Jakarta Globe, Kennial Caroline Laia, Apr 23,
2015
 |
The government is finally getting serious about recognizing Indigenous
groups’ forest rights. (Antara Photo/Ahmad Subaidi) |
Mataram,
West Nusa Tenggara. Proponents of the rights of indigenous groups have hailed a
pledge by the Indonesian government to do more to recognize their stewardship
of forests, seen as crucial in efforts to stave off deforestation.
Environment
and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar made the so-called Mataram Declaration
last weekend in a belated response to a May 2013 Constitutional Court ruling
relinquishing the state’s default claims to forested areas settled and used by
indigenous groups.
“Long
before this, civil society organizations and local communities were struggling
for the recognition and protection of customary land,” said Abetnego Tarigan,
the executive director of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment, or Walhi.
“Now the government has shown good faith, and we really appreciate it.”
He said the
central and local governments often violated indigenous people’s land rights
because the latter lacked title deeds to their land. In many cases, he noted,
the people were disenfranchised of their rights, and their land given over to
logging, plantation or mining operators.
“There are
a few policies that regulate the rights of local communities to the land, such
as the 2012 law on customary forests, but they don’t cover the recognition of
people’s customary territory, so we need another framework to guarantee it,”
Abetnego said. “This declaration should really be a form of political will for
all stakeholders to push the recognition and protection of customary forests
managed by the people.”
Civic-centered
development
At the
signing of the declaration on Saturday in Mataram, in West Nusa Tenggara
province, Siti said the government and other stakeholders were committed to
expediting the process to craft policies that improved the welfare and
protection of local communities and conserved the environment.
“These
policies are really important,” she said. “President Joko Widodo’s government
has indicated that the citizenship concept is a democratic one, in which we
seek to bring welfare to the people.”
She said
the government was making efforts to involve people, especially indigenous
groups, in environmental protection.
“Here, our
development must be civic-centered,” Siti said. “This issue has been echoed by
the people and environmental organizations, and now the government is
listening.”
Under Joko’s
2015-2019 National Mid-Term Development Plan, the administration plans to
designate 12.5 million hectares of land for “social forestry,” in which
indigenous groups and local communities will commit to sustainable forestry
practices, and nine million hectares for agriculture.
“These
[social] forests can be developed as community forests, village forests and
customary forests,” Siti said, adding that the agricultural land, to be staked
out from former logging concessions, would go primarily to subsistence farmers.
Collaborative
effort
Siti said
it was important for all stakeholders — the central government, regional
administrations, civil society organizations and local communities — to work
closely together.
“The policy
is ready to go, but we can’t do it alone. We need help from other stakeholders
to cooperate. For example, I hope the Home Affairs Ministry will help us
identify indigenous communities and their problems to ensure that all land is
distributed rightly and fairly,” she said.
“We also
need civil society organizations to work with the people on mediation,
community building and others. Access to welfare for all Indonesians is our
responsibility.”
Zudan Arif
Fakrulloh, an adviser to the Home Affairs Ministry, said the institution was
open to cooperating with the other stakeholders.
“But the
identification process isn’t easy. There are a few requirements to meet before
we can definitively say that a given community is an indigenous one,” he said.
“The process must be really selective. And this is the task of regional
leaders.”
Zudan said
that for a forest community to qualify, it would have to show some kind of
environmentally sustainable practice in its interactions with the forest.
“Here we
need experts and help from civil society organizations,” he said.
People
first
Siti said the
new policy, unlike previous ones, prioritized the role of people in economic
development through the exploitation of forests and other natural resources.
“I believe
the system will be no longer like the past, when government didn’t put the
people at the front of its development plans. Now, we must use dialogue in our
approach to developing the economy of this country,” Siti said.
West East
Nusa’s Deputy Governor Muhammad Amin welcomed the declaration, but said further
talks on the issue were still needed between the central government and
regional administrations.
“We realize
there hasn’t been a regional policy that recognizes the territorial rights of
indigenous people. However, with this declaration, we hope that the people will
receive greater consideration in the policy-making process,” he said. “Should
the synergy run smoothly, we may be able to achieve an environment-oriented
development framework.”
Yansen
T.P., the head of Malinau district in North Kalimantan, who was among the more
than 30 regional heads attending the Mataram Declaration, said an increasing
number of regions across the country were beginning to prioritize land rights
protections when crafting new policies.
“We’ve been
done a lot for several years now to show our support for our environment,” he
said. “We have vast areas of natural resources and considerable local wisdom.
The forest we have is the forest we must hold on to. We understand that people
depend on the forest and they will try to maintain it. But to do that, we in the
regional government have to provide them with legal certainty.”
Yansen said
he hoped that future investments would “take the side of the people.”
“We don’t
need to exploit all of our natural resources right away. We have to think about
our children, grandchildren and our future generations,” he said. “Hopefully
the central government’s policy will accelerate the recognition of indigenous
people’s right to the forest.”
Test cases
Adi Rozal,
the head of Kerinci district in Sumatra’s Jambi province, said his
administration had designated 12 swaths of forest as customary forests.
“Now we’re
waiting for coordination from the central government to issue a policy that
fully mandates the forests for use by the local community,” he said.
Mathius
Awoitauw, the head of Jayapura district in Papua province, agreed that while
the central government had a key role to play, it was local governments that
would serve as the test cases for various frameworks on the issue.
“All we
need to do to establish nationwide synergy is to hold regular dialogues to test
how capable regional governments and people are in managing their forests. In
addition, there should be a regulation that truly guarantees the rights of each
region to map its own customary forests,” he said.
In
prioritizing the rights of forest-dwelling communities, the government has
switched from an earlier paradigm that served large corporations, said Chalil
Muhammad, the chairman of the Association for Community and Ecology-Based Law
Reform, or Perkumpulan HuMa.
“There’s a
need to create a scheme to build rights coordination between the central
government, regional governments and the people in an effort to prevent forests
from rampant exploitation,” he said. “These stakeholders need to change their
mind-set. We need to increase human resource capacity and fix existing forestry
policies.”
Edited by Hayat Indriyatno
