and expertise (knowledge about bears, capturing, and translocations). The villagers say that for them it is too dangerous to handle the bear themselves, since they would only have spears. According to them they would also need at least 100 people that would help during the bear hunt and there might not be that number of people wanting to help, and also that it would be an illegal activity. People know the bear is protected and 'state property' and that therefore they are not allowed to hunt the bear. So the MoF has next to the resources and expertise the authority to actually capture the bear, which the villagers do not have. The people therefore also expect the MoF to handle the conflict, they often stated that the only thing they want is safety and to be able to work in the rubber plantations without fear. However, there were also respondents that made clear that they are angry at the MoF and said that they would prefer to kill the bear, but again, that they miss the resources and legal authority to do it in an organised way.

In the laws in paragraph 48 it is said that the conflict resolution is not only an issue for the BKSDA, but also other parties that should participate like the local community forestry service. The community and village trustees or guardian should also contribute to resolve the conflict, but it still remains under our control (Staff, MoF).

The MoF recognizes this paragraph that says that different parties should be involved in the conflict resolution. According to the MoF working together and cooperating with the villagers means that the villagers should report the conflict and then help to find the location and to help bringing the cage to the site. The chief agrees on that the power of making decisions and taking actions lies with the MoF. He himself always agrees with their suggestions. Since there is the national law about protected species, he thinks that it would not work if the villagers had the power, i.e. they would randomly go and hunt the bears. But he also criticises that the MoF does not do enough for this issue and does not pay enough attention.

The ones that help us in carrying out the task of handling the animals are the officers from the local government and also the volunteer. The volunteer can lead us to the location, so that we can directly check the site. There are the villagers themselves and we also have a volunteer that helps us to find the location. The villagers and the forest rangers usually work together to solve the conflict. They can help us by showing us the location and help bringing the equipment, such as the cage. It is very useful when the villagers help. Someone that is involved in helping us in the conflict is the military, police, and the local government.

Although in some places it might be only the forest rangers that can be relied on. Maybe it's because of a lack of coordination with police, military and local government there (FGD, Forest ranger, MoF).

It is not always clear what actually is happening and who gives permission to whom and why. There seems to be a lack of communication and coordination between the villagers, the chief and the MoF. The villagers do accept that the MoF has the power to act, but therefore also expect them to solve the conflict. And the MoF also knows that they should act, but expect cooperation from the villagers. This can lead to frustrations and anger towards the MoF when the bear cannot be captured or when the people feel left alone and not taken serious. Power relation is therefore an important aspect in the conflict, since expectations might differ and might not be fulfilled. An important part is that communication and knowledge about the situation should function better in order to fulfil expectations from both sides and to know who should be in charge of what. Since the MoF clearly has more power than the people (unless all villagers get in rage and do not care and listen anymore as it happened in the case of the little child), the MoF should be the initiator and willing to contribute to the better understanding between them and the people. As the case in the village where the little boy died after the attack of the bear showed, authority can be very important. In escalating situations villagers might gather and have more power than the authorities, regardless of their resources. In Botan however, even though many people said that they are not satisfied, the MoF does get respected and expected to act in the conflict. But the incident shows how fragile power relations can be and how important it can be to make sure to satisfy the people.

5.1.4 Conflict management frame Some respondents do get very angry about the bear attacks and think that the MoF is not doing a good job. According to them the MoF is not handling it correct and the cages and baits are useless. There is no explicit management action people want from the authorities. Many people are in theory satisfied with capturing and translocating the bear, especially knowing that they would not be allowed to kill the bear as it is protected. However, since this has not worked, yet and several attacks happened, at the same time people are not satisfied with the attention the authorities give to the conflict. There is critique from the side of the villagers about the work of the MoF. Some of the respondents shared the opinion that the bear should be dead, but that the MoF wants to capture the bear and therefore opinions differ in how the conflict should be managed.

I think what the government is doing is not in accordance with what the villagers want. The bear enters the village and preys on residents, and this is very influential on the people's income of the community and villagers here, because we are afraid to go to the plantation. So

the government wants to capture the bear, but the community wants the bear to be dead (Rubber owner and harvester, Botan).

Some want the bear to be killed, to make sure that there will not be any more attacks. To some people it seems that they just act until the people have calmed down and then turn their backs on the conflict. Many people say that they feel left alone with the conflict and the fear.

The best solution on an incident is that the ranger go to the field and shoot the bear, because all these times, they only talk and tell stories to the people and then they just leave, so what's the point? They should act and ask the people to work together with them. Because they have the weapons, so if they see a bear, they should have just shot it directly. The government nowadays is not that responsive, too slow. Too many administrative requirements, we have to file a report to the forestry department, and then god knows where the file goes after that, very slow. That is why we prefer not to rely on the government. if there is an incident, then we will handle it ourselves (villager hired to work in the field, Botan).

One of the victims said that in general a bear should not be killed. But if there is a bear that attacked a person, then it should be killed, even if it is against the law. This corresponds to what many people said in the village. Only the bears that actually attacked someone should be killed.

Yes. Because bears have been very disturbing for the people. Actually a bear should not be killed, but this bear has been disturbing the villagers. There are many people who feel unsafe. To work as a rubber harvester is not easy. We have to go up the hill to reach the plantation. Sometimes we use the motorcycle to go to the field, but only half way up. The rest of the way we have to go by foot. We are very grateful if we can do our work in peace. Now we have to work with the additional weight of the fear for the bear. Therefore, the bear should be killed. The bears seem to not kill people, but only persecute a person when the victim wants to escape, and the bear would bite him (Victim, rubber harvester, Air Panjang).

The staff of the MoF want to do their work with the support of the villagers and sometimes feel, that the villagers do not appreciate their work or might not know what they are actually doing.

Our role is certainly to handle the bears. It is clear that the people and the bear have to survive. In addition to the technical handling, bears should not die and we have to move them to their habitat. We also advise people not to farm too far in the forest. This is a constraint, because people go too deep into the forest for their plantations (Staff, MoF).

For them it would be a better solution if people would not have their fields too deep inside the forest, in order to avoid encounters with bears. However, the villagers work in the forest to sustain their livelihoods and they do not feel as if they have a choice. The MoF wants to reduce the attacks and bears killed by educating the villagers about the protected state of the bear and capture and translocate the bear as a method.

We have to know about the character and nature of the bears and that is something we have to communicate to the communities. So that people do not have farming activities in the region (Staff, MoF).

The MoF rather sees communication and education as a method to mitigate the conflict. It was, however, not clear to me, how they organised this and whether it was organised at all. The villagers did not mention any of those activities and therefore it gave me the feeling that they were lacking in the village of Botan. What is important to the people is to see evidence of the bear being removed from the region. Their safety should have the priority. The conflict management frames of the villagers and the MoF differ a bit, but not too much since both do not have explicit propositions for solutions. The villagers find that they should be the priority and the MoF obviously are also very concerned with the conservation of the bear.

If handed over to the villagers itself, without attention from the government, these animals would be hunted at random. Our country has the law and in this case it is not possible, in this sense the government does not pay attention to the problem. Until now the government's attention is there but it is not enough (Villager, Kuamang).

In conclusion, it can be said that the villagers including the chief want the government to pay more attention to the human-bear conflict and take it more serious in order to mitigate the conflict. Most say that the MoF as being the authority should be in charge, but still try to work collectively with the people. However, the villagers themselves cannot bear the whole responsibility, so the MoF does play an important role in the conflict handling. The people are not satisfied with the actions taken by the MoF and want to see more evidence that something is being done, also to see that the MoF cares about them as people.

5.2 Conflict frames In this paragraph I will show the different frames people have about the conflict as a whole and show whose frame it is and which framing aspects from 5.1 contributes to the frames people have. From the in 5.1 described frames I can distinguish two groups that have different frames about the conflict. One group are the villagers and the other group is the Ministry of Forestry. I suppose that these

55 difference exists, because the villagers are people that have to live with the conflict and are dependent on the forest for their livelihoods and the MoF is an outside party that has to mitigate the conflict and help the people, but also view things differently. So I identified three different frames:

1. 'Villagers versus bears' shared by the villagers 2. 'Lack of coordination' shared by the MoF and the villagers 3. 'Left alone’ shared by the villagers

These three conflict frames are all part of the issue – sub frame, therefore I will not always mention this frame.

5.2.1 People versus bears The frame ‘villagers versus bears’ is about the issue of the conflict, whether bears should be protected while people get attacked or a child even died: What are the priorities of the government and are they justified? Villagers think that they should be the priority and that their safety should come first. This should be more important than protecting the bear. The MoF is aware of the fact that people and bears have their needs for resources and both want to survive. The issue frame is important here, since it is a problem for people that they might feel that the bear has a higher priority, but also power is important. It is not up to the people, but up to the law and the government that the bear is protected, even though people are being attacked. Therefore, people are not allowed to hunt the bear as they would do with other problem animals. Also, relating to the power, people miss the resources in order to do something themselves and depend on the authorities to help them. This frame is especially shared by villagers and not by the staff of the MoF. The MoF is aware of the problem, but also blames people for going too deep into the forest and entering protected areas with their fields. They acknowledge that both have their needs for resources to survive and that this is a difficult task to manage. Therefore, the villagers see themselves competing with the bear. They do not receive compensation payment and do not have the means to ask for it, neither the resources of knowing how to ask for it in an efficient way. This frame clearly points to social exclusion and tensions that might rise from this conflict, where people might see a conflict not only regarding the actual attacks, but also the way it is handled by the official authorities. From the social control sub- frame it gets clear that people want the authorities to handle the conflict better, so that they are safe and can work in peace. This is also clear in the conflict management sub-frame, that people want active involvement of the authorities in the conflict, by captures and translocations of the bear or even shooting the bear to make sure that the people are safe.

5.2.2 Lack of coordination For the MoF it is important that they can work in the villages and that the villagers cooperate in order to mitigate the conflict. However, there seems to be the problem that often people do not know who should be contacted or informed in the case of an attack or encounter with a bear. The MoF sometimes perceives this as a lack of coordination. This might influence their motivation on working on the conflict and helping the people and therefore can influence the conflict. If the MoF does not show up and put for example a cage this might seem to people as a lack of interest and not taking the conflict serious. In Botan they apparently have good experiences with the coordination, however, the villagers themselves claim that they do not know who should be contacted first and how the procedure works exactly. Some say that it is confusing and too many people could be in charge. And there is one case whereby the MoF did not come in the end to put up a cage, because it took too long until they were informed so that they said that it would not make sense anymore to come. This shows that it is not clear to villagers or that therefore they are also less willing to contact the MoF. This is part of the issue frame, but also the power and social control frame. It is an issue, if in case of an incident and the MoF needs to act. If there is lack of coordination then it is more difficult to act and work with the villagers. It also has to do with power, because villagers need to accept that the MoF should be in charge of taking action and decision. The same accounts for the social control frame, whereby the villagers and the MoF should have the same idea about who should decide. Both in a way say that the MoF should be the deciding institution, but the villagers should be involved, but it is not very clear on both sides what this exactly contains. From my experience the participation of villagers was very basic. The MoF expects them to report immediately to them and after that show them the location of the incident and help to put a cage. Yet, there was no talk about meetings to discuss the problem and to seek for solutions for instance. The MoF has the power, but the villagers find that they do not use it in an efficient way. And for the conflict management frame the people expect better coordination between the villagers and the staff in order to improve the situation. The social control and power also means that people have expectations on the MoF. If these are not met the people can be disappointed and get angry at the MoF.

5.2.3 Left alone The villagers feel that the MoF does not pay enough attention and does not take the conflict seriously enough. Because of that, there is the perception that the conflict cannot be resolved, because there is no sustainable action taking. The people feel that the MoF has the power and resources and they see them as the authority, and therefore expect them to do something. They find the MoF not to be very alert and helpful in finding a solution and making the villagers feel safe. It is an issue, because the conflict cannot be solved if the government is not acting and especially

57 perceived as not paying enough attention by the people. The perception that people might have that they do not pay enough attention can cause anger and dissatisfaction. The MoF has the power to act, but apparently they are not using their power in terms of resources to act in the conflict and since according to the social control frame they are expected to act as they are the authorities (according to the hierarchist perspective) they disappoint the people by not handling it seriously enough. The same accounts for the conflict management frame where people expect them to make sure that people are safe and take effective measure, but see them as lazy and not motivated enough to help throughout the year.

5.3 Conclusion of conflict frames I identified three different conflict frames derived from the sub-frames (people versus bears; lack of coordination; left alone in the conflict). The two groups at stake in the conflict, namely the MoF and the villagers, seem to partly share the same frames. A decisive difference is that the MoF blames the people for parts of the conflict, by saying that they enter the forest too deep and therefore it is their fault that the MoF cannot really do something about the conflict. But both groups see that coordination and communication is missing and both want to strive for improvement of the situation. From the three conflict frames it becomes clear that people see the main problem in the conflict in their restriction of doing something about it, hence the protected status of the bear. Here power and social control frame play a major role. Power, because the law determines that the bear is protected and the MoF has the power regarding resources, authority and expertise. Social control, because people see the MoF as having the authority and that they should do something about it. The frame of lack of coordination, both groups find that procedures are not clear on both sides. This leads to misunderstandings and also no appreciation on both sides for work that has been done. It is not clear to people what the MoF is actually doing in the conflict and can make them blame the persistence of the conflict on the MoF. The MoF in turn can feel that the people do not support them in their work and that they are already doing their best, but cannot improve, because people are not cooperating. Next to power and social control, this is part of the conflict management frame. When actually taking actions, coordination is important, but people see that this is a problem and hence part of the cause of the conflict. The conflict frame 'left alone in the conflict' refers to the people having the feeling that the MoF is not doing enough and therefore the conflict cannot be resolved. They blame the MoF for only pretending to act when there was an attack and as soon as things have calmed down they do not deal with it anymore. Power, social control and conflict management have to do with this frame. Because of these frames, the people have the expectation that the MoF will help and resolve the conflict, but instead they get disappointed and feel that they have to deal with it by themselves, which they are not able to do.

5.4 Relation of the views and the conflict frames I identified the three views: 'threatening life safety', 'economic loss' and 'mysterious bear', and the three frames: 'people versus bears'; 'lack of coordination'; and 'left alone'. In this paragraph I will describe how the views are related to the frames. Interestingly, there is only a relation found between the view of 'threatening life safety' and 'economic loss' and the conflict frames and not 'mysterious bear'.

There is a clear relation between the view 'threatening life safety' and 'economic loss' and the frame 'people versus bears'. Even though people feel threatened by bears, bears are protected by law, which constrains people to act and protect themselves by for example hunting. By supposing that the priority of the government might lie with the bear and not the people, people therefore might feel unsafe. People need to go to the forest to work, but when there was an attack or they have to fear an encounter, they might be too scared to go. The bear is thus the problem and the reason of possible economic loss. Therefore the supposedly questionable priority of the government is connected to the people feeling unsafe and experiencing economic loss.

If the coordination is not good, then people do not feel protected and rather feel that the situation stays unsafe, also in economic terms. Coordination would be important to handle the conflict to make the people feel safer, but since the lack of coordination is part of the conflict, it is related to life safety and economic loss, and reinforcing the view of the people that their lives are threatened.

The people feel left alone in the conflict and the MoF turning their back on them as soon as the situation and emotions have calmed down. This relates to the view of 'threatening life safety', because the people feel unsafe, and economic loss, because people feel the impact of the attacks and do not get enough help or any payment.

It is striking that the view of 'mysterious bear' cannot be related to any of the conflict frames. This shows that the conflict for the people is real and even if they have their doubts, about whether the bear is real or not, they expect something to be done in order to mitigate it. It is interesting that a person can have the view of the mysterious bear, and at the same time share the conflict frames, that do not seem to be related to this view. This is an even stronger indication that once it is about the attacks, the bear becomes real and people want something to be done about it. It can also suggest that within the traditional belief the villagers do not see the MoF as being part and able to help with the solution, since the origin of the problem lies with the villagers. However, when there is an attack and the bear becomes real and conflict influences their livelihoods, the ones in charge,

59 which is the MoF, should take action, since it is not legal for the villagers, so the MoF can be the ones as either seen as good and efficient working or lazy, as many people claim they do not think they work in an efficient way and are helping enough. Even though the traditional belief of people seems quite important in the perception of the conflict, it is not part of the conflict frames.

Chapter 6 - Discussion

In this chapter I will fist answer my research questions, then reflect on my theoretical framework in relation to my results and after that discuss three topics that came up in my results.

6.1 Conclusion of findings In this section I will discuss the answers to my four research questions in the subsequent paragraphs.

6.1.1 The different views of local people towards the sun bear The bear is seen as dangerous and threatening people's lives. Even though the actual risk of being attacked might be low, people perceive it as higher, especially because the consequences of injuries or even death would be disastrous. People fear the bear and especially some of the women refuse to return to the forest to work in the rubber plantations. Another topic that was important to people is that the bear causes a decrease in people's income and therefore has a negative influence on their livelihoods. This is connected to the fear people face when going to the forest, with the consequence of not going into the forest for a period of time or never returning. They would then harvest less and have less income. Victims are the most vulnerable to loss of income, because they might need time to recover, get medical treatment and they might be traumatized and not able to go back to the same field to work. A third topic that was regularly mentioned by the people was that they believed in the bear as not being real, giving a warning to the villagers by showing itself to the people. This was mostly used as an explanation of why there are attacks happening nowadays. For many people it was strange that in former times there were no attacks and nowadays it happens. Therefore, from these three topics I identified the views as discussed in the result section in Chapter 4: The bear as life threatening, the bear as causing economic loss and the mysterious bear.

6.1.2 Factors that shape local people's view towards the sun bear Factors that can shape the local people's view towards the sun bear that I could identify from literature and would be relevant for my research are: Culture (stories, traditional belief); Inter-human relations (social exclusion, lack of control, social tension) and perception of risk (damage, safety, vulnerability). Safety is the factor that mostly shapes the view of the people towards the sun bear regarding the view 'life threatening'. The safety factor can force them to decide not to go to work or change jobs for a period of time or forever. This safety aspect then influences their income. In this context safety and damage are the most important factors influencing the view of economic loss. By being safe and not going to work, the safety causes economic loss. In this case the main factor influencing the view is damage, causing direct-, i.e. injury; medical treatment, and indirect-, i.e. not being able to work; trauma, economic costs. Vulnerability influences the view, because the more vulnerable someone is, i.e. working as a rubber tapper and having no alternative income, the more important becomes the concept of safety and damage.

Culture and inter-human relations are the most important concept regarding the view of the people towards the sun bear as the mysterious bear. Traditional belief is most influential why people might believe in the bear as being unreal and coming as a warning to the village. The concept of stories influences all the views, because this affects how people perceive the risks of the bear. Most people have actually never encountered or seen a bear, but because of stories amongst the villagers everyone is aware of the risk and the consequences. The suspicion that there are villagers drink alcohol or gamble, i.e. doing immoral things, shows that social tensions as an aspect of inter-human relations influences the view of mysterious bear as well. There are no direct tensions, since villagers do not directly blame other villagers, but the suspicion is present, even if the tension is not visible. The shapeshifting of the bear as being unreal, reflect these social tensions. The concept of inter- human relations also reinforces the views, especially the views of the bear threatening life safety and economic safety, because the relations of people play an important role in their culture. Lack of control can cause that people perceive the threat to their safety as even stronger, since they cannot act themselves upon the conflict and social tensions can emerge between local people and the Ministry of Forestry, reinforcing the perception of risk and therefore influencing the view of the people towards the sun bear. The fact that the bear is state-property (protected) and people can therefore not for example hunt the bear on a legal basis is related to the concept of social exclusion. People do not have a say in the decision-making of the bear as being protected. Therefore people see the bear as life threatening and causing economic loss. The concept of inter-human relations is especially very clearly mirrored in the frames people have about the conflict.

6.1.3 Frames people have about the human-sun bear conflict

The issue about the human-sun bear conflict The main issues for the people are that the bear attacks and injures people and potentially threatens their lives. An addition to that the people feel that the Ministry of Forestry is not taking the threat the bear poses to them sufficiently serious. As mentioned before this may result in that people are scared to go to the forest to their rubber plantations. Some of them experience a loss in income after there has been an attack, because they harvest less. Also, traumatic experiences are important, as some people - especially women - do not dare to ever go back to the forest out of fear. Furthermore, people are disappointed that the MoF does not help enough and does not pay enough attention. They feel left alone with their conflict, not receiving compensation payment for the victims at least and when a cage is put they do not have the feeling that it is well organised. For them it can seem as if the bear gets protected for conservation, but they have to fear for their lives when they enter the forest. For the MoF the main issue is that people enter too far in the forest and even enter protected areas, where there is a higher chance of encountering bears. They are disappointed that people do

63 not follow the rules and only have their fields outside the protected area and closer to the village. They also think that it is a problem that the villagers often do not know what their work is and therefore lack appreciation for what they do.

The causes of the human-sun bear conflict In the conflict frames people have, mostly they mention habitat depletion as the main cause, why the bear comes close to the villages. Most think that bears are looking for food, because there is not enough anymore in the forest left. The MoF shares this by also saying that habitat destruction is the main cause, however they blame it more on the people, by saying that the people enter the forests too deep for their fields. Interestingly, they always say that the bear tries to find food in the village, while the attacks happen in the forest where the rubber plantations are. It is also mentioned that there might be too many people in the forest and actually disturbing the bears by making noise. The bear might be angry because of that and therefore attack people. Often they refer to the bear as being angry and vicious or a wild animal. With 'wild' they mean that they cannot control it that it is unpredictable and dangerous to people. Some also mentioned that bears might take revenge for other bears that have been hunted or trapped in a snare for example. It is assumed that bears are usually in pairs and if one gets hurt or killed, the other one gets angry and takes revenge by attacking people. Furthermore, the aspect of the MoF as the party that should be in charge is seen by some people as causing the attacks to happen again by not taking enough actions and not caring enough. It is criticised that the MoF puts a cage when an attack happened, but does not care about fresh baits to attract the bear and does not coordinate the conflict well with the villagers.

The responsibility and action taking in the human-sun bear conflict Somehow the people want to be involved in the conflict resolution, but the MoF does play the most important role. They have the power, by having the authority, resources and expertise and the people see themselves as lacking this power, since they do not have equipment other than spears. Also they would need many people if they wanted to do something, and usually they mean to hunt the attacking bear. If and how the people and or the MoF should be responsible differed between the respondents. Some said that they would leave it completely to the MoF to handle the conflict and some people said that they would want to be involved as well, since the people are the affected ones who have to deal in their daily lives with the conflict. Some were also very angry and did not want to rely anymore on the MoF, but take action themselves together with other villagers. Hence, there are different opinions about who is responsible and who should take action. Mostly however, it is clear that the MoF should be the authority, and people should be involved. The ones that said that they would want to do it themselves also point out how difficult it would be and of course that the law and rules constrains them as well, apart from the resources. The MoF has similar expectations.

The decision-making and the responsibility should be with the Ministry, but they also need and want the villagers to cooperate.

Management of the human-sun bear conflict Apart from capturing and translocating the bear, the people do not have other suggestions. Some want the bear to be killed, but most somehow respect the law and acknowledge that this would not be possible. Many, however, expect the MoF to act more, pay more attention and also do some preventive work, while there is no attack. It seems like the staff of the MoF has the intention to do so, but in Botan nothing has happened so far. One possibility is that the MoF feels that the cooperation goes well in this village and that the people respect their work and help when necessary. This might be true to a certain extent, but people do get suspicious and upset, because the cage has not worked, yet, and many villagers said that they expect more attacks to happen in the coming months or even weeks. Some villagers said very clearly that what the MoF does is not in accordance with the villagers. On the other hand, some did not want to be included and rather leave everything up to the MoF. Therefore, the MoF should show more presence and work on a programme together with the villagers, in order to keep the positive relation they seem to have still to some extent. At least some of the people still believe that the MoF should be the acting institution and somehow trust that they should be able to do this. However, some are very angry and do not believe in the MoF anymore. The MoF mentioned that they have education programmes that they use to tell people about conservation. But the people never mentioned these. It is clear that for the people it is not enough if the staff of the MoF only comes, when there was an attack, but they also want them to care in a preventive manner and find better solutions. Organisation and structure seems to be lacking and improvement would be necessary.

From this I identified different conflict frames people have. One is 'people versus bears' which points out that people feel that the bear might be more important than people, since the bear is protected by law and they are not allowed to really act, even though their life is at risk. Another one is 'lack of coordination' which is brought up especially by the MoF, but also shared by the villagers. There seems to be not enough communication, so the MoF criticises that the people do not really know what they are doing and do not respect their work and the villagers often said they do not really know whom to contact and what the procedure should be. Then the frame of 'left alone' is shared by the people who say that the MoF is not doing enough and should pay more attention. This frame does however implicitly mean that people do have expectations, otherwise they would not criticise the MoF. So there might still be a trust base, on which people state that they want them to act, if the

MoF would just do more and take it more serious, and also that they need them for the resolution of the conflict.

6.1.4 Articulation of the people's views in the conflict frames The views 'threatening life safety' and 'economic loss' get articulated in the conflict frames people have about the human-sun bear conflict. The conflict frames can also be related to the concepts of safety, vulnerability, damage, stories and social tension, lack of control and social exclusion. These concepts that shape the views of the people can explain the conflict frames people have. Because people are scared and fear for their safety and also experience economic loss, they expect that they should be the priority of the government and that the government should also make sure that their livelihoods are secured. However, they know that despite of this, bears are protected by law and people therefore lack official permission to hunt bears for example. Because of that people expect the MoF to take action, but since it does not happen they fee 'left alone' with the conflict. Inter- human relations are concepts that also can explain the conflict frames. Lack of control is clearly reflected by the fact that the bear is protected, and people do not have the power and therefore lack control of the situation and frame the conflict as 'people versus bears'; 'lack of coordination'; and 'left alone', because they are dependent on the MoF. How people frame the conflict also refers to social tension, because people clearly express their dissatisfaction and partly anger at the MoF. However, in Botan there has no escalation taken place, as it has in other villages. The view 'mysterious bear' is not articulated in the conflict frames of the people, even though in the views of the people, this traditional belief seems rather important and accepted. This view seems to rather come from a mythical source of explanation to deal with the situation. When it comes to the conflict and people's livelihood and safety, the traditional belief seems to be less important. Also responsibility might explain why the mysterious bear is not articulated in the conflict frames. People see their own responsibility for the disease 'darah manis' or bad things happening in the village and therefore the bear coming to the village. As soon as they see the bear as the real bear, the responsibility shifts more to the MoF and does not lie necessarily with the villagers.

6.2 Reflection on the theoretical framework In my theoretical framework I used theories that could help me in my qualitative research to understand the local perspective on the human-sun bear conflict. I wanted to go as open as possible into the research and be able to adapt questions and assumptions, since in that region no study about human-sun bear conflict had taken place, yet. Therefore, I developed a framework using the concepts of 'views' and the theory of framing. To study the people's views towards the sun bear I chose to use the concepts of culture, perception of risk and inter-human relations (Dickman 2010; Hockings and Humle 2009; Knight 2000; Madden 2004; Naughton-Treves and Treves 2005), since

66 according to literature these can play a major role in how people perceive an animal and in this case a creature they have to interact directly or indirectly with. Mostly the concept of culture and perception of risk seem to influence the views people have towards the sun bear. Different concepts could influence one view. As for example the people's view of 'the bear as threatening life safety' is influenced by the concept of risk perception and culture. The concept of inter-human relations also influences the views, but not as the most direct one. This concept is rather reflected in the theoretical part about the conflict frames, where the relation between the people and Ministry of Forestry is very important. I believe that human-wildlife conflicts are extremely complex (see also Dickman 2010) and by using the above mentioned concepts I discussed and using the method of qualitative research I gave the local people the possibility to express themselves, to find their own words in order to grasp this complexity and plurality of the conflict.

The literature about the theory of framing was helpful in order to define the categories about frames in conflict studies, but it was also very much focussed on environmental issues and not on conservation issues, e.g. human-wildlife conflict. Therefore, not all frames identified within environmental conflict frames were relevant for my research about the human-sun bear conflict. I chose to use the issue frame which was relevant, since all aspects discussed by the people were issues in the conflict (e.g. attacks; fear to go to the forest; action taking by the MoF). Since it became clear that people have expectation of who should be responsible in the conflict and the decision- making the social control frame was relevant and helpful. The power frame could explain the conflict regarding how the relations between people and the MoF were shaped. Authority, resources and expertise were aspects often mentioned by the people, comparing their own power with the power of the MoF and justifying why the MoF should be responsible for action taking in the conflict. The conflict management frame was also important, since people indicated how solutions should be found and how it should be dealt with the conflict. Within the conflict management frame people also pointed out how they do not want it and why they are not satisfied. I left out the frames of identity, risk and characterisation, since these did not seem to play a role in the conflict. The conflict was not about the identity of the people or the identity, i.e. characterisation of other parties. Also the risk frame seemed irrelevant when talking about benefitting or losing in the conflict. Therefore, I reduced the number of frames that I used for the human-sun bear conflict.

I chose for both parts of the theory - views and consecutively frames, because those two complement each other. In the first part I focussed on people's opinions and perceptions towards the bear and in the second part on how local people see the conflict. When using conflict frames, it became clear that the Ministry of Forestry played a major role in the conflict, which was not clear yet

67 when analysing people's views about the sun bear. This reflects that when it comes to the problem, cause and solution finding the MoF becomes an important institution and should be involved in the action taking. With this thesis I was able to show how to use the theory of framing in human-wildlife conflict in order to understand the issue. Using these two theoretical approaches of views and framing, I demonstrated that there is a conflict between local people and sun bears in West Sumatra and which factors are important to it.

In my results I showed that one person may have multiple views and that these views can contradict each other. For example one person can view the bear as mysterious with the logical consequence that the attacked person should get treatment of the local Shaman and that it is not the bear's fault. At the same time a person can see the bear as life threatening and causing economic loss and wanting the MoF to shoot or translocate the bear. In my research I could therefore contribute to the research of human-wildlife conflict by showing that this plurality of views can exist in one person which should be taken into consideration. Therefore it is also very interesting to see that the view of the 'mysterious bear' is not articulated in the conflict frames people have. This also means that one view of a person cannot be automatically related to the tolerance a person has towards the animal. Views can change according to the issue, situation and the need of the people, whereby different views can be part of the same identity (Lee and Priston 2005; Weaver 2001).

I obtained these results by using an open qualitative approach. In general I found that most research conducted on human-wildlife conflict used attitude studies in a quantitative studies (e.g. Hill 1998; Manfredo and Dayer 2004; Marchini and Macdonald 2012; Røskaft et al. 2003; Røskaft et al. 2007; Zimmermann et al. 2005). Therefore, I could also have chosen to use a quantitative approach in my research about the human-sun bear conflict. However, these authors themselves criticise the use of only attitude studies by saying that limiting studies to attitudes, other factors that are not directly related to the impact of a species, might be overlooked. One theory within attitude studies is the theory of planned behaviour from Fishbein and Ajzen that has recently been used in human-wildlife conflict studies in order to deal with complex human social behaviour (Ajzen 1991, 2011). This theory is meant to help understand context specific situations, which human-wildlife conflicts often are, that are not easily generalizable. In my thesis, however, I did not try to predict the behaviour of people, but rather understand in very general terms their view and their frames about the conflict. The theory of planned behaviour, as I found it in the literature, is used in a quantitative way, applying a model with different parameters in order to calculate the behaviour of people.

Despite the suggestion of research literature to use attitude studies with a quantitative approach, I did not choose to use it, because a survey might not be sensitive to a person’s inconsistencies and contradictions. Instead I chose the concepts of culture, inter-human relations and perception of risk in order to analyse people’s views towards the sun bear. And since no earlier research has been done in this area of the human- sun bear conflict I think it was crucial to start with an analysis of frames to gain deeper understanding about the conflict and to see whether there are groups of people with different frames. This may help in order to guide further development and determine the best approach to mitigate the conflict. In my research it is very clear for example that the MoF does not play a role in the views people have towards the sun bear, but in the conflict frames the MoF is important when it comes to solution finding. An attitude study could have furthered my research by investigating people's attitudes and in this way understand their relation towards the bear. However, a survey would have given less room for the expression of contradictions and inconsistencies. My finding that one person may have contradicting views next to each other, might have been undermined by a survey in which people have to choose between different views. In a survey I might also not have been able to go into depth, about aspects that seemed important to me such as the relation with the Ministry of Forestry as an involved party in the conflict. Pre-set categories might have simplified the relation people have with the Ministry of Forestry too much. In my case it was important to me to understand people's views and ideas about the sun bear and the conflict. I wanted to go into the research as unbiased as possible and not to assume too much. In the beginning I was not even sure whether people thought that there was a conflict. And to me it was important to understand the narrative of the people.

Using the concepts of culture, perception of risk and inter-human relations with additionally the theory of framing I identified following my results three discussion points:

1. The role of the traditional belief in the conflict and how contradicting views can exist next to each other without necessarily a logical explanation

2. The trade-off between life-safety and economic safety after an attack

3. The role of the Ministry of Forestry in the conflict: How to act in a conflict situation where there is no apparent solution and no concrete solution expected by the villagers, but still high expectations of the MoF to act in the conflict

These three points will be discussed in the following paragraphs.

6.3 Contradiction between traditional belief and practices As I found often in literature from developing countries people might relate to an animal in a mystical way (Kellert 1985). This is confirmed in the case of Botan, where some of the respondents believe that the bear might not be real, but magical. According to the people this belief was supported, by the fact that the bear could not be captured and because of the very strong belief that the tiger is the protector of the village (see chapter 4). The mystical belief of the bear gets therefore intermingled with the belief about the tiger (see chapter 4). However, in my results I found that this belief by the people about the bear is not one view people have, but it can be a view they have next to others. Remarkable is that there seems to be no consistency or logic. One view can contradict another view being from the same person. A person that believes in the mysterious bear can at the same time demand that the bear should be translocated or even shot. Only one respondent was consistent regarding the traditional belief and saw as the only option to solve the conflict that the people should go to the local Shaman and take the warning of the bear seriously. So, for most people the mysterious bear changes into the real bear when it attacks people and they might want it to be captured. In the village, even though not everyone believes in the mysterious bear, this belief seems to be accepted and not questioned by other people.

This phenomenon of inconsistencies of views is also found in other cultures. One example is Japan where people worship monkeys as a holy creature on the one hand, but shoot it in the neighbouring field on the other. At a temple monkeys are worshipped, but seen as a pest in the neighbouring field. (Lee and Priston 2005). In Japan varying stories exist, in which the monkeys at one time appear as positive creatures and in a different context as evil and harmful creatures (Knight 1999). Particularly for people that depend on farming animals can rather be seen as harmful and pest in contrast to people who are not related to farming (Eudey 1994; Lee and Priston 2005). These views can be overlapping in the same culture and therefore show contradictions towards an animal within the same culture (Lee and Priston 2005). In my case, the same person would believe in the mysterious bear, until it attacks when it suddenly turns into a real bear, being a pest and damaging people's livelihoods.

Research suggests that identities can be multiple, contradicting and change over time in peoples' daily lives (Warren 1998). Traditional beliefs can be part of an identity, which can change over time and can also be conflicting with other identities one person has (Weaver 2001). This is supported by Knight (1999) and Hill (2002), saying that 'people's attitudes and beliefs are not culturally fixed points, eternal and unchanging' (in Riley 2010, 238). Thus, it is not uncommon that people's views about

70 animals can be contradicting (Lee and Priston 2005). Conservation efforts should be very sensitive towards such beliefs, because tolerance and acceptance towards an animal might only be working because of these. Why should a subsistence farmer be willing to protect a species that threatens his or her livelihood? Therefore conservation needs to work within the range of possibly contradicting views of the people and incorporate it into their strategy (Lee and Priston 2005). To summarise, these traditional beliefs should be recognized by conservation efforts (Riley 2010), and at the same time it should be kept in mind that they are not fixed and can change over time (Knight 1999).

6.4 Trade-off by the local people: Economic- versus life safety In Sumatra the rise of rubber plantations started in the 19th century, and demand for rubber was very high. A lot of income specialisation had thus taken place, whereby people would rather have rubber plantations and even get cheap rice from other places instead of growing it themselves. It was fairly easy for young men to generate income by tapping rubber trees on a share-cropping basis. In the beginning of the 20th century not only farmers, but also other stakeholders were suddenly competing for forest resources. These included conservation activities as well as exploitation and conversion. At the end of the 20th century people were forced to diversify their income, because of the Asian economic crisis which caused low rubber prices and instability. Since the year 2000 decentralisation has taken place and gave more power to local governments, such as the nagari over natural resources. This resulted in giving access to palm oil companies. The economic crisis around 2008 caused that rubber prices again were decreasing (Feintrenie and Levang 2009), which people according to my results feel to this day. Many people are still specialised in the rubber harvest and do not have a diversified income. Around 80% of the local people in Botan depend on the rubber, In comparison with the neighbouring village Kuamang, where only 40% depended on rubber and people perceive the conflict with the bear as less important for themselves, but indicated that it is a problem in Botan. Following my results people are especially vulnerable to sun bear attacks, if they are dependent on the forest, in Botan usually as rubber tapper. Certainly, if they depend on the forest and therefore have to go into the forest to work they have a greater risk of encountering a bear. In Botan people need to enter the forest to reach their rubber plantations, and get their cash by selling the rubber to the cities. People are greatly affected after an attack even if they were not the ones encountering the bear, because most people would not dare to go to the forest to work for either a few days, sometimes for weeks and some women indicated that they never wanted to go back. At the same time people told us that rubber prices are varying a lot and that they used to get almost double the money than what they earn now from the harvest. This dependency of the rubber makes people more vulnerable and pushing them into a corner of the trade-off between life safety and

71 economic safety. If they do not go to work they risk a decrease in income and if they go into the forest they might risk their life. Both has an effect on their livelihood security. Local people indicated that they feel the decline in income after an attack immediately and that they depend on a daily basis on the income for their livelihoods. Even though bear attacks would not occur too often, the risk is there and when it happens the consequences are tremendous.

Research has been conducted on livelihood sustainability which refers to people being able to deal with stress and shock situations, without being prone to income loss and a reduced living standard (Niehof 2004). One strategy to achieve this within the concept of livelihood sustainability is the diversification of income (Ellis 1998). Diversification can be a response to a risk or a crisis in order to mitigate a shock and to be less vulnerable towards it. Or to put it into different words: a risk or a crisis can be a motivation to diversify the income (Ellis 1998). The quality of a person's livelihood can be indicated by vulnerability and sustainability, whereby the quality is higher with increasing sustainability (Chambers and Conway 1992 in Niehof 2004). The situation for the local farmers in Botan at the moment is that they are dependent on cash income from rubber, experiencing a low resilience and high sensitivity towards the sun bear attacks. This pushes them into the corner of the trade-off between life safety and economic safety. Both is not secured in the current situation.

Diversification should therefore help the household to deal with shock events, as in this case bear attacks or encounters and therefore make a families' livelihood more sustainable and resilient (Mahdi et al. 2009). In Botan, income diversification might be a step towards independence of the rubber as the only source for cash, in order to reduce the vulnerability of the people. This should improve the livelihood quality by containing attacks and having diversified sources of income to avoid sensitivity towards attacks and rubber prices (Ellis 1998; Woodroffe et al. 2005).

Their life safety and economic safety could increase by having various opportunities to generate cash and make sure that their livelihoods will not be affected by the sun bear conflict and the price changes. Diversification may well mean that the overall income is lower, but more stable than the income before the diversification. Hence it is a trade-off between higher income at the price of a high vulnerability and a lower income, which is generated from diverse resources with lower vulnerability. If that is the case it is usually seen as a risk strategy (Ellis 1998). In another area in West Sumatra in some villages people decided for diversification and started raising cattle, working on farms as labour and having non-agricultural jobs in order not to depend too much or solely on one sector (Mahdi et al. 2009).

According to Feintrenie and Levang (2009) local farmers' often lack alternatives, and their trust in the resources they have, might make them reluctant to decide for alternative sources of cash income and diversify their livelihood strategy. I cannot verify this from my own results, but it does seem that people stick to the rubber even though it seems to vary a lot in prices and bear risks for the people. Many villagers told me that they are not satisfied with the rubber market at the moment and that it is very hard to make income from it. On top of that the sun bear attacks make it even harder and make some people change jobs.

For the local people a bear attack and a decrease in rubber price is an unpredictable risk and not bound to any seasonality. Therefore, it should be important for the people to have an alternative in order to avoid unexpected shocks. Income diversification can increase economic safety for the people, and life safety in the sense that the trade-off between life and economic safety gets reduced, however, it would only mitigate the human-sun bear conflict in social terms. The actual risk of a person being attacked in the forest will persist. The risk of life still exists, which is increased when a bear has been seen in their vicinity. When this happens people should have the possibility not to go into the forest on the one hand and on the other not to risk their economic safety at the same time.

Since the risk of life will always be an issue, because it is impossible to predict the appearance of a bear, other strategies that are not bound to income should be considered as alternatives. One strategy that some people have already realized directly after an attack, is going in groups into the forest (Herrero and Higgins 1999). From an ecological point of view it can be assumed that the bear, , is not actually hunting people, but probably defending itself out of fear. If people are in a group, the bear might be warned earlier by the noise people make and therefore less encounters can be expected (Herrero and Higgins 1999). Another factor is security that is provided by a group as they can easier help and look after each other, if an accident happens. This may mean reorganising work for some people, since going in a group means less independence on own work rhythm. In the end this can contribute to the livelihood sustainability and is also part of a diversification strategy. Particularly the view people have towards the bear as 'life threatening' and 'threatening economic safety' should be addressed when dealing with income diversification. Income diversification should reduce the risk posed on life safety and economic safety.

6.5 The role of the Ministry of Forestry for local people in the conflict The people usually mentioned the Ministry of Forestry - local forest rangers or any officials that are related to the MoF - when we discussed solutions for the conflict. Even though there might not be a direct management option to protect people actively in the forest, the role of the MoF is crucial for mitigating the conflict and conserving the bear and helping the people at the same time. Also, because the people indicated in their conflict frames that they see the MoF as the authorities that should take action. As it can be seen in the conflict frames 'Left alone' and 'Lack of coordination', people do have criticism towards the MoF, but still see them as the authority that should take action. This means that there is some kind of trust in the MoF's ability to manage the threat by the bear. I see a clear possibility of local participation in the conflict. The forestry law says that different stakeholders should be involved, thus not only the MoF, but especially also the local people and their institutions. However, according to Mahdi (Mahdi et al. 2009) these nagaris still lack organisational structure and the resources to really provide a good basis for participation.

It is interesting that two studies about the sun bear on two different islands reveal different issues. Fredriksson revealed antagonism towards the bear by farmers on Borneo, because of crop damage (Fredriksonn 2005). The first step to a mitigation of the conflict was to find a method on how to protect the coconut trees. Direct economic damage was the main problem. In West Sumatra, however, sun bears attack people, which is not the case in Borneo, and fear and indirect economic damage is the main problem for the people. It is less obvious what kind of practical mitigation measure might be feasible. When talking about solutions with the local people it got clear that there were no concrete practical solutions other than the already practiced ones, namely capturing and translocations of the bear. The critique is of course that in Botan this had never worked. However, a very important aspect is that the people said that they lacked the power themselves in order to do something, but that they do want to be involved.

They saw the Ministry of Forestry as the main actor with the power that is able act in the conflict, but some also mentioned the local government, i.e. the nagari as well as the Ninik Mamak that should make the decisions. The Ninik Mamak is according to the villagers someone who can decide in the name of the people, because he represents the will of the people. However, this was often also said when the Ninik Mamak was present and the respondents opinion might have been biased. Very important is, though, that there is a basis of participation and involvement of different stakeholders. This could be in this case, as mentioned by the people the MoF, the people themselves and the local government (nagari). In the year 2000 decentralization of regional governments took place in Indonesia, whereby also traditional rules in natural resource management were recognized (Mahdi et

74 al. 2009). This gave the local governments, such as the nagaris in West Sumatra, the opportunity to establish their own local rules and customs again and also to the forestry law (48) which, according to the staff of the MoF or according to (Mahdi et al. 2009) forestry law 41 says that not only the authorities should be involved in the decision-making, but that several actors that are affected in the conflict should be involved. The MoF themselves said, though, that they should still be the ones that control the situation. It seems that on the one hand the law and on the other hand the villagers and the MoF do have the same idea about resolving the issue. Thus, there is a basis of mitigating the conflict together.

As my results showed, the conflict is not only about the attacks and the economic influence, but also about unsatisfied people about how the conflict is dealt with at the moment. The official laws and the expectation of people and MoF give a great opportunity in strengthening their roles and collaboration. I have not had the chance to go deeper into the structure of the nagari in the village. One problem was the language barrier and another the lack of time. Therefore, I did not have the opportunity to really understand their function in this particular village. I therefore decided to focus on the villagers themselves. However, according to Mahdi et al. (2009) who did research in a different region in West Sumatra, these nagaris can play a very important role in representing the local people's wishes. The frames of 'lack of coordination' and 'left alone' are important frames in this discussion point, since it is clear that the conflict is also about organisation, dedication and participation. From the statements of the villagers it got clear that some people are aware of the position of the MoF, but some people do not even know what and who they are. Again other people know it, but to most people it is not clear how the procedure should work after an attack. This shows how important it is that the MoF engages more with the villagers and should listen more to their perceptions and try and cooperate more. The MoF has the intention to work preventively, however, they claim that they only go to locations, where there is proof of an attack. This is rather not preventive in my view and this should be changed into more really preventive actions. The tasks are difficult to determine and therefore more communication needs to take place between the MoF and the villagers. This may be combined with education programmes about sun bear ecology and behaviour, where the staff of the MoF should be the expert and the people contribute with their knowledge from experiences and stories.

People need to have the feeling that there is someone who cares about the problem and who wants to help them, so that they do not feel left alone and ignored. The positive fact is that people seem to be open to work together with the MoF and expect them to do something and at the same time want to be involved in some way, because they realize that it is their problem. This is a nice basis for participation and collaboration on both sides. But many aspects need to be improved. The process

75 after an attack needs to be clear and must be communicated to all villagers. And solution finding should take place together with the villagers. The role of the MoF is therefore very important and they should take advantage of the fact that people want them to act. That means that there is willingness which can only be positive for the conservation and toleration of the sun bear. For the MoF this might mean a better structuring and organisation of their work and better coordination of their projects. It can also mean that the motivation within the ministry needs to be higher in order to develop well-coordinated projects.

This conflict is not about protecting crops, but to safe people's lives and improve their economic security. It should therefore be taken very serious and the voice of the people should be heard and not be overheard. It is certainly too late to wait for the real proof of an attack to take actions, since the disaster has happened at that moment. Action should be taken before hand together with the villagers. As suggested in the discussion point above, income diversification can help to improve situations. However, this is nothing a villager can just implement by himself. There needs to be help and awareness in order to make this concept clear to the people and make it working. It has to be done carefully, since conflict resolutions that do not agree with what the people want can lead to frustrations and can worsen situations and the relation to official authorities (Hewitt and Messmer 1997 in Messmer 2000). Next to the aspect of participation, people might also simply want to discuss very practical solutions.

There is literature about bear ecology and how to reduce the risk of attacks (Woodroffe et al. 2005). Recommendations about what is important is for example given: A person should appear very tall and big, to intimidate the bear. Noise is very important, which could easily be done, if people go to the forest in groups. In North America hikers are recommended to use bells and whistles in order to make noise and scare away bears. The theory is that bears will avoid people and if they hear them coming, they will disappear without even showing themselves. In India and Bangladesh backward facing masks and electrical shocks are being used in one area to scare away tigers (Woodroffe et al. 2005). With bears this does not seem to be used, yet, but it might be an easy option to try. These practical solutions to reduce the risk of attacks are something that should be discussed with the local people. Collaboration between the MoF and the local people can be very important and the above- mentioned strategies should not be imposed on people, but be discussed with them.

Chapter 7 – Conclusion and Recommendations

With this thesis I used the theory of framing as shown in figure 2, and could show how to use it in human-wildlife conflicts in order to analyse a conflict. Furthermore, I could show with the help of the theoretical framework of views and frames that there is a conflict between local people and the sun bear in West Sumatra and what the important factors according to the local people are.

Based on my results and discussion, certain topics seem to be most striking regarding the human-sun bear conflict from the perspective of the local people. I realise how important it was to talk to the villagers as well as to the Ministry of Forestry, since the conflict seems to connect both parties. First of all it is striking to me that the traditional belief about the bear, even though it might not be shared by everyone, had not been mentioned once by the Ministry of Forestry. This gives me the feeling that there has never an in-depth communication taken place between the two parties. However, it is my impression that it might be relevant to take this belief into consideration and to give room for the villagers to talk about the conflict. Even though the traditional belief was not mentioned in the conflict frames of the people, for conservation efforts it might be very important to consider this side of the people's story in order to fully understand the people's understanding and reasoning in the conflict. It might influence how people might or might not accept a conservation strategy and how it affects people when certain measures do not work. As for example the fact that the cage never worked and a bear could never be captured in Botan reinforced the traditional belief people had about the sun bear. For further research it can be relevant to explore the role this belief in relation to the practice of the people in the conflict, as this remains unanswered.

Another topic concerns the influence of the bear on the people's lives. One aspect is that a bear might actually attack people and another aspect is that the conflict can have an impact on people's livelihoods by causing loss in income after an attack. As my results have shown, people that are especially vulnerable to bear attacks and loss in income are the ones that depend mostly on rubber. As discussed in chapter 6.4, income diversification might mitigate these threats. Of course, this is easier said than done, but being conscious about it can already be a step forward. Not only because of the bear attacks, but also because of fluctuations in price, it may be wise to not depend too much on one source of income, but rather to diversify by different activities. It might be interesting and helpful for the villagers to further explore this issue of the local economy and people´s livelihoods in relation to the vulnerabilities of people´s livelihoods.

To reduce the risk of attack by a bear, an important aspect is to understand the ecology and behaviour of bears. Most research addressing bear ecology and behaviour, and based on the results, recommendations on how to behave as a human with respect to bears has been done in North America and Europe. It is mentioned that it helps to go in groups and to make noise, in order not to

78 surprise a bear, but to give the bear a chance to escape. This would mean for the people in Botan to reorganise their work in the forest and to go in groups. This is certainly possible, since a few people have practiced this after attacks. However, if it is practiced as a rule at any time, it also can be a preventive measure. Being in groups in the forest can on the one hand prevent an attack and on the other hand safe a person's life in the case of an attack. It probably also takes away the fear of a person to actually enter the forest. Making noise is a measure that can also be done by a person alone, with for example little bells or a whistle. However, the village is small and poor and with not many things available.

Since it is not clear why lately there have been more sun bear attacks it might be very interesting and helpful to investigate the ecology of the sun bear more and find out what it actually is that attracts the bear in the rubber plantations. Furthermore, sun bear behaviour in case of encounters should further be explored in order to predict behaviour and avoid attacks.

Since both sides, the MoF and the villagers see their responsibilities and ask for involvement, this should be used as a basis to start communicating and mutual participating. The MoF is seen as the instance that has the power in terms of resources, knowledge and authority and this could be used in a positive way. The MoF could encourage the villagers to share their knowledge and wishes as well to create more exchange and interaction. This could also be combined with education about conservation, which the MoF mentioned as one of their strategies, which, however, I could not find in practice. The villagers in Botan, even though they were angry, seemed still to be open for discussion and development in the conflict.

They also pointed out that the procedure in case of an attack is not clear. A simple solution for this might be that the MoF together with the villagers and the local government develops a clear guideline for a procedure, in order to know whom the people have to call and what they should do. Some also said that if a cage is put it needs to be guarded and villagers could actually do this, but instructions and communication from the side of the MoF is lacking. Hence, there is willingness from the side of the people to help in the case of an attack, but there should be a better system to implement emergency measures and management.

Based on the outcomes of this thesis, next to further research within social as well as natural sciences regarding the conflict, I would strongly like to encourage more dialogue between the Ministry of Forestry, the local government and the villagers, because I see opportunities for more participation of the people and more creative mitigation strategies and conservation efforts for the human-sun bear conflict in Botan.

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Source of cover images from left to right:

Websites visited on December 22nd, 2014: http://www.care2.com/news/member/865320699/1498359 http://borneoinsider.com/2013/08/17/helping-to-save-the-sun-bears-of-sabah/ http://w11.zetaboards.com/The_Round_Table/topic/9423176/1/

Annex I

Interview Guide

Presentation of myself:

My name is Meret Windler. I come from Germany and I am an MSc student from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. I am here to conduct my thesis research on behalf of the NGO Wildeye. My aim is on the one hand to understand your agricultural systems, the crops you plant, how your fields are located and what kind of problems you face. And on the other hand to understand what your opinion is towards sun bears. I expect to stay in this village for about 1 month. To be able to see and hear from you which problems you face regarding agriculture and what your views are about sun bears I would like to conduct around 20 interviews and several group discussions. I will share my final report with the NGO who will decide what will further happen with the results and I will provide you with a summary in your language. Furthermore, I will not mention any names, so that the data is confidential. I want to make clear that I want to learn from you and your opinion is the most interesting and important to me for the report. During the interviews I would like to make notes and use a voice recorder. The recorded interviews will not be spread and will be deleted after I have finished my report. I will only use it to be able to listen to it again to write them out and make sure that I understood everything correctly. The interviews will last for about 1 hour to 1,5h. If you have any questions or something is unclear you can always ask. Participation is voluntary, so you do not have to do the interview. If at any time during the interview you decide that you do not want to continue you are free to do so.

Thank you for accepting to participate in this Interview.

1) Agriculture

- Do you have agricultural fields or a garden? - What are your main cash crops? - What are your main subsistence crops? - Do you plant fruits? - Do you have a plantation? - How many fields do you have? - How big is your farm? - What is the total area? - To whom do the fields belong to?

- Who is the owner? - Who works on the field? - How often does someone work on the field? - What do you want to achieve? - How long do you live in this village? - Where are you from originally

2) Vulnerability

- Where is your farm located? - How close is it to the forest? - How many fields are in between the forest and your farm? - What are the main cash crops of your neighbours? - What are the main subsistence crops of your neighbours? - Do you protect your fields?

3) Damage

- Are there any problems you have regarding farming? - How important is damage to you due to animals? - Why? - What kind of animals are these? - What is the damage? - How do you deal with it?

- Have you ever had problems with sun bears? o Why? o What happened? (or: have you ever seen one..? Heard of one entering the village?) - Have you heard of other people having problems with sun bears? - When did that happen?

4) Safety

- How do you feel when you see a sun bear? - What do you do?

- What do you think should be done? - What would you like to do? - How do you feel when you see a wild pig? - What do you do? - What do you think should be done? - What would you like to do? - What are the consequences?

5) Sun bear:

- What do you think about sun bears? - Do you like them? - Did you like them 'before'? - What do you know about sun bears? - Have you ever seen one? - Do you have any experience with sun bears? - Do you know anything about sun bears from the past? - Do you know anything about sun bears from other people? - Are there any stories you know about sun bears? - What does the sun bear mean for this village? - Do you know why they enter the village?

6) Inter-human relations

- Which organisations are present in this village or region? - Which of these play a role in your opinion regarding animals and conservation? - What is your opinion about it? - What do they do? - What should they do? - Are there any governmental authorities involved? - What is your opinion about how they are involved? - Are there any other organisations involved? - How are you involved with the organisations? - How do they play a role for you in your daily life? - How do they play a role in your decision-making?

7) Issue

- What is the problem of the conflict with the sun bear? - What do you think is happening in the conflict? - Why is it a problem? - How did the conflict emerge?

8) Identity

- What do you think about your role in the conflict with the sun bear? - How do you see yourself in the conflict with the sun bear? - What do you contribute to the conflict? - With who do you identify?

9) Characterisation

- What other parties or people do you think are involved in the conflict? - What other parties or people do you think should be involved in the conflict? - What is their role in the conflict? - How do they contribute to the conflict?

10) Conflict management

- Who do you think should make decisions about solutions? - Do you think you should be involved in the decision-making? - What do you think your role is in the decision making? - What do you think the role of the villagers is in the decision-making? - Who do you think has the power to decide in the conflict? Why? - Who do you think should have the power to decide? - How do you see yourself regarding power and resources in the decision-making? - What do you think could be a solution to the conflict? - What should be done? - How should it be done? - Can villagers handle the bear confilct alone? Who can and who should? - What resources are needed?

Survey

Name Age (Sex) Family status Ethnicity Language Highest education Occupation Location of house Location of farm Size of farm Crops Cash crops Subsistence crops Owner of fields and crops Who works in the field How long do you live in the village Protection of fields Neighbouring fields Plants nearby in forest

Annex II

Focus Group Discussion Guide 1

My name is Meret Windler. I come from Germany and I am an MSc student from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. I am here to conduct my thesis research on behalf of the NGO Wildeye. My aim is on the one hand to understand your agricultural systems, the crops you plant, how your fields are located and what kind of problems you face. And on the other hand to understand what your opinion is towards sun bears. I expect to stay in this village for about 1 month. To be able to see and hear from you which problems you face regarding agriculture and what your views are about sun bears and wild pigs I would like to conduct around 20 interviews and several group discussions. I will share my final report with the NGO who will decide what will further happen with the results and I will provide you with a summary in your language. Furthermore, I will not mention any names, so that the data is confidential. I want to make clear that I want to learn from you and your opinion is the most interesting and important to me for the report. During the interviews I would like to make notes and use a voice recorder. The recorded interviews will not be spread and will be deleted after I have finished my report. I will only use it to be able to listen to it again to write them out and make sure that I understood everything correctly. The discussion will last for about 1 hour to 1,5h. If you have any questions or something is unclear you can always ask. Participation is voluntary, so you do not have to do the interview. If at any time during the interview you decide that you do not want to continue you are free to do so.

Who would like to participate now in the discussion?

Thank you for accepting to participate in this discussion.

Introduction questions (20min)

- Do most people have a farm or a garden? - How important is agriculture to the village? - Which of the crops are mostly important for survival? - Who usually works on the field - How often does the person usually work in the field?

Key Questions (30min)

Views - Do you ever experienced problems with sun bears? - What is your experience? - Where did it happen? - Why did it happen? - To whom did it happen? - What is the effect on the village? - What is the effect on the people? - What is the effect for your families (husband, wife, children, other relatives) - What is the effect on the crops? - What does the sun bear mean to you? - Are there any stories about the sun bear? - Are there any beliefs about the sun bear? Issue

- What is the problem of the conflict with the sun bear? - Why is it a problem? - How did the conflict emerge? - Identity

- What do you think about your role in the conflict with the sun bear? - What do you contribute to the conflict? - Characterisation

Conflict management

- Who do you think should make decisions about solutions? - Do you think you should be involved in the decision-making?

- What do you think is your role in the decision-making? - What do you think the role of the villagers is in the decision-making? - Who do you think has the power to decide in the conflict? - Why? - Who do you think should have the power to decide? - How do you see yourself regarding power and resources in the decision-making? - What do you think could be a solution to the conflict? - What should be done? - How should it be done?

Annex III

Legend from the Minangkabau (Source: http://indonesianfolklore.blogspot.nl/2007/10/minangkabau-folklore-from-west-sumatra.html website visited on December 4th, 2014)

Figure 13: Traditional Minangkabau Palace This palace is close to Bukittinggi in West Sumatra and represents the typical shape of the Minangkabau houses. Only kings are allowed to have several buffalo horn shaped roofs.

Once upon a time there was a kingdom in West Sumatra. The people worked as farmers. Their lives were full of happiness. The land was fertile and the weather was always beautiful. The people also had a wise king. He always protected the people. However, soon their happy lives would be disturbed. Majapahit, a kingdom from Java would attack them. The people were so scared. They were so restless. They went to the king to talk about it. The king tried to calm them down. "Don't worry, my fellow countrymen. I know Majapahit have many soldiers. They are also great in war. If we fight them, maybe we lose. But I have an idea how to beat them," said the king. Then he continued: "We can challenge them to a buffalo fight. If their buffalo dies, we win. But if our buffalo dies, they win." "We have to make sure our buffalo will win, Your Majesty. How?" asked one of the people. The king smiled. He continued: "We just need to find a strong baby buffalo." The king then ordered his people to give him the strongest baby buffalo. After that, the strong baby buffalo was separated from his mother. They did not give any food to the baby buffalo for several days. The baby buffalo was very hungry! The baby buffalo cried and cried. He asked for food. Then the king took two sharp knives and attached them strongly to the baby buffalo's horn. Now it was time for the buffalo battle.

Everyone gathered on the field. The Majapahit soldier released a big and wild buffalo out of his cage. Everyone was surprised with the size of the buffalo. Later, the West Sumatran released their baby buffalo. The Majapahit soldiers were laughing. "Ha ha ha. It's so small. How can you win?" They did not know that the hungry baby buffalo had two sharp knives on the horn. The baby buffalo ran fast towards the big buffalo and went straight under the big buffalo's stomach to find the teat. The knives at the baby buffalo's horns cut through the big buffalo's stomach. The big buffalo fell down to the ground and died. "Yes! We win, we win, we win!" The people of West Sumatra cheered. Then, the king changed the name of the kingdom into Minangkabau. It means the buffalo won. That is why the roofs of the houses in West Sumatra are similar to the form of buffalo horns and the traditional headdress of the women of West Sumatra is also like buffalo horns.

Figure 14: Traditional Minangkabau roof This roof has the shape of buffalo horns which relates to the famous legend of the Minangkabau.

Annex IV Summary for the people in Botan in Bahasa Indonesia Translated by E.C. Kartika December 2014 (moet nog gebeuren)

Introduction

Human-wildlife conflicts Worldwide increasing human population and habitat destruction, like the conversion of forest and nature areas into agricultural land, causes loss of habitat and prey for wildlife species. The reduction of natural habitat and available food for these wildlife species can force the wildlife to live closer to human settlements where they enter to forage. Consequently, wildlife living in the proximity of humans increases human-wildlife interaction augmenting the potential for conflicts. The conflicts can be caused by crop raiding (e.g. elephants, wild boars, bears), predation on livestock and even attacks on humans (e.g. tiger, lion, jaguar, bears). The conflict can cause loss of human life and livelihoods. Consequently, humans often kill the wildlife as a direct response or as prevention against damage and attacks. For conservation efforts wildlife attacks on humans should be seriously considered. The risk of being attacked might be potentially low, but perceived as highly threatening by people. This can have tremendous effects on conservation efforts, even if it only concerns a small group of people that might be at risk. Since poverty and the lack of economic opportunities force small farmers to move to forest-edge settlements (mainly in tropical regions), the conflicts will persist and probably increase in the future.

Conservation in Indonesia In Southeast Asia (SE Asia), which is considered a biodiversity hotspot, natural areas are under immense pressure due to human encroachment and degradation. Forests are converted on a big scale into agricultural areas and plantations at a rate of deforestation that is more severe than in other tropical regions. This also accounts for Indonesia where unsustainable logging practices, conversions to plantations as well as forest fires (partly due to the EL Niño event in 1997-1998 whereby large forest areas got destroyed) pose an immense threat onto the remaining forest and onto wildlife species.

Sun bears Sun bears (Helarctos malayanus), whose natural habitat is tropical evergreen rainforest, occur in SE Asia and are one of the many species that are seriously threatened by the forest decline.

In Indonesia they only occur on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, where they are protected since 1973. Sun bears are categorized as 'vulnerable' by the IUCN of red list species and it is illegal to hunt

94 and kill them in any country. However, for governments this is difficult to control. Sun bears are omnivorous, but prefer fruits if they can find them. Therefore, especially areas where fruits grow are attractive for sun bears.

Sun bears are usually not seen during the day and probably only come during the night to fields in order to avoid human encounters. This nocturnal behaviour is especially seen in areas with higher human traffic. However, even though in old literature they are described as nocturnal, in recent research it has been observed that they are actually diurnal, being active from just before sunset until two hours after sunset. The bears use to rest during the hottest hours of the day (10 – 14h). This means that the activity pattern of people and bears overlaps, which can explain the encounters during the day in the forest. However, the activity pattern depends on the location with its circumstances such as human traffic that can influence the activity pattern of the bear. Even though they have a rather small home range, forest decline and therefore less available food inside the forests forces them to find food near villages.

Sun bears in West Sumatra In the communities of the province of West Sumatra cases of sun bears entering villages have increased. The Ministry of Forestry (MoF) had to translocate roughly more than 45 sun bears from these villages between 2007 –and January 2014, because of reports by people to the MoF. However, the number might be underestimated, since many cases have not even been recorded and reported. This research will be undertaken in the West Sumatran regency Pasaman, where recently bear conflicts have been reported. In the village Botan, where this research is conducted, 4 people have been attacked by a sun bear on their way to or from the forest or while harvesting rubber. In the same regency a child has been killed by a sun bear, whereupon the bear got killed by the villagers after being captured. Capturing and translocations of the bear are not considered a sustainable solution in the long-term and there is interest in mitigating the conflicts to conserve the bear and protect the people.

Goal of this research The understanding of people's perception towards sun bears and the conflict can be of great value to create a picture of the local context in order to develop sensitive conservation strategies. Understanding how wildlife impacts a local person’s life also requires understanding of the local persons perspective. Therefore the people who have to coexist with the animal and are therefore the affected ones by conflicts are important to consider in the analysis.

The purpose of this study is to explore the perception people have towards the sun bear and the underlying drivers on the human-sun bear conflict in West Sumatra. The different ideas people have

95 about animals are therefore crucial to understand when trying to understand local people's views towards the animals and to relate this to conservation activities. Furthermore, I looked at how people see the human-sun bear conflict in order to understand what people think the problem, causes, responsibilities and possible solutions in the conflict are. This should contribute to conservation strategies, whereby the understanding of local people's perspectives may help to mitigate the human-sun bear conflict.

Results The bear threatening life safety and causing economic loss From the interviews with the local people from Botan it became clear that the attacks of the sun bear influences the daily lives of the people. Especially vulnerable are the people who own and or work in the rubber plantations and therefore have to enter the forest and depend on the rubber harvest for cash income. The people indicated that they do not dare to go into the forest when there was a bear attack and that the bear makes them fear for their lives when they need to go to their work in the rubber plantations. This might not be the case for everyone, but the general impression is that depending on the person, it can take days, weeks and for some people even months until they return to the forest. Some manage to switch their job in the meantime to for example rice fields, where they do not need to enter the forest. But for some, especially if they own the plantation it really means that they cannot make profit and harvest during the time. Another option people indicated is that they go in groups for a while, until they feel safe again. However, especially women said that they do not dare to ever go back to the forest to help. For victims of an attack the situation is more difficult. One person cannot work as efficient as before, because of his injury. But the most problematic for him is that he is traumatized and very scared when he is in the forest. It took him almost a year to go back to the plantations and now he works in a different field, because he does not dare to be in the same place again. Next to being scared to go to the forest to work, people also feel economic loss when they cannot go. Some therefore choose to go anyway, because they need the income. People directly feel the loss of income for their daily lives and groceries. Even people who own shops and are not directly affected, experience less income when there was an attack, because people buy less things during these times.

Traditional belief An interesting point was that many share a belief about the bear as coming to the village to warn a person about the disease ‘darah manis’ or some interpret it as a warning to the village that bad things are going on (such as drinking, gambling, pregnancy before marriage). The person with this

96 disease needs to go to the local shaman in order to get healed. All the people in the village knew about this belief, but not everyone necessarily believed in it. However, mostly it was also related to the belief about the tiger that is the protector of the village. Some people therefore believed that the bear now comes to the village instead of the tiger.

The Ministry of Forestry and the local villagers In the conflict two groups of people have a stake, namely the Ministry of Forestry (MoF) and the local people from the village. The people feel dependent on the MoF and also expect them to take action and responsibility in the conflict. The MoF has the power in terms of authority, knowledge and resources, while the local people are lacking these and therefore feel constrained in taking action themselves. Some people are very angry at the MoF, because they feel left alone in the conflict. They expect that the MoF should take the conflict more serious and pay more attention. Their critique is that as soon as the situation has calmed down, the MoF leaves and leaves them alone instead of trying to find a better solution, since the cage has not worked. In addition, the bear is protected, even though people have to fear for their lives when working in the forest and it also means that people are not allowed to hunt the attacking bear. Some question what is more important: the people or the bear? The local people agree with the MoF that organisation and communication is not clear. The MoF feels that the people are not aware of what the MoF is doing and therefore do not appreciate their work. And for the people it is not clear how the procedure works in case of an attack.

Conclusion and recommendations The most important to people is that the bear scares the people and causes loss in income if they cannot go to the forest. Also important to realise is that not only the victim is affected, but also other people that did not encounter the bear themselves. The belief of the bear can be part of the perception a person has towards the sun bear, but it is a belief that exists next to the problems the conflict brings with it for people’s daily lives.

It is striking to me that the traditional belief about the bear, even though it might not be shared by everyone, had not been mentioned once by the Ministry of Forestry. This gives me the feeling that there has never an in-depth communication taken place between the two parties. However, it is my impression that it might be relevant to take this belief into consideration and to give room for the villagers to talk about the conflict. For conservation efforts it might be very important to consider this side of the people's story in order to fully understand the people's understanding and reasoning in the conflict.

People who depend on rubber as their only cash income are most vulnerable to sun bear attacks. Income diversification might be a strategy in order to gain higher resilience. If people would not only

97 depend on the rubber for cash income, the conflict with the bear would not have such an impact if people would not go to the rubber plantations for some time.

Not only because of the bear attacks, but also because of fluctuations in price, it may be wise to not depend too much on one source of income, but rather to diversify by different activities. It might be interesting and helpful for the villagers to further explore this issue of the local economy and people´s livelihoods in relation to the vulnerabilities of people´s livelihoods.

In the conflict the local people and the MoF could benefit from a better participation. From both sides, but especially from the local people there is a demand of more action taking in order to mitigate the conflict. The MoF should take the opportunity and develop conservation strategies which include mitigation of the conflict together with the affected villagers.

To reduce the risk of attack by a bear, an important aspect is to understand the ecology and behaviour of bears. Most research addressing bear ecology and behaviour on how to behave as a human with respect to bears has been done in North America and Europe. It is mentioned that it helps to go in groups and to make noise, in order not to surprise a bear, but to give the bear a chance to escape. This would mean for the people in Botan to reorganise their work in the forest and to go in groups. This is certainly possible, since a few people have practiced this after attacks. However, if it is practiced as a rule at any time, it also can be a preventive measure. Being in groups in the forest can on the one hand prevent an attack and on the other hand safe a person's life in the case of an attack. It probably also takes away the fear of a person to actually enter the forest. Making noise is a measure that can also be done by a person alone, with for example little bells or a whistle. However, the village is small and poor and with not many things available.

The MoF as well as the villagers see that coordination and communication is missing. This leads to misunderstandings and also no appreciation on both sides for work that has been done. Both want to strive for improvement of the situation. It is clear that people see a big problem in the conflict in their restriction of doing something about it, hence the protected status of the bear and a lack of resources, while the MoF also sees the problem in the people, who go too deep into the forest and partly also enter protected areas. Furthermore, it is very important that the people have the feeling that the MoF wants to actively help them in the conflict and supports them also with preventing

98 measures. Since both sides, the MoF and the villagers see their responsibilities and ask for involvement, this should be used as a basis to start communicating and mutual participating. The MoF is seen as the instance that has the power in terms of resources, knowledge and authority and this could be used in a positive way. The MoF could encourage the villagers to share their knowledge and wishes as well to create more exchange and interaction. This could also be combined with education about conservation, which the MoF mentioned as one of their strategies, which, however, I could not find in practice. The villagers in Botan, even though they were angry, seemed still to be open for discussion and development in the conflict.

They also made clear that the procedure in case of an attack is not clear. A simple solution for this might be that the MoF together with the villagers and the local government develops a clear guideline for a procedure, in order to know whom the people have to call and what they should do. Some also said that if a cage is put it needs to be guarded and villagers could actually do this, but instructions and communication from the side of the MoF is lacking. Hence, there is willingness from the side of the people to help in the case of an attack, but there should be a better system to implement emergency measures and management.

Acknowledgements

(BKSDA) in Lubuk for being so open and positive towards this research and supporting me during these weeks. I am also very grateful to all the people in the village for welcoming us in their community and taking care of us and making my stay so special and unforgettable. Here I would like especially to thank Ermisal and his wife who made us feel like part of their family and Riki who involved us in the daily life and showed great interest in us and our work. This thesis was more than just an MSc thesis to me. Being part of a village in West Sumatra was a unique experience and it was very special getting to know the people and the Minangkabau culture and seeing the beautiful landscapes.

Terima kasih!

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