After the Rain Falls: the Impact of the East Kalimantan Forestry Industry
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AFTER THE RAIN FALLS ... THE IMPACT OF THE EAST KALIMANTAN FORESTRY INDUSTRY ON TRIBAL SOCIETY AFTER THE RAIN FALLS ... THE IMPACT OF THE EAST KALIMANTAN FORESTRY INDUSTRY ON TRIBAL SOCIETY Rimbo Gunawan Juni Thamrin Endang Suhendar AKATIGA AFTER THE RAIN FALLS... The Impact of the East Kalimantan Forestry Industry on Tribal Society Written by Rimbo Gunawan, Juni Thamrin, and Endang Suhendar Reader Oekan Abdoellah, Ph.D. Foreword Prof. Dr. Sediono M.P. Tjondronegoro Editing & Design AKATIGA Setting & Layout Budiman Pagarnegara Cover Photo East Kalimantan,Times Edition Sistem Hutan Kerakyatan East Kalimantan Copyright 1999 Yayasan AKATIGA, Bandung. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Yayasan AKATIGA. National Library: Catalogue in Publishing GUNAWAN, Rimbo After the Rain Falls... The Impact of the East Kalimantan Forestry Industry on Tribal Society/Rimbo Gunawan, Juni Thamrin, and Endang Suhendar. Foreword Sediono M.P. Tjondronegoro. - Bandung: Yayasan AKATIGA, 1999. xiv, 175 pages; 21 cm Bibliography ISBN 979-8589-31-9 1. Forestry Industry 2. Tribal Society- East Kalimantan I. Title II. Juni Thamrin III. Endang Suhendar 634.0.6 First printing in Bandung, March 1999 by AKATIGA Foundation ACKNOWLEDGMENT We will never forget the warmth and openness of the people of Lambing and Benung, who gave us a wonderful opportunity to experience daily life in the heart of Dayak villages. Our greatest thanks is to them. Your names we keep in our hearts. We acknowledge the assistance of many people in the Sistem Hutan Kerakyatan Kalimantan Timur (SHK Kaltim) for their support and assistance during our adventurous fieldwork; Puti Jaji, Plasma, SFMP-GTZ and the East Kalimantan Human Rights Committee with whom we had a fruitful exchange of ideas on the issues of forests and indigenous people. Special thanks should be given to our research assistants, Yoga Sofyar and Fidelis Nyongka, who shared many days interpreting and discussing interviews with the village people. We are also grateful to Indraswari who translated the earlier version into English; Stewart Potten and Jennifer Ure who edited the English version of the report, Dr. Oekan Abdoellah who commented on the latest version in Bahasa Indonesia, and Dr. Joan Hardjono who translated and edited the final version of the report into English. Finally, we thank the Toyota Foundation whose financial support made this study possible. RG JT ES SUMMARY The exploitation and destruction of forests have reached such a critical level that the consequences have attracted the attention of the wider community. The resounding response, however, has been to highlight the problems of the environment rather than the humanitarian aspect of the elimination of the tribal and indigenous people who live in and around the forest. For generations, tribal and indigenous people have depended for their livelihood on the generosity of the forest but now, with the arrival of large capital which exploits the forest, their sovereignty over and access to forest resources have been stolen from them. This phenomenon is intrinsically connected to forest management policies which emphasize efforts to obtain foreign exchange by exploiting economically valuable forest products and in particular timber. The large profits which can be reaped from the forestry sector, the increase in foreign exchange and the ability to absorb labor are the aspects put forward to legitimize large capital operations. The forest is seen as a natural resource which can be exploited to obtain surplus. In terms of foreign exchange these policies have been successful. In 1994, for example, the forestry sector contributed US$ 7.7 billion to foreign revenue. Conversely, this success has come at a high cost with the destruction of the forest ecosystem and the way of life of local communities. Ecologically, the destruction of the forest results in interference with the global ecosystem. In socio-cultural terms, a conflict of interests occurs between local culture and the forms of modern culture associated with forest industrialization. On the one hand, modernization sees local culture as an obstruction which must be “swept aside” or “replaced” so that the development process, meaning the acquisition of surplus from forest products, is not seriously disturbed by local tribal communities. On the other hand, the tribal and indigenous people see industrialization and all its values and apparatus as a threat to their customary rights over the forest. vii In practice, the meeting of these interests both directly and indirectly places tribal and indigenous people in a marginal position and demands changes in the social-cultural order of society in accordance with modern interests and values (or the values of an industrial society). This leaves tribal and indigenous people under pressure from limited choices which encourage them to move further away from access to the natural resources which have remained under their control up till now. In spite of this, the local people have adopted a number of strategies by which to maintain and revitalize the indigenous values and cultural systems which they are certain can guarantee their survival and welfare as well as ensure ecological balance. Modern developmentalists who focus on growth and surplus find this view difficult to accept. The conflict of interests which emerges eventually becomes a burden which must be borne by the local indigenous people and which has widespread impacts leading to the destruction of their social, cultural, political and economic order. The phenomena just explained can be seen in the context of industrialization of the forestry sector in East Kalimantan. East Kalimantan is an Indonesian province rich in forest resources. In addition to mining, the forestry sector and timber industry form the backbone of East Kalimantan’s economy, contributing almost Rp 1.5 trillion to Gross Domestic Product. At the end of March, 1994, there were some 110 holders of logging concessions, covering a concession area of 12 million hectares, or around 55 per cent of all of East Kalimantan. Apart from functioning as an exploitable natural resource for the sake of economic growth, the forests of East Kalimantan are also the source of life and home to the Dayaks, the indigenous people of East Kalimantan. The Dayak community, particularly those people who live in the hinterland, are dependent on the resources of the forest. As a society which has close interaction with the forest, the Dayaks have, and continue to develop, a culture which is also closely tied to the forest and is reflected in their religion, art, politics, economy, technology and social organization. These interconnected institutions form the basic foundation of all activities in the life of the Dayaks, in their relationship with each other, with nature and with the supernatural powers in which they believe. Such is the closeness of Dayak culture with the forest that viii the latter is seen as not only as a means to fulfill their economic needs but also as having socio-cultural and religious functions. The practice of distributing forest concessions in the form of logging concessions, development licenses for timber estates, plantations, and transmigration areas has brought positive effects to the development of East Kalimantan, in terms of creating opportunities for employment, spurring on the development of the timber industry, raising domestic revenue and increasing national foreign exchange. However, this exploitation has had its negative effects which, apart from causing environmental destruction, also impact adversely on the social economy and culture of the Dayak society. Research results from the two villages studied are evidence of this. In the two research villages, Lambing and Benung, there is evidence that forest exploitation has brought negative impacts to the local people, among them: a decline in sources of income, especially from the forest products which they have controlled up till now; a reduction in average size of land controlled; and a cultural shift that takes them constantly further from their own culture. These negative impacts contribute to the on-going marginalization of tribal people, which occurs because of their weak bargaining power in facing with concession holders who get full support from the government. The outline of the situation given above shows clearly that the capitalistic development paradigm, which places greater importance on the creation of surplus without paying attention to the interests of local communities, has caused the emergence of conflicts and other serious impacts, especially for the local people themselves. In order to reduce these impacts and prevent open conflict in the future, several matters require attention, among them: forest resource management which must actively involve local people, including their involvement in the decision-making process; the legal guarantee of tribal people’s rights over forest resources; and bearing in mind the weak position of these people, empowerment of tribal groups socially, economically, and politically. In this way, forest resource management will not only bring national benefits but will at the same time strengthen the position of tribal communities themselves. ix RINGKASAN Eksploitasi dan kerusakan hutan telah sampai pada titik kritis, sehingga menarik perhatian