email: [email protected] tel/fax: website: …€¦ · Deforestation' and Indonesia Mounting global...
16
No. 74 August 2007 office: 59 Athenlay Rd, London SE15 3EN, England, email: [email protected] tel/fax: +44 16977 46266 website:http://dte.gn.apc.org This edition of DTE has a special focus on forests, plantations and women. Send your comments on any of our articles to: [email protected] Women and oil palm’s impacts -- see page 11 Climate change, 'Avoided Deforestation' and Indonesia Mounting global concern over climate change and the link to deforestation has refocused international attention on the need to protect the world's forests. Rampant forest and peatland destruction in Indonesia means that the country is one of the world's top three emitters of carbon dioxide, a major contributor to global warming. As countries prepare for negotiations on a post-Kyoto climate agreement, there is much interest in 'Avoided Deforestation' - international funding to protect forests and reduce carbon emissions.The World Bank is taking the lead.What are the implications for Indonesia, its forests and its forest-dependent peoples? There is no question that deforestation in Indonesia is having a serious impact at international as well as at national and local levels. Destructive logging, out-of-control fires, forest clearance for plantations, mining, fossil fuel extraction, transmigration sites, aquaculture, and road-building have long been linked with negative social and economic impacts for local indigenous and forest- dependent communities, and enormous financial losses for communities and the state. A new study has now highlighted the global picture, which shows Indonesia both as a major contributor to climate change, as well as highly vulnerable to its impacts. Forest destruction, peatland degradation and forest fires are mostly to blame for Indonesia's ranking as third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after the USA and China. Based on data from 2000, Indonesia's annual emissions from forestry and land use change are calculated at 2,563 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO 2 e), dwarfing the yearly amount from energy, agriculture and waste which amount to 451 MtCO 2 e. The total emissions - 3,014 MtCO 2 e compare with China's total of 5,017 and the US' of 6,005 MtCO 2 e. The study, Indonesia and Climate Change: Current Status and Policies, was sponsored by the World Bank and the UK's Department for International Development to inform the next world summit on climate change in December in Bali. Following on from a Wetlands International alert in November 2006 and Sir Nicholas Stern's visit to Indonesia in March 2007 (see box, next page), the report highlights the important role that peatland destruction plays in the total emission figures: on average, around 600 Mt of CO 2 e are released from the decomposition of dry peat each year, with a further 1,400 Mt released in peatland forests fires that may burn for months at a time. The report, launched in May 2007, also points out that emissions from Indonesia's energy sector are small, but growing very rapidly and that its emissions from agriculture and waste are small. Predicted impacts The report points to some of the impacts Indonesia can expect from climate change. They include: a modest temperature increase - since 1990, annual mean temperatures have increased by around 0.3 degrees Celsius during all seasons; more intense rainfall - 2-3% more rainfall annually is expected across the country, in shorter periods, increasing the risk of flooding significantly; threats to food security due to the effects of climate change on agriculture; sea level rises - these will inundate productive coastal zones, affecting farming and coastal livelihoods, including fish and shrimp farms, rice and maize production; warmer ocean water - affecting marine biodiversity and putting further pressure Inside... Forests: People’s Plantations WALHI calls for logging moratorium Indigenous women: Workshop at AMAN Congress Women lead mining opposition Oil palm / women: The impacts of oil palm plantations Oil palm: Biofuel fever Interview: Government, business and communities CSR: CSR à la Jakarta 5 7 8 10 11 13 14 16
Transcript of email: [email protected] tel/fax: website: …€¦ · Deforestation' and Indonesia Mounting global...
No. 74 August 2007
office: 59 Athenlay Rd, London SE15 3EN, England, email: [email protected] tel/fax: +44 16977 46266 website:http://dte.gn.apc.org
This edition of DTE has aspecial focus on forests,plantations and women.Send your comments on anyof our articles to:[email protected]
Women and oil palm’s impacts -- see page 11
Climate change, 'AvoidedDeforestation' and Indonesia
Mounting global concern over climate change and the link to deforestation has refocusedinternational attention on the need to protect the world's forests. Rampant forest and peatland
destruction in Indonesia means that the country is one of the world's top three emitters of carbondioxide, a major contributor to global warming.
As countries prepare for negotiations on a post-Kyoto climate agreement, there is much interest in'Avoided Deforestation' - international funding to protect forests and reduce carbon emissions.The
World Bank is taking the lead.What are the implications for Indonesia, its forests and its forest-dependent peoples?
There is no question that deforestation inIndonesia is having a serious impact atinternational as well as at national and locallevels. Destructive logging, out-of-controlfires, forest clearance for plantations, mining,fossil fuel extraction, transmigration sites,aquaculture, and road-building have long beenlinked with negative social and economicimpacts for local indigenous and forest-dependent communities, and enormousfinancial losses for communities and the state.
A new study has now highlightedthe global picture, which shows Indonesiaboth as a major contributor to climatechange, as well as highly vulnerable to itsimpacts. Forest destruction, peatlanddegradation and forest fires are mostly toblame for Indonesia's ranking as third biggestemitter of greenhouse gases after the USAand China.
Based on data from 2000,Indonesia's annual emissions from forestryand land use change are calculated at 2,563megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent(MtCO2e), dwarfing the yearly amount fromenergy, agriculture and waste which amountto 451 MtCO2e. The total emissions - 3,014MtCO2e compare with China's total of 5,017and the US' of 6,005 MtCO2e.
The study, Indonesia and ClimateChange: Current Status and Policies, wassponsored by the World Bank and the UK'sDepartment for International Developmentto inform the next world summit on climatechange in December in Bali. Following onfrom a Wetlands International alert inNovember 2006 and Sir Nicholas Stern's visitto Indonesia in March 2007 (see box, nextpage), the report highlights the important rolethat peatland destruction plays in the totalemission figures: on average, around 600 Mtof CO2e are released from thedecomposition of dry peat each year, with afurther 1,400 Mt released in peatland forestsfires that may burn for months at a time.
The report, launched in May 2007,also points out that emissions fromIndonesia's energy sector are small, butgrowing very rapidly and that its emissionsfrom agriculture and waste are small.
Predicted impactsThe report points to some of the impactsIndonesia can expect from climate change.They include:
a modest temperature increase - since1990, annual mean temperatures haveincreased by around 0.3 degrees Celsius
during all seasons;more intense rainfall - 2-3% more rainfallannually is expected across the country, inshorter periods, increasing the risk offlooding significantly;threats to food security due to the effectsof climate change on agriculture;sea level rises - these will inundateproductive coastal zones, affecting farmingand coastal livelihoods, including fish andshrimp farms, rice and maize production;warmer ocean water - affecting marinebiodiversity and putting further pressure
Inside...Forests:
People’s PlantationsWALHI calls for logging moratorium
Indigenous women:Workshop at AMAN CongressWomen lead mining opposition
Oil palm / women:The impacts of oil palm plantations
Oil palm:Biofuel fever Interview: Government, business and communities
CSR: CSR à la Jakarta
57
810
11
1314
16
2
DOWN TO EARTH No.74,August 2007
on already threatened coral reefs;intensification of water and vector-bornediseases - such as malaria and denguefever.
Controversially, the report also states thatIndonesia's forestry policies and legislationare 'good', but that implementation andenforcement are weak.This conflicts with theview that forestry policies and legislation arein dire need of reform, to correct, amongother things, the failure to recogniseindigenous rights to forests and forestresources.
The report also highlights the linkbetween deforestation and the demand foroil palm products (including Europeandemand for oil palm as biofuel), the policy toexpand coal production, and the failure toencourage the development of renewableenergy sources.
Avoided deforestation - will it work?What can be done to stop the peatland andforest destruction and reduce thegreenhouse gas emissions that are drivingclimate change? ‘Avoided deforestation’ is oneof the major initiatives to emerge over thepast few years, but has received little criticalattention from civil society until now.
A key tool for understandingavoided deforestation and its potentialproblems is a paper published in June thisyear by UK-based NGO Forest PeoplesProgramme, Seeing "RED"? "Avoideddeforestation" and the rights of IndigenousPeoples and local communities. The following isextracted from this document, with someminor additions by DTE.
What is avoided deforestation?The term 'avoided deforestation', as it iscurrently being used in development circles,refers to the prevention or reduction offorest loss in order to reduce emissions ofglobal warming gases. Land use change,especially forest loss in the tropics, is believedto contribute between 18 and 20% of allannual emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), sothere is a growing international push to seeka reduction in deforestation as a means ofcombating climate change.
Some countries want avoideddeforestation schemes to include restorationof degraded forest areas(so-called ReducedEmissions from Deforestation and ForestDegradation - REDD), not just protection ofexisting forests. Not surprisingly, Indonesiasupports this option, which favours countrieswith large areas of severely damaged forestsdue to unsustainable industrial logging.Others want to restrict schemes to avoideddeforestation only (RED), arguing thatmeasuring degradation, and thereforeassessing the benefit of restoration efforts, istoo difficult.
How will it be carried out?Proposals for avoided deforestation fall intotwo main groups:
market-based approaches - linkingschemes to reduce deforestation to aglobal carbon trading system. TheCoalition for Rainforest Nations, mostconservation NGOs and carbon financebusinesses are pushing for schemes inwhich forested countries get carbonemission reduction credits for not cuttingtheir forests. These credits can then besold on the international carbon marketto countries with carbon-emittingindustries which need the credits tocontinue operating. This is ethicallyproblematic as countries and companiescan buy the rights to continue pollutingthe planet's atmosphere.
public funding approaches - using aid fromrich countries to pay forest-rich countriesin the South to reduce forest clearance.The aid is to be collected throughvoluntary contributions fromindustrialised countries or through taxes.Indonesia and Brazil favour this option.Whether the payments are annual or atother regular intervals and whether theyare 'up front' or 'on delivery' is still amatter for negotiation.
Where is the money coming from?The World Bank has become a lead player inproposals to finance schemes that seek toreduce emissions from deforestation. At theG8 meeting in Germany in June, it securedhigh-level political backing for a new 'ForestCarbon Partnership Facility' (FCPF) that will'test the feasibility' of different approaches tofunding RED/REDD. FSC (Forest StewardshipCouncil) certification is to play a key part inthis.
The Bank promotes a mixedapproach (market-based and public funding),but favours carbon trading. Bank economistsstress that only markets will deliver enoughfunds to tackle climate change. They predictthat carbon finance projects could grow toover US$1 bn by 2015.The Bank is scheduledto make final decisions on the US$250scheme in September.
The Bank proposes that the FCPFwill be part of a huge new donor and private
The Stern Review
Ex-World Bank chief economist, SirNicholas Stern was commissioned by theUK government's treasury to carry out astudy on climate change in the run-up tothe next UN climate change conference.The Stern Review on Climate Change,released in October 2006, drewinternational attention to climate changeand the potential of forests to mitigateglobal warming. He proposed that 'avoideddeforestation' measures should be part ofany post-Kyoto climate agreement andthat pilot schemes should start as soon aspossible.
Sir Nicholas' four-day visit toIndonesia in late March 2007 ensured thatclimate change was placed firmly on theIndonesian government's political agenda.In addition to addressing President SBYand his cabinet and several commissions ofIndonesia's parliament, he had meetingswith students and conservationorganisations. He also visited Jambi - aprovince which has been badly affected byforest fires and large-scale oil palmplantations. Only one million ha of Jambi's5.3 million ha is still forested, according toconservation NGO Warsi.
A summary of the Stern Reviewis available at http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk./independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/sternreview_summary.cfm.(Sources:http://www.britishembassy.gov.uk;Tempointeraktif 30/Jan/07)
Indonesia’s peat swampforests and climate change
Indonesia's 21 million hectares of peatswamps - 60% of the world's total - arehigh on international policy makers' agendato reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Peat swamps are 50-60% carbonwhich rapidly oxidises to release CO2 ifexposed to the air.Around 9 millionhectares of this endangered habitat havebeen destroyed in Indonesia due to over-logging, drainage and burning in order toset up pulpwood or oil palm plantations.Areport commissioned by WetlandsInternational estimates that 2 billiontonnes of carbon are released each yearfrom Indonesia's peatlands.
WALHI claims that paper pulpgiant APRIL destroyed 50,000 ha of swampforest in the province of Riau in 2003-4alone to establish fastwood plantations.
(Sources: Peatland Degradation Fuels ClimateChange, Wetlands International, November2006, seehttp://www.wetlands.org/publication.aspx?ID=d67b5c30-2b07-435c-9366-c20aa597839b;www.walhi.or.id/kampanye/hutan/strukturisasi/join_10092004
3
DOWN TO EARTH No.74,August 2007
sector funded Global Forest Alliance (GFA),announced at the 7th UN Forum on Forestsin April. The Bank is already part of aninitiative with WWF - also referred to as theGlobal Forest Alliance - to reducedeforestation and curb illegal logging. InIndonesia, the WWF/GFA has been workingwith timber companies to identify so-calledHigh Conservation Value Forests and createmarket links to promote wood from well-managed forests. To add confusion, TheNature Conservancy and WWF alsoestablished a Forest Alliance in 2002 withseveral private sector enterprises includingmajor timber retailers.
Countries who have committedfunds to avoided deforestation schemesinclude Australia, which this July announced aUS$160 million fund for both avoideddeforestation and reforestation in the Asia-Pacific region.
The costs of avoided deforestation,as estimated by the World Bank are high:reducing the annual rate of deforestation indeveloping countries by 20% through avoideddeforestation would cost US$2 - 20 billion ayear. On the other hand, Bank experts reckonthat US$100 bn could stop deforestationcompletely.
Who gets the money?The Bank says that compensation paymentsfor reducing deforestation could range fromUS$200 - 10,000 per hectare of forest for aslong as it remains intact.Who actually wouldreceive the money in the countries where theavoided deforestation is being carried out, isnot clear in the proposed schemes. Mostsources imply that payments will benationally-based or directed at governmentagencies. Proposals by the Indonesiangovernment suggest that funds could bedistributed among protected area authorities,'certified' logging companies engaged insustainable forest management, initiatives totackle illegal logging, payment forenvironmental services (PES) schemes, andcommunity-based forest management.
Proposed scheme in IndonesiaThere are very few existing avoideddeforestation schemes in the world and mostof these are pilot voluntary initiativesfinanced by conservation and developmentNGOs, which have not yet been criticallyassessed by social justice NGOs orgrassroots organisations.
However, the international impetusto develop more schemes is growing. TheWorld Bank is proposing FCPF pilot projectsin Papua New Guinea, Costa Rica, Indonesia,Brazil and the Democratic Republic ofCongo.The proposal is for these countries tolimit carbon emissions from deforestation by2009 or 2010 in return for US$250 millioninvestment.
Viewed cynically, avoideddeforestation projects could simply become alucrative mechanism for Indonesia's flaggingforestry industry to attract more capital andexpertise. On the other hand, REDDpayments could make conservation morefinancially attractive than logging. Suddenly,keeping Indonesia's forest cover intact hasbecome an attractive policy option.Environment minister Witoelarenthusiastically told the press that "We areready. We have a grand plan to identify andrestore or conserve our forest areas. Wehave also prepared the financial side of the
deal."1
Avoided deforestation could attractmassive funding. A targeted area of 1 millionha of mature pristine forest, with an averagecarbon stock of 600t CO2e per hectare,would produce 600 million tonnes of carboncredits. If the agreed price of 1 tonne of CO2e
was US$5, this would generate US$3bn incompensation. Indonesia has over 18 millionha of protected forest according to officialdata. Gross revenues to the government fromforest operations in 1997/8 only totalledUS$1.1bn.2
Indonesia has another incentive inaddition to the potential financial returnsfrom REDD. The government would find ithard to negotiate increases in carbonemissions from industry and domesticsources linked to economic growth when itsemissions due to land use change are so high.
Following Australia's Aprilannouncement of its Asia-Pacific fund, thegovernors of Aceh, Papua and 'Papua Barat'3
published a statement expressing interest inavoided deforestation scheme and suggestedthey might put a moratorium on industriallogging if avoided deforestation funds couldbe secured. (Aceh has done this - see p.7.)
What are the main concerns?There are clear risks, but also potentialbenefits to be gained by indigenous peoplesand forest-dependent communities underavoided deforestation mechanisms. Mostexisting proposals mention the need forcommunity 'participation' and local benefitsfor forest communities. The Aceh and Papuagovernors pledged that the rights ofindigenous peoples and local communitieswould be respected in any avoideddeforestation programmes in their provinces.But, in current proposals, there are scantdetails as to how people's rights will berespected and how equitable and sustainablelocal benefits might be ensured.
The many concerns about avoideddeforestation schemes include the following:
Top-down and unsustainable? Pastexperience shows that top-down schemesdevised without the full knowledge andagreement of forest peoples and localcommunities will fail, and that top-downschemes may reinforce the unequal statusquo on forest politics. Most avoideddeforestation proposals currently stemfrom the World Bank, governments andlarge conservation NGOs.Anti-people conservation? The concern isthat funds for forest protection will bespent on equipment for forest guards andsustain an outdated anti-people approachto forest protection, which excludes localpeople from forests and reinforces stateand private sector control over forests.Rights, conflict and unequal terms: Incountries (like Indonesia) where the statefails to adequately recognise indigenouspeoples' customary rights over forests,decision-making over zoning for avoideddeforestation and how the income isshared could marginalise or excludeindigenous communities. There is a highrisk of their right to Free Prior and
Kyoto and Bali
The UN Framework Convention onClimate Change (UNFCCC) was one ofthe achievements of the 1992 EarthSummit in Rio.The Kyoto Protocol set thetargets for industrialised countries toreduce greenhouse gas emissions andestablished the Clean DevelopmentMechanism (CDM).This helps fundprojects that reduce carbon emissions andestablished a carbon market for trading'Certified Emission Reduction' credits.Indonesia signed the Kyoto Protocol in1998 and ratified it in 2004.
Only afforestation or reforestationprojects are eligible for CDM fundingunder the existing Kyoto Protocol, but notinitiatives to stop damage to remainingforests, including swamp forests. Indonesiacurrently has no forest CDM projects.Indonesia's Ministry of the Environment iscurrently taking the lead on the country'spolicy on climate change.
Representatives of 189 countries areexpected to gather for the 13thConference of the Parties (COP) of theclimate change convention in Bali inDecember.A report on 'ReducedEmissions from Deforestation' will bepresented as the basis for discussionsabout climate change controls after theKyoto Protocol ends in 2012. Financeministers from around the world will alsobe meeting in Bali to agree the financialterms for making forest conservationprofitable.
Seehttp://unfccc.int/files/essential_background/kyoto_protocol/application/pdf/kpstats.pdf
4
DOWN TO EARTH No. 74,August 2007
Informed Consent being ignored. Even ifcommunities are able to negotiate directbenefits under avoided deforestationschemes, there is no guarantee that theterms of negotiation will be equal.Avoideddeforestation schemes may also generateconflicts between communities includedin benefit-sharing schemes and thoseexcluded from them.Corruption: There is a risk of corruptionwhere large sums of money are involved.This could mean that little of the benefits- even where these are secured by localcommunities - will actually reach thetargets, due to capture by state agencies,local government and conservationNGOs.Also, payments for avoided carbonemissions must ensure sustained forestprotection rather than quick fixes in orderto get an easy profit.
For any scheme to work, there must be goodquality data to determine baseline levels ofdeforestation in target countries plusmeasures to increase capacity to monitor andcontrol forest management.An agreement onreliable independent verification is anessential element.
In the rush to get started withavoided deforestation, the main playersinvolved have not dealt in detail with theseand other serious social and ethical concerns.At worst, some promoters of avoideddeforestation schemes see questions of rightsas a 'side issue' or even a 'distraction' fromthe core task of saving the planet, even when
past experience shows that these arefundamental to achieving sustainabledevelopment and securing effective measuresto sustainably managed forests. Governmentsand international agencies rushing to establishavoided deforestation schemes must bereminded that states have a legal obligation touphold human rights and fulfil internationalcommitments under environmental treaties.Supporters of avoided deforestation may usestandards developed by agencies involved inforestry and PES schemes to demonstratethat they are paying attention to social andrights issues. However, these standards aremostly voluntary and non-enforceable. Also,some are based on rewarding future goodpractice, while ignoring current unacceptablepractice.
To address the gaps in the avoideddeforestation policy debate, it seems essentialthat indigenous peoples and forestmovements worldwide start serious internaldialogue on the pros and cons of REDDschemes run by governments and the WorldBank.Action is needed to ensure:
Indigenous peoples and forest movementsare directly engaged in the currentinternational and national debates onavoided deforestation/REDD;Human rights, FPIC, respect forcustomary land and resource rights, landtenure and security, equitable benefitsharing and good governance are madecentral in discussions on avoideddeforestation policy;
Guarantees are forthcoming thatcustomary rights will be recognised andrespected;International and national avoideddeforestation policies adopt a rights-based approach to sustainable forestconservation and forest management;Guarantees are secured that indigenouspeoples will retain and recover controlover their forests and receive support forgenuine community-based forestmanagement;Dialogue with avoided deforestationsupporters is undertaken in good faithand addresses both potential benefits andrisks;Any processes to identify national andlocal drivers of deforestation in tropicalcountries and decisions on tackling thesemust involve forest peoples and forest-dependent communities;Any proposed standard setting and rulesfor avoided deforestation schemes fullyinvolve potentially affected indigenouspeoples and local communities andrequire full conformity with internationallaw.
1.http://planetark.com/ accessed 2/Jul/072.All figures from Indonesia's SBSTA submission,
20073.This is the new name for 'Irian Jaya Barat'
province, created under the policy imposed bythe Jakarta government, widely opposed inPapua itself, to split Papua into three provinces.
Information sources
Indonesia and Climate Change: Current Status and Policies, PT Pelangi Energi Abadi Citra Enviro (PEACE), May 2007. Press release:http://go.worldbank.org/5BZ6ZJU9T0,The full report (English) is athttp://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTINDONESIA/Resources/Environment/ClimateChange_Full_EN.pdf and (Indonesian) athttp://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTINDONESIAINBAHASA/Resources/Environment/ClimateChange_Full_BH.pdf. Summaries are alsoavailable on the World Bank site - see http://go.worldbank.org/TB2AM3H2I0
Seeing "RED"? "Avoided deforestation" and the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities by Tom Griffiths, Forest Peoples Programme, June2007. http://www.forestpeoples.org/documents/ifi_igo/avoided_deforestation_red_jun07_eng.pdf
Government of Indonesia (2007) Reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries (REDD)Paper submitted to UNFCCC SBSTA by the Government of Indonesiahttp://www.cifor.cgiar.org/NR/rdonlyres/4E81DB28-410F-4885-ACB6-6CA802603A32/0/indonesia.pdf
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will hold its next meeting (COP 13) in Bali on 3-14 December 2007. Forfurther details see http://unfccc.int/meetings/cop_13/items/4049.php
March 2007 workshop on Avoided Deforestation at UNFCCChttp://unfccc.int/methods_and_science/lulucf/items/3918.php
The World Bank's strategy for Indonesia's forests, 2006-2009, is available in English and Bahasa Indonesia: seehttp://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTINDONESIA/Resources/Publication/280016-1152870963030/IDForestStrategy.pdf?resourceurlname=IDForestStrategy.pdf
A World Bank PowerPoint Presentation on the Global Forest Alliance (GFA) and Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF), May 2007, isavailable at www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/sevilla-2007/groups/Worldbank.pdf
For more information on climate change, forests and the carbon trade see Sinks Watch at http://www.sinkswatch.org/, Fern at www.fern.org,and The Corner House at www.thecornerhouse.org.uk
5
DOWN TO EARTH No. 74,August 2007
forests
Indonesia's forestry department announcedtarget figures for 'Peoples Plantations' (HutanTanaman Rakyat - HTR) in February this year.A total area of 5.4 million hectares in eightprovinces in Sumatra and Kalimantan,consisting of 'non-productive productionforest' has been identified for the scheme.Production forests are one of Indonesia'sthree main forest classifications alongsideprotection/conservation and conversionforests.These have been severely depleted bydestructive logging since the 1970s to theextent that Indonesia has been identified asthe country with the highest rate ofdeforestation (see DTE 73:9) At least 32million hectares of 'state forest' have noforest cover, including nearly 15 million hazoned as production forest. It is not clearhow the target area for HTR has beenselected from this total.
The HTR programme will involve360,000 families, each allocated 15 hectaresto manage for a maximum of 100 years.Individuals can form co-operatives which areallowed to apply for a larger area.The targetis to complete land allocation by 2010, at anaverage rate of 1.4 million hectares per year.
Three models of HTR have beendevised: 'independent', 'partnership' and'developer' models, which involve varyinglevels of private sector or state participation.In the 'partnership' model, the partners are tobe 'facilitated by the government'. In the'developer mode, the plantation is set up by aprivate or state-owned enterprise that laterhands over the HTR to an individual whichhas requested a permit.
HTR licence-holders, which may beindividuals or local people's cooperatives,qualify for a loan worth Rp 8 million (aroundUSD900) from the state Reforestation Fund,for land allocated by the forestry minister,assistance with applications, low interestrates, assistance with institutionalstrengthening from the local district head(Bupati) and for price protection when thetimber is ready to harvest.
The total budget is Rp 43.2 trillion(USD4.8 billion), and the programme isscheduled to start this year.
A government regulation, passed inJanuary 2007 (PP 6/2007) sets out furtherdetails of the scheme:
Every five years the licences will beevaluated by the forestry minister;The licence for HTR (called IUPHHK) canonly be issued once and cannot beextended, resold or bequeathed;IUPHHKs for HTR are issued by theforestry minister, but can be delegated toprovincial governor;HTR licence holders are obliged to supplythe wood industry and to plant at least50% of their plantation area;They must prepare a long-term workplanwithin a year of receiving the licence, tobe agreed with the district head or otherindicated official;They must prepare annual workplans;They must submit periodic performancereports to the forestry minister.
The HTR programme is part of a wider effortaimed at developing plantations on 9 millionhectares of land identified as non-productiveby the government, thereby increasing thesupply of raw materials and revitalisingIndonesia's forestry industry.The goal is to re-establish forestry as a major player in thenational economy as well as reduce povertyby providing jobs, land and credit. Forestry
sector revitalisation is, in turn, part of thegovernment's 'RPPK' (Revitalisation ofFarming, Fisheries and Forestry) agendaannounced in early 2006. It is also intendedto create clearer tenure arrangements andtherefore reduce land conflict (althoughwithin the existing paradigm of state landownership).
ConcernsDestructive logging in Indonesia is a gravethreat to the sustainability of localcommunities, biodiversity, and local andnational economies. It also has global knock-on effects, as deforestation is a majorcontributor to global warming (see separatearticle, page 1). However, there are questionsover whether HTR can be part of thesolution and whether the dual goals ofincreasing wood supply and povertyreduction are compatible or contradictory.These questions include:
Whose land? The land targeted for HTR isallocated by the Department of Forestry on'land not subject to rights' (lahan tidakdibebani hak) in locations close to timberprocessing units). According to forestrydepartment data, such land covers 12.3million hectares. The question immediatelyarises: which rights are included here? Pastforestry policies and land classificationregimes are well-known for their failure toinclude the customary rights over land andresources held by indigenous peoples (wilayahadat). Legal recognition of adat land remainsvery difficult under current national laws and,in forest areas, is almost without exceptionlimited to access rights, rather than fullownership rights. Since HTR is targeted forforest areas controlled by the state, it must beassumed that adat rights will hardly enter intothe picture. Moreover, since land allocationwill be under the central control of theforestry minister, the potential foraccommodating adat access or ownershiprights which are recognised under local laws,is restricted. Yet it is likely that customaryrights cover many of the very areas targetedby HTR.An indication of this is given in a new
'Peoples Plantations': help or hindrancein tackling deforestation?
Indonesia's forestry department is allocating millions of hectares of land to a new scheme aimed at increasing thesupply for wood for the pulp and timber industries, as well as tackling poverty. But serious flaws with the 'peoples
plantations' programme are raising concerns that the scheme could do more harm than good.
6
DOWN TO EARTH No.74,August 2007
report published by the World AgroforestryCentre, which looked at one area in NorthSumatra. The authors show that over half ofareas indicated by the forestry departmentfor HTR were classified by the national landagency (BPN) as 'adat land' (see box for moredetails of this report).
Who participates? Given the extremelyweak legal status of indigenous land rights, thedoor appears to be open to the takeover ofadat areas in the name of HTR. Participants ofthe various models include private and state-owned companies, and/or individuals andcooperatives. There appear to be noguarantees that local indigenous communitieswill be the ones to secure the HTR permits,if they choose to use the opportunity to gaina level of recognition over their adat areas.Or, if they choose not to, that there is anymeans of keeping adat land out of thescheme. The possibility of adat land beinghanded over for 100-year periods toindividuals or cooperatives in partnershipwith companies, puts the HTR scheme on asimilar level to other plantation developmentschemes, where indigenous communities haveended up marginalised, with loss of controlover their customary land and resources.
What to plant? Regulation 6/2007 puts HTRparticipants under the obligation to supplythe wood industry, but gives them the choiceof planting monocultures or mixed species.While allowing for some freedom of decision-making - an improvement on some pastschemes where participants were instructedto grow a single tree species - this still limitschoice. The current plans will not allowtraditional multi-species agroforestry plotswith mixed crops of fruit, coffee and timberspecies. (A forestry department document onHTR points to 28 recommended species forKalimantan and Sumatra, but, in one area at
least, this has omitted some favourite localtree species - see box). How free will thefarmers be not to follow therecommendations? Should increasing supplyto the wood industry (rather than tacklingovercapacity by closing mills and not buildingnew ones) take precedence over farmerchoice according to local markets for fruit,resins, construction wood and otherproducts which may not be related to thewood industries?
What price? Regulation 6/2007 says that theforestry minister will fix the price ofharvested timber. What are the guaranteesthat this will be fair and that participants willbe able to repay credit, or that their profitsare not eroded by corruption?
What is the priority? All the signs are thatthe main purpose of HTR is to increasetimber production for the wood processingindustry: rural livelihoods and forestconservation are very much secondary goals.Several questions arise here:
How will control and profit-sharing bedetermined in community-companypartnerships - for example between pulpproducer Sinar Mas and its outgrowers? Where are the plans for capacity-buildingfor individual or HTR permit holders?Unless they can deal with negotiating withlocal government, drawing up businessplans, and getting technical assistance ongrowing and marketing, this scheme willsimply turn participating 'small-holder'communities into cheap labour forcompanies as has happened in the oil palmplantation sector.How will families (and their businesses)survive for the eight years or more thatthe trees will take to grow? Will they haveto borrow money in addition to the loansfrom the Reforestation Fund for plantingtree seedlings?What happens if the HTR holder dies? Ifthe rights last for 100 years and are nottransferable, the family could be left withdebts while the licence reverts to thestate.How are environmental and socio-economic development issues to be dealtwith when district authorities do not havethe capacity or experience to balancethese needs? (Under PP6/07 the districthead is expected to do this by ratifyingthe annual work plans for all the HTRplans within a district.) How will conflicts or opportunities forcorruption be avoided where two groupsapply for the same HTR plot? There is no indication of how HTR will fitin with climate control measures,including tree planting for carbon tradingcredits (see page 1).
World Agroforestry Centerreport
When announcing the HTR land allocationfigures, the forestry department statedthat 'clarification of the actual conditionsin the field' would be done beforeimplementing the programme. Strongevidence that this is indeed a necessity ispresented in a new report by the WorldAgroforestry Center, Is Hutan TanamanRakyat a new paradigm in community basedtree planting in Indonesia? The report'sauthors compared maps prepared by theforestry ministry which indicated areaswhere HTR rules could be applied, withdata from its geographic data system forone area in North Sumatra where it hadconducted recent field work.Thecomparison found a large gap between thereality on the ground and what an HTRarea is supposed to look like, according togovernment perceptions. For example,HTR is intended for 'non-productiveproduction forests' but according to thereport, only 29% of the area indicated forHTR is actually classified as productionforest. Moreover, only 3% of the area doesnot currently have a productive tree cover,agricultural use, or is a settlement.Afurther dataset showed that 52% of theindicated area was classified as 'adat' landby the national land agency (BPN).
The authors conclude:
[t]his is only one 'sample', where we had'ground truth' data from recent fieldwork.But it is at least suggestive that theexisting 'indicative' HTR maps are not areliable and sufficient basis to developpolicies.
The study also found that tree speciessuggested as suitable for the local soil andclimate, had omitted three of the mostfavoured 'peoples trees' (durian, Kemenyanand Para Rubber).This points to theproblem of what to prioritise: the interestsof the wood industry or those of thefarmers who will grow the trees.The twocould well be incompatible.
Is Hutan Tanaman Rakyat a new paradigm incommunity based tree planting in Indonesia?,by Meine van Noordwijk, S Suyanto,Suseno Budidarsono, Niken Sakuntaladewi,James M Roshetko, Hesti L Tata, GammaGaludra and Chip Fay, ICRAF WorkingPaper 45, ICRAF Southeast Asia 2007,World Agroforestry Centre, is at:http://www.worldagroforestrycentre.org/downloads/publications/PDFs/wp14965.pdf
NGOs reject HTRA statement by a group of leadingIndonesian environmental NGOs hascriticised the World Bank’s role in pushingHTR to supply the wood-based industries,including pulp.The NGOs rejected theBank’s new strategy for Indonesia’sforestry sector. “We reject the strategy ofinvolving communities in restructuring theforestry industry under timber plantationor HTR models, because the concepts andmodels used will trap people in a cycle ofdependency on large companies, whilefailing to address the problems of poverty.”
(CAPPA,Yayasan Hakiki,WALHI Kalsel,WALHI Eknas,Yayasan Setara: Tidak adalage hutang dan liberalisasi di sektorkehutanan, received 29/May/07)
(continued next page)
Further concerns have been raisedabout the forestry department's legal right toallocate land (since so little land claimed bythe department has actually been legalised assuch); the potential for violating the principleof free, prior and informed consent ofindigenous peoples whose areas are targeted,and the credit arrangements for participants.Experience from the past shows that top-down, centrally-planned and controlled, large-scale programmes often end in social andenvironmental disaster. The transmigrationprogramme (which included a tree-cropelement), the nucleus-estate / smallholder(PIR) plantation model and the attempt toconvert a million hectares of CentralKalimantan peatland into ricefields are clearexamples of such schemes. It remains to beseen how far the lessons from these hugelydamaging and costly mega-projects have beenlearned.
(Sources: Forestry Department PressRelease S 51/II/PIK-1/2007, 21/Feb/07 and S525/II/PIK-1/2006, 3/Oct/06; Dirjen BinaProduksi Kehutanan Pembangunan Hutan
Tanaman Rakyat (HTR) [no date]; RisalahPertemuan Working Group Tenure (WG-T) danWorking Group Persiapan PercepatanPembangunan Hutanan Tanaman Rakyat (WG-PPPHTR) 21 July 2006; Strategic Options forForest Assistance in Indonesia, IBRD/the WorldBank, Dec 2006. For further background ontransmigration, PIR and the CentralKalimantan mega-project see for exampleDTE's 2001 report on transmigration athttp://dte.gn.apc.org/ctrans.htm)
DOWN TO EARTH No.74,August 2007
7
Separate targets for JavaIn October 2006 the forestry departmentmade an announcement to counterrumours that it was about to reduce thearea classified as forest in Java and divide itbetween communities. Instead, access (notownership) is to be given to localcommunities in a target area of 1.8 millionhectares of poorly-managed productionforest.This is to be planted, cultivated andharvested with increased communityparticipation, according to sustainableforestry practices.The status of theseareas will remain state forest, under themanagement of the state-owned forestrycompany Perhutani.
Perhutani has an extremely poorrecord on relations with localcommunities, and on addressing conflictingclaims over land and forest resources.Thecompany has been accused of sanctioningthe use of violence, torture andintimidation to try to suppress conflictsover land - see for example cases outlinedin DTE 66:12 and DTE 60:9.
WALHI calls for logging moratoriumIndonesia's most prominent environmentgroup,WALHI (Friends of the Earth Indonesia)has repeated its call for a logging moratoriumacross the country.The NGO says that annualdeforestation is running at 2.72 millionhectares - an area the size of Bali. With only41.25 million hectares of good qualityproduction forests remaining, a higherdemand for timber than supply and with thedemand for biofuel driving the expansion ofoil palm plantations, WALHI estimates thatnatural forests in Sumatra, Kalimantan andSulawesi will be extinct by 2012.Timber priceswill escalate as supply diminishes and mosttimber is sourced from Papua. In 2022, saysWALHI, all natural forests in Indonesia will begone and prices will climb higher as thecountry becomes reliant on imports.
The NGO says the moratorium - onlogging and forest conversion activities - mustbe applied for at least 15 years.The period isconsidered sufficient to resolve managementand policy conflicts and formulate 1) aprotocol for conflict resolution, 2) a standardfor ecological services in plantations and 3)the drawing up of a community forestrysystem as the standard policy for forests inIndonesia.
WALHI calculates that Indonesia'sforestry industry contributed Rp 1.484 trillion(US$160 million) to the national foreignaccount deficit in 2006.This sum is reached bytaking losses in revenues of Rp22.862 trillionfrom illegal logging (over 19 million m3) plusdirect losses from flooding and landslides ofRp 8.158 trillion against foreign exchangeincome from forestry exports, which totalledRp 29,536 trillion. The calculation does notinclude losses from timber smuggling, thecosts of conflict or the loss in ecological valueof forest resources.
WALHI proposes a five-stageimplementation process for the moratorium,starting with a stop on issuing permits forlogging and plantations in forests.The processwould also include the government fulfillingprevious commitments on restructuring thewood industries to tackle overcapacity and onrestructuring tenurial rights. Starting withSumatra and Sulawesi - whose forests aremost threatened - the logging ban wouldextend to all of Indonesia within 2-3 years.Logging would only be permitted in plantationforests or in forests managed by localcommunities.
WALHI first proposed a logging banin 2001 (see DTE 49:9; DTE 56:5,http://dte.gn.apc.org/56fo1.htm)
Aceh logging moratoriumwelcomedA commitment to suspend logging in Acehfrom May this year, announced by Acehgovernor Irwandi Yusuf, has been applauded byWALHI. Aceh's once vast forests have beendecimated by logging companies over the pastdecades, many of them operating illegally.Recently, demand for timber for post-tsunamireconstruction work has added to overseasdemand for logs to put additional pressure onthe forests. Indigenous communities havestruggled through the many years of conflictto hold onto their customary forests, in theface of destructive road schemes andplantation developments. Previous loggingmoratoriums have not been able to stem thedestruction (see DTE 68:12 for morebackground).
(WALHI, Moratorium on Logging Now!http://www.eng.walhi.or.id/kampanye/hutan/jeda/070425_moratorium_logging_li/
(continued from previous page)
New website on pulp The NGO Urgewald has set up a newwebsite: www.pulpmillwatch.org, todocument the problems caused by thepulp industry's operations around theworld.The website will inform the public,financiers and decision makers aboutupcoming pulp projects and the problemsassociated with these projects.
Urgewald’s new report Banks, Pulp andPeople can be downloaded from the site.
8
DOWN TO EARTH No. 74,August 2007
Indigenous Women’s workshopat AMAN Congress
The position and role of indigenous women facing development aggression.
By Devi Anggraini1
indigenous women
Why does the government issue licences forinvestors to take away our livelihoods? We can'texist without our livelihoods. For without land, wecannot eat.
(Aleta,West Timorese participant inindigenous women's meeting, KMAN III)
The Third Congress of the Indigenous Peoplesof the Archipelago (KMAN III) took place inPontianak, West Kalimantan from 17 to 20March 2007 (see also DTE 73:14). This, thebiggest celebration of indigenous peoples inIndonesia, was organised by the Alliance ofIndigenous Peoples of the Archipelago,AMAN.One of the congress events was theIndigenous Women's Workshop, which ranparallel to ten other workshops.The day-longmeeting, attended by 70 participants, had thetheme of Indigenous Women andDevelopment Aggression. Its aims were tobring together indigenous womenrepresentatives to describe their situation intheir own areas; to examine and findstrategies to strengthen the role of women indecision-making both in the community and inthe national political system; and to createcritical awareness among indigenous womenof their role in natural resources managementin the context of the development process.They then went on to discussrecommendations to KMAN III on theposition of indigenous women within AMAN.
The participants came from all overIndonesia and included young and olderwomen from a wide range of backgroundsincluding adat organisations, women'sorganisations involved with literacy, educationand health projects, weaving and farming co-operatives (including oil palm plantations)teachers and health workers, survivors ofviolence in Aceh, Papua and Poso and activistsfrom the North Sumatra land rights group,BPRPI (see DTE 63:15).
The whole workshop was facilitatedand presented by women from indigenouscommunities.The topics selected were raisedby women directly affected by the problems.These were: indigenous women and militarism(Nurjamaliah, from Aceh Indigenous Peoples'Network - JKMA); indigenous women andmining (Aleta Ba'un, from West Timor);
indigenous women and traditional knowledgein natural resource management (RukminiPaata Toheke, from the Ngata Toro communityin Central Sulawesi); the role of indigenouswomen in decision-making at community level(Den Upa Rombelayuk, Toraja community,South Sulawesi); indigenous women andconflict resolution (Mariam Bombong,Mamasa community, South Sulawesi); andindigenous women and parliament (Ida AyuBagus Agung Mas, Member of the RegionalRepresentative Council, or DPD, from Bali).The chairperson was Romba' Marannu(Toraya Indigenous Peoples Alliance, Toraja,South Sulawesi). Joan Carling from theCordillera Peoples Alliance, was the guestspeaker, who shared her experiences anddescribed the situation of indigenous womenin the Philippines.
The workshop was participative andinteractive.There was a strong sense of trustand co-operation throughout the day andpeople who had never met worked welltogether in small groups. From theexperiences shared and the ensuingdiscussions - which the participantscontributed to with great enthusiasm - thereemerged a distinct picture of indigenouswomen's position in Indonesia's developmentprocess.
It was clear that indigenouswomen's main role in the community is tosafeguard the sustainability of community life.This is shown by the crucial roles that womenplay and is made possible by indigenouswomen's capacity to develop collective waysof working, both in their own groups and inthe community in general. Indigenous womenregulate food security - it is they who decidewhen to begin planting. They regulatecommunity wealth, especially protection ofagrarian resources (forest, water,conservation areas etc). Indigenous womenmake the final judgement in decision-makingon social affairs.
We cannot give birth to land. If the men sell theland for plantations,where must our children live?
(Participant from Arso,West Papua in thediscussion on Gender and Natural Resources
Management)
In several parts of Indonesia, womentraditionally play an important role in naturalresources management. In Aceh, collectingshellfish in the mangrove forests is part ofindigenous women's daily routine. In Maluku,women work the productive tidal area (called'meti'), where they also collect shellfish. InKalimantan, women generally look after thecultivation of medicinal plants. And there aremany other examples from different parts ofthe country where there is an interaction orlink between women and their resourcemanagement areas (Anggraini, 20062).
State neglectState control over indigenous peoples' naturalresources is based on a misinterpretation ofIndonesia's Constitution. The state's duty tomanage and distribute benefits justly for thewhole Indonesian people was interpreted as'the state's right to control'. The land, rivers,sea and sky and all natural wealth weretreated as a productive asset to becommercialised, while ignoring the ideals ofachieving the greatest prosperity for all. Thestate abused its position and denied that itsright to control should be limited by people'srights, whether individual or communal, overland and natural resources.
At the women’s workshop, KMAN III, 2007 (DTE)
The state's trust in the capacity oflarge-scale industries to manage naturalresources, resulted in large corporationstaking control of areas where indigenouspeoples lived. Timber companies, plantationdevelopers, the illegal logging mafia andmining companies took over huge swathes ofindigenous lands.
The state's marginalisation ofindigenous peoples began with this'development' process and a parallel attemptto 'modernise' indigenous peoples, focusingon their management of natural resources.Development policies which depended on theparadigms of industrialisation and capitalaccumulation left no room for the traditionalknowledge used by indigenous peoples intheir resource management practices. Thesystematic destruction of indigenouscommunities' identities devastated theirnatural resources management regimes andthe social order which sprang from them.(Anggraini, 20063).
Communities who were once ableto organise their resource managementmodels independently, based on informalagreements, were in a weak position whendevelopment projects entered into theirareas. These required formal arrangements,usually favoured the individual, and werebiased towards men as head of households inindigenous community life.
Eventually, the developmentprocess resulted in the multiplemarginalisation of indigenous women. Thistakes two forms: firstly, marginalisation due togovernment policies, which fail to recogniseindigenous peoples' rights to land and naturalresources. Development policies have nevertreated indigenous women as a part of thecommunity in their own right, meaning that,both in planning stages and implementation,they have neglected the interests andopinions of indigenous women.Through thesepolicies, the government has effected theexclusion of women's roles and and thelimitation of women's room to manoeuvrewithin their own communities.
Secondly, there is marginalisationdue to lack of decision-making power.Generally, indigenous women do not haveaccess to decision-making at any level.Important decisions affecting the futuresustainability of the family and the community,including decisions about indigenous womenthemselves, are taken without women'sinvolvement.
Making a differenceSome indigenous women have started tooppose the denial of their political, civil,social, cultural and economic rights, as wasmanifest in the workshop. One example camefrom the Ngata Toro community, where theyhave used efforts to revitalise adat as a means
of strengthening women's rights. Women'scustomary decision-making roles had beengreatly reduced by state intervention invillage administration in the 1970s. Thestimulus for this initiative was the struggle toregain control over Ngata Toro's customarylands, much of which had become part ofLore Lindu National Park. (see box)
A proposal to create the newdistricts of Arale,Tabulahan and Mambi withinSouth Sulawesi province led to conflict whichhas not been resolved to date. Religion andethnicity are being used by an elite group todivide the indigenous communities. In thiscontext, groups of women started makinghouse-to-house visits, in an attempt to initiatereconciliation, and set up a meeting betweenpeople who are for and against the new
districts. Another meeting was planned forJune 2007.
In West Timor, groups of indigenouswomen, working together with youth groupsfrom 36 villages mounted a campaign tooppose marble mining in their customaryarea. The decision was taken by thecommunity that the women would be in thefront line of the campaign. But the strugglewas not easy: it was difficult to convince thecommunity - especially the men - to opposethe mine. The women convinced them byarguing that they were trying to save thefuture of their families and the community.
These examples discussed at theworkshop were empowering for womenparticipants, who were encouraged to getmore involved in making decisions aboutsustaining the life of their communities. Acommon theme of speakers through the daywas that women should be more proactiveand put themselves forward forrepresentation in government and non-government bodies. Several of the workshopparticipants were members of village councils(BPD) and one was a candidate to become avillage head. In one speaker's words "Womenare extraordinary, but we are never given theopportunity (to show this)."
There was some debate overwhether it was time to establish a newindigenous women's organisation or a wing ofAMAN to promote the interests ofindigenous women. In the event, theparticipants decided on a strategy tostrengthen the role and position of womenwithin AMAN as well as in indigenouscommunities and their customary areas. TheIndigenous Women's Workshop produced thefollowing recommendations to KMAN III:
Indigenous Women'sRecommendations
Indigenous Women and Natural ResourcesManagement1. Increase the role of women in the
equitable management of naturalresources by guaranteeing theparticipation of indigenous women indecision-making about the use of theareas that indigenous women manage inAMAN's member communities.
2. Facilitate equitable, indigenouscommunity-based financial institutions.
3. Increase the technical capacities ofindigenous women to process and marketproducts from natural resources.
4. Guarantee access to information forindigenous women on funding from avariety of sources.
Indigenous Women and Politics1. Include indigenous values in the formal
education curriculum to ensure that the
DOWN TO EARTH No.74,August 2007
9
Strengthening Women’srole in AdatThe Ngota Toro community in CentralSulawesi has its own system of managingnatural resources that promotesconservation.This includes rice farming(sawah) in the valleys and agroforestry onthe hills, plus forest zones (ngakiki) thatcannot be used. However, 18,000 hectaresof their 22,950 ha customary lands weredeclared part of Lore Lindu National Parkwhen it was set up in 1993.Thecommunity immediately decided to reviveadat structures and practices in order tonegotiate better with the authorities aboutthe management of this area.
A group of women was involvedin documenting the community'straditional knowledge and used thisresearch to transform the traditionalwomen's council,Tina Ngata, into amodern organisation called OPANT(Organisasi Perempuan Adat Ngata Toro).While in the past only women descendedfrom the local nobility were represented inthe Tina Ngata, OPANT now recruitsmembers from all women in thecommunity and members vote for theirleaders.Also OPANT now plays a morestrategic role as part of the decision-making structure of the community.
Two villages have now reachedan agreement with the National Parkauthorities allowing traditionalmanagement of customary lands andwomen have taken a leading part in thesenegotiations.They are now working withcommunities from other villages.
More information on the NgataToro community and the creation ofOPANT is contained in the joint AMAN-DTE publication 'Forests for the Future'(forthcoming). Full details of thispublication will be posted on DTE'swebsite upon publication.4
indigenous inheritance is passed to theyounger generation.
2. AMAN to facilitate indigenous women'sentry into parliament, from regional up tocentral level, from AMAN's membercommunities.
3. AMAN to guarantee representation ofindigenous women in the structure ofcustomary institutions and villageadministration, in AMAN membercommunities.
4. AMAN to lead the debate on the DraftLaw on Natural Resources and the DraftLaw on Indigenous Forests.
5. AMAN to actively make contact withmembers of the legislature and supplythem with information about indigenouspeoples.
Organisation1. AMAN must establish a special
department for indigenous women'saffairs.*
2. Draft a special budget for indigenouswomen in AMAN.
3. Facilitate leadership training andstrengthen the capacity of indigenouswomen.
4. Change the Article which regulates thecomposition of AMAN's Council so thateach province must be represented byone man and one woman.
*The recommendation on the specialdepartment for women has already beenimplemented. Rukmini Paata Toheke has takenup the position of Director, IndigenousWomen's Directorate, with its office in Palu,Central Sulawesi. The recommendationswhich came out of the Indigenous Women'sworkshop should provide the basic thinkingfor framing the directorate's work. May theseaspirations become reality. Women, keep upthe struggle!
Notes:1. Panel Coordinator, Indigenous Women's
Workshop, Congress of the IndigenousPeoples of the Archipelago III, Pontianak,18 March 2007. Devi comes from Riau andhas worked with a number of forestadvocacy groups. She is a member of thepolicy advocacy group KARSA (seehttp://www.perhimpunan-karsa.org/) andhas a particular interest in both women'sand indigenous peoples' issues. She is avolunteer for AMAN's IndigenousWomen's Directorate and CommunitySupport Directorate.
2,3. See Anggraini, Devi, Women and theirResource Management Areas/ CustomaryAreas, 2004.
4,5.Additional boxes by DTE
10
DOWN TO EARTH No.74,August 2007
The Molo people are currently battling tostop mining companies extracting marblefrom their customary lands.There are now3,000 supporters in four sub-districts ofSouth Central Timor (TTS) where severalcompanies are operating. Some are localNGOs and students, but the majority areordinary villagers - most of whom arefarmers with little or no formal education.The marble is for use in luxury buildings inIndonesia, but is also exported to USA,China, Singapore and Korea.
Indigenous women have played a prominentrole in this battle.They see it as their roleto provide food for their families eventhough, under adat law, only men inheritland.Their campaign was based on the viewthat the community's life was inseparablefrom their natural resources.Animism is stillstrong in this area and many people believethat people, animals, water and rocks are allpart of one whole.
Gunung Molo is a cool fertile area which isused for farming and raising livestock. It isan important source of water for thewestern part of Timor. Marble mining leaveswhole areas derelict.The operations makethe once clear rivers and streams muddyand unfit to drink or wash in, or to use forirrigating crops. Landslides, such as the oneat Tunua in December 2005, have becomemore frequent and more severe, ruiningcrops and rendering land unsuitable forcultivation.
Interestingly, a reversal of roles took placeduring this campaign: women went out tofight the mining company and the menstayed at home and cooked.The womenhave confronted the police and armedsecurity forces employed by miningcompanies.They have even bared theirbreasts as a symbolic action to shame themen who opposed them and to remindthem that it was women who had nurturedthem just as Mother Earth nurtures thecommunity and their environment.
One leading local activist has walked fromvillage to village informing people about themining threat and motivating them to unite.She has faced intimidation with thugsthrowing stones at her house at night andhurling insults at her by day.As a result shehad to move to another village with herchildren who have had to change schools.The police have done nothing to protecther.
This has been a long struggle. In 2001, Molocommunities succeeded in driving one
marble company from their lands after atwo-year campaign in which some womenslept out on the rocks night after night toprotect the threatened area.They had nofunding from anywhere - they just did itbecause they wanted to protect theirenvironment.
However, the local government has grantedpermits to several another companies. PTSumber Alam Makmur started operations in2003 at Naitapan, above the village of Tunua.Hundreds of women and children set up ablockade and occupied the site in March2006. Men employed by the company threwstones at them but, when the villagersretaliated, the police arrested activists andlocal leaders.
Another company, PT Teja Sekawan, beganbulldozing fields in Kuanoel - Fatumnasi inNovember 2006.A large crowd of womenprotested. Some of women climbed ontothe boulders and covered them withtarpaulin, but machine operators tried tocut the rocks away from under the womenwhile armed 'security guards' threatenedthem with knives and pistols.Three womenwere covered in dust from the drills (onedied several weeks later). Police eventuallyintervened in the confrontation and thecommunity decided to continue itsopposition through legal action.
The local authorities are clearly on the sideof the company.The district head of TTSrefused to meet protestors even when theyoccupied his offices in Soe for two weekslast November. Eight truckloads of armedthugs, apparently hired by the miningcompany, broke up the demonstration inDecember. Only 50 were there at the timeas many others had gone home to planttheir fields. Villagers who presentedevidence to the court in Soe in late March2007 were attacked by a crowd of thugs asthey left the hearing of their case againstthe mining company. The police did nothingto stop the violence, during which a womencarrying her child was hit, but detained thepick-up truck which the community's lawyerused to carry the villagers to safety.5
For more information on the Moro people'scampaign see:http://molosstruggle.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default; http://rakyatmollo.blogspot.com;http://www.jatam.org/
Women lead mining opposition
Twenty-two women from provincesthroughout Kalimantan and Sumatra gatheredin Bogor from 22nd to 24th May to discussthe effects that oil palm plantations have hadon their lives.
Women and developmentWhy women? It is obvious that Indonesianwomen are stakeholders who have beenmarginalised by the development process,including the establishment of large-scale oilpalm plantations.
Women are rarely decision-makersin developments initiated by the governmentand companies.They are usually only seen asthe 'hands' rather than the 'brains': as themeans of implementing measures oncedecisions have been taken, rather than beingactively involved in the planning, control,supervision and evaluation stages. However,women tend to see themselves as survivorsand are often a tower of strength whencommunities oppose plans that threaten theirway of life.
The creation and expansion of oilpalm plantations have had a number ofdifferent impacts on women, both direct andindirect. For example, in traditional societies,women have important roles in managingnatural resources and maintaining sustainablelivelihoods which support their families.Theseare lost once plantations replace the forestsand agricultural land (see DTE 63: 1).
Companies are still gaining accessto communities' land by just taking it andpaying thugs to intimidate people.Those whoresist, including women, are forced to fleetheir homes because they are accused ofdamaging company property. The policethreaten them with arrest should they returnto their villages. People are frequentlydetained by the police without any properauthorisation. Also, witnesses too oftenbecome suspects. For these reasons, mostvillagers are afraid to take any action againstcompanies that violate their rights.
Women's voicesThis is what happened to Yana, one of theparticipants from South Sumatra who has notbeen able to go back to her home for fear of
detention by the authorities. Anotherparticipant, from Indragiri Hulu district inRiau, told how a woman in her village haddied from shock after her husband wasdetained by the police for alleged criminaldamage of plantation company property.When women from the village of HajakDusun Sikui in Central Kalimantan tried toreclaim their agroforestry plots, the companyaccused them of illegally occupying the land;the case is currently being processed by thepolice.
Environmental pollution and healthissues are also serious areas of concern forwomen living in and around plantations. In thevillage of Keladi, in the Ketapang district ofWest Kalimantan, people are beginning toexperience a shortage of clean drinking waterbecause the river they use for their suppliesis downstream of a large oil palm plantation.Children have developed rashes after bathingin the river.A woman from Long Ikis in Pasir,East Kalimantan described how the River Soihas turned black and is no longer suitable forcollecting drinking water. It is impossible tofind fish in the river even one kilometre fromthe plantation.Apparently the problem is dueto the company disposing of waste from itspalm oil processing plant directly into the
river when the waste tanks are full.Several participants related how
they were provided with agrochemicals bycompanies who did not provide adequatesafety instruction or equipment. Womenoften had no idea about the possible effectsof the pesticides they used, especially duringthe early stages of pregnancy. Women whowere weeding were sometimes accidentallycontaminated with sprays used by otherworkers nearby. Pesticides and fertilisersstored in people's homes presented hazards,particularly to women and children whocould not read or understand the labels.Empty pesticide containers were occasionallyused for domestic purposes and pesticidesstored in containers such as old waterbottles.
Other problems for womenassociated with oil palm plantations are thoseof poverty and debt. Many companies paywomen lower wages than men on thegrounds that they get easier work. A womanfrom the village of Wirano in SoutheastSulawesi complained that no processing planthad been built six years after the plantationwas established, so villagers just have tothrow away ripe palm fruits. Meanwhile, theplantation company is still demanding
11
DOWN TO EARTH No. 74,August 2007
The impacts of oil palm plantations on women
The social and environmental impacts of large-scale oil palm plantations in Indonesia have been exposed bynational and international civil society organisations. But women's experiences have received far less attention.Activists on women's rights and on oil palm issues and women have recently started to redress the balance.
oil palm / women
Women workers on oil palm plantation, Jambi (DTE)
12
DOWN TO EARTH No.74,August 2007
repayment of loans it provided for their co-operative.
Many young women from WestKalimantan decide to go to neighbouringMalaysia to look for work.Their main reasonis that they no longer have any land to farmor rubber plantations to tap since the wholearea where they lived has become oil palmplantations. Often they return to their villageas unmarried mothers. It is common for suchwomen to open a café with rooms at theback, which are used for prostitution. Thepresence of such cafes, which exist in mostplantation villages, further increases thenumbers of children born out of wedlock.They also cause problems for marriedwomen in the community: customary fines for
infidelity are said to be rising.Plantations have made women's
lives harder in other ways too. Women haveto go much further to find firewood forcooking once the forests have been clearedto make way for oil palm.There is no grazingfor livestock close to the village once it issurrounded by plantations. And women haveto carry clean drinking water longerdistances.
Demands for action The burden for women is likely to increasewith the further expansion of large-scale oilpalm plantations. So some participants fromthis workshop went on to meetrepresentatives of the National Commission
for Women and the national parliament inJakarta. In their written statement, thewomen urged the Commission to:
Support communities in their strugglewith oil palm plantation companies;Push the government to resolve conflictsbetween communities and plantations;Carry out field studies to investigate thenegative impacts that oil palm plantationshave on women who live in and aroundthem.
Source: Statement to the NationalCommission for Women, 25th May 2007
been part of the government's scenario ofexport-led growth, rather than fulfillingdemand from the domestic market. Exportshave increased rapidly as the area of oil palmplantations has expanded and recentlyestablished plantations mature. Exports ofIndonesian CPO have increased sharply from11.5 million tons in 2005 to 13.6 million tonsin 2006.
Clearly Indonesian palm oilproducers are more interested in selling CPOto the international market, where prices arecurrently US$750-US$800/tonne, up fromUS$400-450/tonne this time last year (seegraph). At the same time, some localentrepreneurs are stockpiling supplies in thehope that they will benefit from even higherprices in the future.The same thing is probablyhappening at the international level, forexample as energy companies are buildingpower stations in Europe to run on biofuels.Estimated demand for biofuels, including palmoil, for these alone is 1-1.5 million tonnes/year.
Indonesia's own biofuel programmehas been a victim of rising international palmoil prices. The Indonesian governmentexcluded supply-demand components fromthis programme, so pioneer companies are
struggling with high prices and raw materialshortages. Indonesia's state energycorporation, Pertamina, appointed to producevegetable oil fuels, has applied to thegovernment to stop production since sufferinglarge financial losses.
The position is unlikely to improvesince the governments of Indonesia andMalaysia have publicly agreed to provide 12million tonnes of CPO to meet demand forbiodiesel feedstock. Half this will come fromIndonesia, yet the country's total palm oilproduction for 2006 was only 15.9 milliontonnes: 12.1 million tonnes for export and 3.3million tonnes for the domestic market.
Policy change demandsSETARA believes that the oil palm miracle haschanged into a curse for millions of people inIndonesia because the interests ofinternational consumption have won at theexpense of Indonesian consumers and palmoil is now seen more as a fuel than a food.Thereal victims are Indonesia's poorest people.Uncontrolled investment in the expansion ofoil palm plantations in response to demandsfor renewable energy feedstocks will onlyincrease environmental and social problemsassociated with the industry so far.
It is therefore calling for:
1. The Indonesian government to change itspolicy and impose restrictions on theexport of palm oil for biofuel. AllIndonesian palm oil producers should beforced to comply with this policy.
2. The Indonesian government to carry outa study on the suitability and capacity ofpalm oil producers to provide suppliesfor the domestic market and exportsinterest.
3. Companies to stop investment in the oilpalm plantations until there is a clearblueprint for the sector based on theprinciple of sustainable production.
4. All palm oil producers in Indonesia,including those Malaysian-owned, to meetthe Domestic Market Obligation andsupply a proportion of their output forlocal cooking oil production.
5. International consumers to usealternative energy sources produced intheir own countries instead of importingthem from countries like Indonesia.
(Sources: SETARA's Position Paper IndonesiaUnder Biofuel Fever by Rukaiyah Rofiq isavailable in Bahasa Indonesia and English [email protected] and volumes of CPO production havebeen updated from the Indonesian StatisticsAgency and Department of Trade figures inBisnis Indonesia 1/May/07,3/May/07www.tempointeraktif.com, 11/Jul/07Additional information from SETARA BriefingPaper Biofuel untuk Mesin 25/Jun/07,Department of Trade Press Release 8/Jun/07http://www.bi.go.id/NR/rdonlyres/272B52A2-21F0-417F-8F2D-9E9820922FC0/6350/Original sources: Liputan6 SCTV 11/May/07am; Antara 1/ May/07; Kompas 13/Mar/07,Jambi Ekspres 4/Jun/07; Riau Pos 7/Jun/07An example of Fidel Castro's criticism of USpolicy to use food crops for biofuels can beread athttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6525059.stm.)
(continued from page 13)
Source: Central Statistics Bureau
13
DOWN TO EARTH No. 74,August 2007
Indonesia and biofuel feverThe Jambi-based NGO, SETARA, which focuses on issues related to livelihoods, energy, natural resources and foreigninvestment, distributed a position paper on Indonesia's palm oil supplies in May. It was headed with a quote from
Cuba's former leader, Fidel Castro, that the use of food crops to produce fuels would cause rising prices and hungerfor millions of people in developing countries.This article is largely based on that document.
There are many paradoxes in Indonesia: it isan oil producing country which has a fuelshortage; it is the world's largest producer ofpalm oil (together with Malaysia) yet there isa domestic shortage of cooking oil.This is thesituation in Indonesia as 'biofuel fever'spreads through entrepreneurs, governmentelites and even certain circles of environmentactivists.
Rising pricesAs the price of crude palm oil (CPO)continues to rise on international markets,the price of domestic cooking oil has almostdoubled within a year (see graph). Indonesianconsumers were finding it hard enough tomake ends meet when cooking oil costaround Rp6,000/kg at the beginning of the
year, let alone now the cost has reachednearly Rp9,000/kg (approx US$1/kg). Thisprice increase is having a serious impact onsmall-scale, home-based industries. Somedomestic producers of popular snack foodslike prawn crackers and soy bean cake (tahu,tempe) face bankruptcy.
Not only has the price of cookingoil gone up, but also supplies are disappearingfrom local markets. The shortages have, ofcourse, hit the poor hardest. Queues ofpeople trying to buy cooking oil can be seenin almost all cities in Indonesia. TheIndonesian government has responded byproviding cheap cooking oil supplies in its'Operation Market', but this has notsignificantly reduced prices. For example,Angso Duo - a traditional market in Jambi cityin Sumatra - was selling this at Rp7,500/kg inMay, but at only Rp200/kg less than normalcooking oil in June even though the quality ismuch lower. The poorest people can onlyafford the used cooking oil that is a wasteproduct from small-scale food operations.
It seems the dream that theexpansion of large oil palm plantations wouldbring prosperity to communities is an illusion.For example, Jambi has 403,467 ha of oil palmplantations which produced 4,682,975 tonnesof crude palm oil in 2005, but there are
persistent shortages of cooking oil in thisprovince. Ironically, cooking oil prices in Tebodistrict - the heart of the province's palm oilproduction - are even higher than elsewhereat Rp10,000/kg.
What is behind theshortages? The government has asked Indonesia's palmgiants - like the Wilmar Group, the state-owned PT Perkebunan Nusantara, Sinar Mas'PT Smart Tbk, PT Musim Mas, PT BEST, PTAstra Agro Lestari Tbk and PT Darmex Oil -to supply 150,000 tonne/month of palm oil tothe domestic market in order to increasesupplies and reduce prices. But, with CPOprices on the international market so high,these companies are only willing to make100,000 tonne/month available withinIndonesia. It remains to be seen how muchlonger these oil palm producers will continueto be even this 'generous' while global pricescontinue to rise due to biofuel fever. In Riau,18 companies have not supplied any CPO tolocal cooking oil factories recently.
There are a number of reasons whythis situation has arisen.The development ofoil palm plantations in Indonesia has always
Why the demand forbiofuels?
'Biofuel fever' is being driven bygovernment policy as well as market forces.For example, the European Union has saidthat 5.75% of all vehicle fuel must bebiofuels by 2015 and proposes an ambitiousincrease in this target to 10% by 2020 aspart of measures to reduce greenhouse gasemissions.
Such decisions have more to dowith the geopolitics of fossil fuel reservesthan concerns about climate change. It ishighly questionable whether biofuels basedon palm oil do in fact result in significantlylower greenhouse gas emissions once allthe factors have been taken into account,including land use change, use of fertilisersand agrochemicals, transport andprocessing costs. Meanwhile internationalpolicy makers are keen to stimulate biofuelproduction in order to increase 'energysecurity', in the face of diminishing suppliesof fossil fuels in Europe and North Americaand potential conflicts in countries in theMiddle East and the former Soviet Union.Such considerations send out power signalsto the markets, further increasingspeculation on biofuels prices, includingpalm oil.
Many activists now prefer to usethe term 'agrofuels' rather than 'biofuels' toavoid the impression that energy sourcesincluding palm oil are somehow innatelybetter for people and the planet.
(continued on page 12)
Source: Tempo Interaktif 11/Jul/07
14
DOWN TO EARTH No. 74,August 2007
Government, business andcommunities
DTE interviewed Dr Afrizal, a sociology lecturer at Andalas University, Padang,West Sumatra. His thesis, entitled‘The Nagari Community, Business and the State’, is a detailed examination of the relationship between these three
elements through the example of oil palm plantations. He has become the spokesperson for the smallholders'organisation, SPKS, in working groups of the sustainable palm oil initiative,
Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)
oil palm
What first got you interested in the issue of oilpalm plantations?To be honest, I am not. My interest is in theconnections between three actors - thestate, companies and communities - and theconsequences arising from different modes ofrelationships between them. I decided tofocus on land issues, and oil palm plantationswere one example of these interactions, but Ihave also looked at rubber plantations andmining.
What did you find?Communities are in a much weaker positionthan the state and business who owe theirstrength to collaboration with each otherbecause they share certain interests.Government officials need income, both forstate institutions and personal reasons.Businessmen need the state to secure themeans to develop their enterprises.
Indonesian civil society is weak intwo respects. Firstly, communities do nothave the power to resist the interests ofbusiness and the government: they are easilypersuaded when their leaders are won overand if promised a few million rupiah.Secondly, communities are unable to fight
hard for their rights and their own interestsagainst government and business.Theirorganisations are weak or, in some cases,non-existent; their level of education is low;local people who do have education lack thecapacity to organise people to stand up forthemselves.
This is not to say that communitiesdo not fight for their rights, but that it isusually easy to break down their resistanceby controlling their leaders. In the end, theygive up their land to companies because theyare forced to or because the majority do notunderstand what is going on.
Would you say that the government isn't fulfillingits role to protect the public? Yes, I would. Rather it is fulfilling another role- that of finding sufficient funds to keep itselfgoing; to pay for its offices, employees andactivities.
So what should the function of the state be?The overall function of the state is to ensurethe well being of its people.And to do thisthe government needs to clean up its act. Inthe current situation in Indonesia, thegovernment tends to prioritise its own
development and, where this conflicts withits other duties to protect the public, it willignore these and put its own interests first.
This can be seen by the pride thatthe district administrator (bupati) and/orgovernor take in generating large localrevenues (PAD). Obviously the governmentneeds money to serve the public but it isoften difficult to raise revenues throughtaxation. It therefore chooses the easierroute of 'rent seeking' - issuing permits inreturn for money.Although local authoritiesfind various lucrative ways of issuing permitsfor companies to operate in their area, theydo not care about the impacts oncommunities. So, this is an example of theway that the government supports business.
Does the same analysis apply to other agrariancontexts in Indonesia, such as mining, pulpwoodand other plantations?Yes, the details are different in each case, butthe pattern is the same.
What can communities do in this situation?We must strengthen civil society as well aswork through international initiatives like theRound Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).It is vital that the principles, criteria andindicators of any certification scheme takeinto account the communities around theplantations as a requirement of thatcertification.
Can certification address the political and legalproblems that exist in Indonesia?It is certainly debatable whether thisapproach can be effective or not.Will theauditors be genuinely independent of thecompany or will the two parties reach an'informal understanding'? Can the RSPO beindependent when it depends for its survivalon its membership which consists largely ofcompanies and it has a vested interest inissuing them with certificate?
This venture is not a guaranteedsuccess. It needs civil society organisationslike WALHI, Sawit Watch and WWF to keepthe pressure up.They must report anyOil palm plantation, Jambi (DTE)
15
DOWN TO EARTH No.74,August 2007
violations of the principles and criteriabecause to keep quiet would increase theopportunities for collusion between theauditors, companies and RSPO.
The RSPO is the most recentcertification scheme and has learned fromthe weaknesses of other systems.The issuenow is how we monitor its implementation.If this is done properly, it could bring aboutimprovements such as companies takingmore care of the environment and localcommunities rights because they are auditedaccording to agreed indicators.
How would the companies benefit? Companies are concerned with markets.There is a growing market which isconcerned about a clean environment andlocal communities' rights.These consumersdo not choose a product simply for itsquality, but according to whether or not itsproduction caused environmental damage oris unethical because the rights of women orchildren were violated. It will increasingly bein the interests of companies to payattention to such issues if they want toexpand their businesses and secure theirmarkets.
Will this affect the relationship betweencompanies and the government?Of course it will. Like it or not, it will makethe government's job easier.The governmentis always afraid that investors will not engageor that they'll pull out. Investors worry thatthey will have to spend large sums of moneyon issues which are not directly related toproduction, such as the environment orindigenous people's rights. So if companiesaddress these matters, uncertainties arereduced for both sides and the governmenthas less to bother about.
Isn't there a risk that government revenues willbe reduced?No, because companies will want to investeven though they will have to comply withconditions such as proper waste treatmentfacilities to meet local people's needs andthis does not come cheap. But if they knowthese conditions beforehand, they will acceptthem.
Doesn't this mean that the companies andgovernment will have to change their old waysof working, where they identified developmentareas on paper without even knowing who wasliving there? And won't less land be available tocompanies as certain areas must be excluded tocomply with the criteria - such as conflictlocations? That's right and I suspect that there will bemany violations of the rules in order to getaccess to larger land areas.That is why weneed organisations such as Forest PeoplesProgramme and Sawit Watch to put pressureon the government and business community.
Will the government listen to civil societyorganisations?There are many more opportunities nowcompared with during the Suharto years.The government is well aware that it mustinvolve civil society organisations in policymaking and things are moving in the rightdirection, even though vested interests meanthat we are not completely there yet.
Issues such as human rightsviolations, lack of workers rights andenvironmental damage do not only occur inIndonesia.The capitalist economy is at theroot of many disasters: people must produceto make a profit and these activities conflictwith the interests of the masses. Henceconflicts arise depending on the strengthsand weaknesses of civil society and thedegree of concern shown by the state.
The same problems confront theUSA and Europe but at lower levels ofintensity than in Indonesia because theirdecision-making involves long publicconsultation processes. In Indonesia, publicconsultation is meaningless becausestakeholders are invited to listen todecisions that have already been taken.
Why did you choose oil palm plantations foryour case study? Is it because these are somany of these plantations in West Sumatra?Oil palm plantations interested me becauseof the high number of conflicts associatedwith them in this province.Also, there ismore rapid expansion of oil palm comparedwith other types of plantations. Indeed, manyrubber plantations are being replaced by oilpalm. So I focused on oil palm because theareas covered by coffee, sugar and rubberare so much smaller.
Oil palm plantations have becomea key issue in Indonesia in general. If youwant to explore agrarian issues, you have tofocus on mining or oil palm. Sugar cane isonly really an issue on Java and even thenthe area is small compared with oil palm.Moreover, there has been a long history ofindividual land ownership in Java which haswiped out customary law.
Are agrarian conflicts in West Sumatra overcommunal land?Definitely! Here the majority of land iscommunal, except for settlements and urbanareas. So if we are talking about landavailability, forests are all held communally.
Is the customary concept of a village (Nagari)still in use?The Nagari is the smallest administrativeunit in West Sumatra. Customary lands areclassified as housing, paddy fields, rain-fedfields and forests.The forest is all customaryland held communally, except for any givento the government.
In the government's view, forests are state landYes, there is a difference of views.The
indigenous community consider that theyare the rightful owners of the forest undercustomary law, but the government says thisis state land under the laws which it haspassed.The concept of legal pluralism isimportant in this context: the two legalsystems are in collision, but customary lawexisted long before state law.
The 1960 Agrarian Law recognises customarylaw.What does this mean in practice? That law only grants limited recognition as itcontains the problematic phrase "as long as(the customary rights) still exist". There isalso the agrarian minister's decision(No5/1999) that customary rights only applyto land which the government has notgranted formal rights over. If the governmentgranted land use rights to a company (HGU,HGB) then, in the government's opinion, thatarea is no longer acknowledged ascustomary land. However, indigenouscommunities believe that the status of theirland is not the government's business - soit's a complicated situation.
The battle in West Sumatra andother places now is to challenge certainclauses in that ministerial decision.The WestSumatra Legal Aid Bureau (LBH Sumbar) andcustomary leaders want to amend theclauses which say that on expiry of landrights granted by the state the landautomatically reverts to state control.Theywant such land to return to customarycontrol.
There is public support for a newlocal regulation on customary land in WestSumatra, but this has not come about yetbecause the local government wants toimplement the Agrarian Law.There is aproblematic legal issue of governance herebecause tenure is not covered under localautonomy legislation. So we cannot passlocal regulations that conflict with thenational agrarian law.Also, it is pointless tohope for an amendment to the agrarianminister's decision unless the basiclegislation is revised.That is why we need tosupport groups who are pushing for agrarianlaw reform.
So your answer to all these issues is thatcommunities must be empowered?Yes. It's the only way.That does not meanthat I do not want to increase the capacityof the government sector but, even ifgovernment officials know about people'srights, it is by no means certain that thesewill be implemented if communities remainso weak.
Dr Afrizal's book, The Nagari Community,Business and the State, published in 2007 byForest Peoples Programme, is available fromwww.wrm.org.uy or from FPP - seewww.forestpeoples.org or [email protected] Tel: +44 (0)1608652893 Fax: +44 (0)1608 652878
DOWN TO EARTH is the newsletter of the International Campaign for Ecological Justice in Indonesia. If you want to receive the newsletter on a regular basis, please fill out the form provided.We would welcome information about your work in the field of environment and development in Indonesia.
Name.................................................................Organisation...................................................................................................................Address................................................................................................................................................
The subscription is £10 a year for institutions and those organisations or individuals who can afford it. Please add equivalent of £1.50 if paying with non sterling cheque. Please make cheques payable to Down to Earth and send to Down to Earth, 59 Athenlay Road, London SE15 3EN, UK. Email: [email protected] tel/fax: +44 16977 46266
Down to Earth is a private limited company, registered in England and Wales (no. 6241367)registered office: 111 Northwood Road,Thornton Heath, Surrey, CR7 8HW, UK
DOWN TO EARTH No. 74,August 2007
The final draft of a revised 'corporates' billwas given the nod by Indonesia's House ofRepresentatives (DPR) on 20 July, 2007. Thismarked the passing of the bill, which replacesthe old Limited Liability Company Law,(No.1,1995). The new Limited LiabilityCompany Law, alongside the revisedInvestment Law (see DTE 73), is designed toupdate company legislation and is part of abundle of regulations and statutes beingenacted to make the country more attractiveto new investment.
One new element is theintroduction of corporate socialresponsibility (CSR) in both laws.Interestingly, the inclusion of CSR in theLimited Liability Company bill has created areal stir, while it almost went unnoticed in therevised Investment Law deliberated earlier inthe year.
The new law puts Indonesia amongthe few countries in the world which regulateCSR. However, some voices from the businesscommunity, which opposed the inclusion ofCSR, doubt that the move to make CSRcompulsory will actually lead to the intendedresult. They argue that CSR will only meanextra levies and additional red tape, whichmay deter new investors. Furthermore, thefact that CSR is only legally binding for naturalresources-related companies is seen asdiscriminatory.The exclusion of other sectorsfrom mandatory CSR, such as the financialsector - ie the engine behind most business -raises more questions about how coherentthe thinking was behind the inclusion of CSR.
Some consultants and CSOobservers, albeit cautiously, welcome themove that brings CSR out of its grey area.Thisis the time for the state to bring business,which has often out-maneuvered the state,back to heel.
CSR is a relatively new concept tomany Indonesians, although it has beenaround for a long time under different names- mostly as companies' philanthropical orcharitable work.
The revised legislation may well bejust the beginning of the process to definewhat social responsibility means forcompanies operating in Indonesia. In the nextfew months we will see how the law'simplementing regulations are formulated andhow they will grapple with such questions as:
How far will the triple bottom line ofPeople, Planet and Profit, and how far willsustainable development be reflected inIndonesia’s CSR? Will CSR be genuinelytransparent and participatory or will itjust be window dressing? The draftingprocess of the new law - which did notinvolve key elements of civil society -does not bode well in this respect.Bearing in mind Indonesia's notoriousrecord of corruption, how can it beensured that CSR is not translated as akind of legally-sanctioned 'extortion fund',but is instead defined as beyond monetaryvalue, creating space for a more levelplaying field among all those affected bycompany operations, including companyworkers?How far will legally-binding CSR make adifference in promoting corporateaccountability, when long-standinglegislation and regulations onenvironmental management andenvironmental impact assessment, havesuffered from a chronic lack ofenforcement?How will CSR enable businesses to standon their own feet in the communitywithout having to rely on military back-upand/or armed repression, as has too oftenbeen the case in Indonesia?
(Source: http://www.csr-asia.com/upload/csrasiaweeklyvol3week30.pdf; Business Watch Indonesia, CSR Review June2006; Kompas "Fokus", 4/Aug/07; Jakarta Post20, 25, 26 & 27/Jul/07; Mather, C. 2006, CSR: aguide for trade unionists)
CSR à la JakartaCSR in new lawsDraft Limited Liability Company Law, 2007,Article 74 on Social and EnvironmentalResponsibility
1) Companies conducting business activities inthe field of and/or related to natural resoureshave the obligation to carry out Social andEnvironmental Responsibility.
2) Social and Environmental Responsibility asreferred to in paragraph 1) is the company'sobligation, which is budgeted for andcalculated as a cost of the company, andwhich is implemented with attention toappropriateness.
3) Companies which do not carry out theirobligation as referred to in paragraph 1) shallbe subject to sanctions according to theprovisions of laws and regulations.
4) Further provisions on Social andEnvironmental Responsibility shall be regulatedby Government Regulation.
Social and environmental responsibility isdefined in Article 1 of the law as:
the comany's commitment to participate insustainable economic development in order toimprove the quality of life and beneficialenvironment, both for the company itself, thelocal community, and society in general.
Investment Law No 25, 2007,Article 15 b):
Each investor is obliged to...carry outcorporate social responsiblity.
(Source: http://www.legalitas.org/, unofficialtranslation by DTE)
Kalimantan fire destroysindigenous institutionsAs DTE went to press, we learned that abuilding housing five key indigenous institutionsin Pontianak,West Kalimantan, has burneddown.They are Institut Dayakology,Kalimantan Review (KR), Lembaga BelaBanua Talino, SEGERAK Pancur Kasih andPercetakan Mitra Kasih For more info andideas on how to help, please [email protected].
