The roles of traditional knowledge systems in orang-utan Pongo spp. and forest conservation: a case study of Danau Sentarum, West Kalimantan, Indonesia E LIZABETH L. YULIANI,HASANTOHA A DNAN,RAMADHANI A CHDIAWAN D ENNY B AKARA,VALENTINUS H ERI,JIM S AMMY M. AGUS S ALIM and T ERRY S UNDERLAND Abstract The orang-utan Pongo spp. is protected by nation- Introduction al and international legislation, yet populations continue to decline. Many reports implicate local people in the poaching he orang-utan Pongo spp. is the only remaining Asian and illegal trade in orang-utans, yet community participa- Tgreat ape and is found only on the islands of Sumatra tion has been promoted as an alternative conservation and Borneo (Rijksen & Meijaard, ; Singleton et al., strategy. To explore how community-based orang-utan ). Both species, the Sumatran orang-utan Pongo abelii conservation could be developed, we conducted a study to and the Bornean orang-utan Pongo pygmaeus, are categor- understand informal institutions, particularly local people’s ized as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List perceptions, traditional beliefs, taboos, norms and knowl- (Singleton et al., ; Ancrenaz et al., ). There are es- edge, related to orang-utan conservation within and around timated to be c. , Sumatran orang-utans in the wild, and – the wetlands of Danau Sentarum. The majority of Dayak , , north-west Bornean orang-utans P. pygmaeus communities interviewed practised traditional taboos, pygmaeus, , south-west Bornean orang-utans P. pyg- which supported the protection of orang-utans and their maeus wurmbii and , north-east Bornean orang-utans habitat. Statistical analysis using generalized linear model- P. pygmaeus morio (Wich et al., ). ling indicated that more orang-utan nests were found in In Indonesia the orang-utan is protected by national le- areas with both good habitat condition and strong informal gislation but its habitat is not, unless it is within protected institutions. Despite applying traditional systems that are areas. Orang-utan populations continue to decline, mainly similar to conservation, local people have negative percep- as a result of habitat loss for agriculture, plantations and tions about the term ‘conservation’. We describe the under- mining, as well as hunting, killing and trading. Although lying causes of these negative perceptions and highlight policies for protection are in place, enforcement is weak their implications for conservation programmes and pol- and inconsistent (e.g. Rijksen & Meijaard, ; Robertson icies. We conclude that conservation of orang-utans and & van Schaik, ; Nijman, ). The importance of pro- other species should not focus on single species but on tecting orang-utans (and other key species) is not reflected maintaining social and natural capital, cultural diversity in government programmes or land-use policies. National and ecological functions at various institutional levels and and district land use planning prioritizes large-scale indus- across geographical scales. trial plantations and mining, with little (if any) protection of orang-utan habitat outside protected areas by either the Keywords Biocultural diversity, customary beliefs, Danau National Planning Agency or the agriculture and mining Sentarum, forest, governance and institutions, local people, sectors. Thus, orang-utans are regarded as pests when orang-utan, taboo they are present in commercial plantations, and hundreds have been killed (e.g. Tribun Kaltim, ; Gayle, ). However, it is rare that the perpetrators are prosecuted (Antara Kaltim, ). This shows that formal institutions ELIZABETH L. YULIANI* (Corresponding author), HASANTOHA ADNAN,RAMADHANI are weak, infractions are often ignored and sanctions are ACHDIAWAN,M.AGUS SALIM and TERRY SUNDERLAND† Center for International Forestry Research, Sindang Barang, Bogor, Indonesia insignificant. DENNY BAKARA,VALENTINUS HERI and JIM SAMMY Riak Bumi Foundation, Local people have been implicated in the hunting, poach- Pontianak, Indonesia ing and illegal trade of orang-utans (Rijksen & Meijaard, *Also at: Radboud University of Nijmegen, Huygens Building, Heyendaalseweg ; Nijman, ). Whether or not they hunt may be re- 135, 6525AJ Nijmegen, The Netherlands. E-mail [email protected] † lated to their ethnicity and religion (Sugardjito & van Also at: College of Marine and Environmental Sciences, James Cook University, Cairns, Australia Schaik, ). An alternative discourse frames local commu- Received February . Revision requested March . nities as a potential solution. Their informal institutions, in- Accepted June . First published online November . cluding nature-related social taboos, customary beliefs and This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence Downloaded from(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: which permits 170.106.34.90 unrestricted, on 25 re-use, Sep distribution,2021 at 19:55:06 and reproduction, subject to the in any Cambridge medium, Core provided terms th eof original use, available work is at properly cited. https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605316000636 Oryx, 2018, 52(1), 156–165 © 2016 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605316000636 Traditional knowledge in conservation 157 traditional knowledge systems, are an important compo- nent of their social capital and have important applications for biodiversity conservation (Gadgil et al., ; Colding & Folke, ; Wadley & Colfer, ; Berkes, ; Luo et al., ; Parotta, ). However, informal institutions have been largely neglected in conservation planning in biodiversity-rich, developing countries (Alcorn ; Robbins ). To improve the protection of great apes, in- cluding orang-utans, efforts focusing on the preservation of traditional values and long-term support for community in- itiatives have been recommended (Caldecott, ). Studies have shown positive correlations between trad- itional knowledge and biodiversity conservation (Nyhus et al., ; Riley, ; Etiendem et al., ; Stacey et al., ), and highlighted the need for location- and species- specific understanding of traditional belief systems in asses- sing their potential application to conservation efforts FIG. 1 Danau Sentarum National Park and its surrounding areas, (Uyeda et al., ). However, there is a lack of such studies West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Source of spatial data: Margono specifically related to orang-utan protection. We aim to fill et al. () and Hansen et al. (). this knowledge gap by () describing perceptions and infor- mal institutions of the major ethnic groups around Danau Sentarum wetlands, including traditional beliefs, taboos, designated a National Park. The Dayak live in the surround- norms, knowledge and practices, which are related to orang- ing hills, and their main income is from fish, rubber, pepper, utan and broader forest conservation, and () evaluating and paid labour in Malaysia. Subsistence rice production is how these informal institutions could contribute to improv- an important part of their livelihoods (Eilenberg & Wadley, ing the protection of orang-utans and their habitat. We ). The Malay live on the riversides, and their main in- focus on nature-related social taboos as a subset of informal come comes from fish, honey and rubber extraction (Yuliani institutions (Colding & Folke, ), and adopt the defin- & Erman, ; Indriatmoko, ). Some Malay villages in- ition of taboo as ‘a prohibition against touching, saying or side the Park were initially seasonal settlements of fishers doing something for fear of immediate harm from a super- who came from the Kapuas river to fish in the wetlands in natural force; or a prohibition imposed by social custom or the s and s, but some are several hundred years old as a protective measure’ (Merriam-Webster, ). (Giesen, ). All have strong ties with larger Malay towns along the Kapuas river (R.L. Wadley, unpubl. data). Study area Methods The Danau Sentarum wetlands are located in West To explore customary beliefs and institutions related to Kalimantan, km north-east of Pontianak, the provincial orang-utans we conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews capital city (Fig. ). The wetlands comprise intercon- and gender-disaggregated focus group discussions ( with nected seasonal lakes, hill forests, lowland dipterocarp for- Dayaks and nine with Malays) and undertook participant ob- ests, peat swamp and swamp forests, and dwarf forests servation from November until February .Wese- (Giesen & Aglionby, ). In the core area of , lected interview and discussion group participants based on km was gazetted as a National Park by the Indonesian gov- the following criteria: () they possessed good knowledge of cul- ernment. The Park has at least fish species (Kottelat & ture, traditional norms and belief systems, and histories of the Widjanarti, ), reptile and mammal species community or the hamlet specifically related to orang-utans; (Meijaard & Jeanes, ), and bird species (van () they had good knowledge of formal regulations (or indivi- Balen & Dennis, ). In it was home to an estimated duals that represent formal institutions); ()theyrepresenteda , orang-utans (Russon et al., ). However, the wet- diversity of ethnic groups and points of view; and ()theywere lands’ catchment areas were subjected to illegal logging dur- willing to participate in our study. We first consulted the chief ing – and the development of large-scale oil palm of the hamlet