The Scrounger in His Own Land

Catharina Dheani
Jul 21, 2017 · 8 min read

“Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize that we cannot eat money”

I wrote this essay for my application to ASEACCU 2016 in Broome, Western Australia where I met & learnt a lot from the original people of the land, the aboriginal peoples.


The land is a fundamental need for every creature, a safe haven and a shelter to create, until human gives a birth creating a bulge of generations for the sake of their own genes survival. Thereupon, a historical side of a land might live at the heart of its heir. It would have been decent and righteous if the demesne of a land could be mandated over indigenous generations.

There are approximately more than 5,000 different indigenous peoples on earth, speaking more than 4[DC1] ,000 languages. The broad range of cultures and customs are distinct to each other, meanwhile they share some similar cultural survival, from the suffering of government’s concession over their land, denial of their rights and culture, physical attacks as well as classified as second-class citizens. Looking up to the national policy in many countries, especially in Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America, group of indigenous peoples are often marginalized, consequently facing a discrimination of countries’ law. This is more likely to make them left in vulnerable circumstance where violent and abuse are susceptible to happen.

Some significant progresses have been made through the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007 in response to the existence of indigenous miseries, to support their rights on land ownership, resources, and livelihoods. However, they remains living in deplorable condition not because they are ignorant but due to the lack of maintenance, preserving, and transparency from the national government has forced them to leave their own land. In the other words they have lost of their autonomy to manage the resources and rights to establish a residence. Indigenous peoples have a high degree of interconnectedness, values from the close association between their identity, ways of life, and most importantly their land where they share a living from generations. The only guardians and custodians, keeping the land for the future generation are the indigenous itself. If they lose their land, it means a loss of identity.

A worthy case study comes from Indonesia where this fourth most populous country recognizes 1,128 ethnic groups, and most of them spend their lives beyond the deep woods or in the rural area. The government of Indonesia has yet to adopt its specific and comprehensive national law which puts the existence of indigenous peoples in the greater concern. [DC2] Instead, the generic laws of indigenous peoples are dispersed in various parts of the Indonesian Constitution, Acts, and current functioning regulations in which creates redundancy and loopholes in term of enforcement.[1] Hence, many protests sponsored by NGO and international organization were directly flooded against the government to defend land ownership of indigenous communities not to be possessed by the expansionary company.

A concession of a land was obtained hereditarily from their ancestor and thousands years they had lived in the place where gave them beyond sense of belonging and secureness. On the contrary, this current time shows that more than 70% forest area is claimed as country’s forest, instead of customary forest. When the ownership of a land was turned over the government, the tribe’s right to process forestry would restricted or even passed, often they merely reserved to manage the forest in a clausal of limited time cultivation. In essence, after years more than centuries of colonialism, if the continuality of converting process from customary to country forest still occurs unregulated, it means that this country is colonializing her own native men. As what has been observed by many non-governmental organizations in which supporting indigenous peoples to defend their rights (Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara), the precedent governments of Indonesia were inclined to over-development sets of plans, resulting forest reduction and a removal of native residences.[2]

The native watchmen of forest like Dayak in Kalimantan, Malin and Batak Parlilitan in Sumatera, Molu in Maluku, Amanuban in Nusa Tenggara Barat are the exact epitome of indigenous life survival for years to earn a living over descendants whose most of their territories have been changed to plantation, mining, or even estate.[3] For instance, the loss of cultivation of incense processing occurred in groups of Batak Parlilitan in Tapanuli Utara gives rise to income shrinking, as majority of the inhabitants in Tapanuli Utara were employed as frankincense farmer. They believe, one frankincense could protect the continual existence of at least ten trees in the forest, otherwise, if one frankincense tree were cut down, ten trees would also disappear. One frankincense latex could be used for various purposes, hence for the first class quality of incense is priced above Rp 250,000 per kilo. If in the past five until ten years, they stocked for from 600–800kgs incense, now there are only less than 200kgs in the shed. This is indicated from the failure of frankincense crop in the middle of soil aridity, the latex did not come from the plant, which is caused by land conversion of Eukaliptus by Toba Pulp Lestari, a paper milling company.

Frankincense farmers, one by one began to shift his job to the city, leaving his provenance place and its long rooted cultivation of incense. This portrays a diminishing of authenticity in one native livelihood and simultaneously creating a damaged environment. It has marked the clash in the indigenous society, demanded the company to make the conversion in completely halt. Unfortunately, the local government was still remained in seal, decided not to take significant action both towards company and inhabitants in Tapanuli Utara.[4] In part of east Indonesia, native groups in Jayapura have the similar issue of land conversion in which most of them were gradually forced to leave their mainland of residence because of contaminated area as a consequence of the lack of environment maintenance after a massive plantation of palm oil tree. It has been worsened up by the fact, when first the investor wanted an entrance to their land, the government gave a status to the company as a borrower, and similarly they granted Cultivation Rights to process all resources. Nevertheless, after a-35-year usage due to the lack of understanding in the majority of chieftains, what eventually perpetrated in the end of decision making process was their customary land had to change its status to country’s land. Once again, to that end some of native men forcibly left their historical land.

The cases are reflecting many government policies whose implementation are still contrary to the need of preserving indigenous group’s values and cultures, considering that the removal of their land would simultaneously fade their customs. In Indonesia, the government has categorized three types of land ownership yet each type of ownership has both sides of plus and minus to indigenous group. First is the communality ownership which each native group only obtains the rights of resources cultivation for a limited time[DC3] , depending on what is written in the agreement, but it allows the descent of each native group to live in the land for years to come, although they do not possess a full ownership of their land. It inflicts many protests against the government, because they have lived in their sacred land since thousand years ago and it is an inheritance from their ancestor. They live and work for their land as if they were a labor.

Second is the land claim for public or in the other words are the State rights to manage, where the State is able to acquire land tenure to be utilized for another public importance[DC4] . This type of occupancy will lead to the utmost indigenous group-contra as they will lose a total ownership of their land and rights to resource processing from their land. Besides, the government often launches a permission for a holding company to industrialize the land, as consequences most of native’s residences are contaminated, in further the native groups would be moved to the other places and lose their jobs. What makes it severer is that the company does not seem hesitate to sue back the native group, if their existence continues to threat the company.

The third occupancy is individual possession. A possession which is controlled by an individual and later it allows an individual to sell his land. Given to the response of this possession, according to the residents in Tapanuli Utara, if in the future individual claim is increased, then the sense of solidarity, togetherness, and the unity as a community of indigenous peoples will be abated. As well as mutual and communal work among indigenous peoples in a land where in the past was claimed by groups of native will be fading as the rapid sales of land.[5]

Thereby, from those three types of land ownership, the government should be cunning to decide what is best for indigenous in order to preserve their root land while maintaining its values and traditions. The unstoppable ‘development’ is occurring around the world while robbing tribal people of their land, self-sufficiency and pride and leaving them with nothing, and ironically marked them as a scrounger in their own land. Even some companies are dare to operate in those lands under the camouflage of conservation, until in the end they only left them with misery, clearly picturing indigenous rights activists face violence and even murder when they seek to defend their communities and their lands. To that end, most of indigenous peoples, the communal recognition of a land is the most appropriate, as it will reflect a spiritual, identity and very intimate communality and community relationship in their sacred land.

THE HIGHLIGHT: They want the governments of the countries in which they live to respect their ability to determine for themselves their own destinies. For indigenous peoples, “self-determination” has a different meaning than it did for colonial-dominated nations in the mid-20th century. Self-determination relates to autonomy, not the right to secede from the state. It means the right to freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social, and cultural development inside the country in which they live.

[1] Claire Bongsalo Lacdao, ”Indigenous Engagement in Local Government: Experiences in Malaysia and

Indonesia”, api-fellowships.org, accessed on April 23, 2016, www.api-fellowships.org/body/international_ws.../P2-Claire-Bongsalo-Lacdao.pdf.

[2] Video: Hak atas Tanah — Wilayah Kehidupan, lifemosaic.net, accessed on April 25, 2016 http://www.lifemosaic.net/ind/tol/hak-atas-tanah/

[3] Ibid

[4] “Hutan Rusak, Beginilah Nasib Kemenyan di Tanah Batak,” mongabay.co.id, accessed on April 26, 2016, Hutan Rusak, Beginilah Nasib Kemenyan di Tanah Batak

[5] Video: Hak atas Tanah — Wilayah Kehidupan, lifemosaic.net, accessed on April 25, 2016 http://www.lifemosaic.net/ind/tol/hak-atas-tanah/

[DC1]Introduction to problem

[DC2]This should come later in a more complex paragraph

[DC3]The first type of land ownership emerged as the hereditary problem. They think their land came from ancestor but it has been taken over.

[DC4]The worse ownership is public claim where the state rights to manage its resources to be utilized to another public importance while also giving the rights to holding company

)
Catharina Dheani

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The intertwined between technology and policy.

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