The Indigenous Dayaks and forest-dependent communities are not to blame for the raging forest fires in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia!
Two major islands in Indonesia; Sumatra and Kalimantan have been witnessing and suffering from forest fires since 1980s; an annual disaster that does not only pose detrimental impacts on the health, but also economy, social and culture of people in the region. The question remains around the major drivers of this devastating wild-fire and who to put the blame on, although this is not supposed to be the focus on the prevention and mitigation strategy. In Central Kalimantan, traditional and poor farmers who employ slash-and-burn method, plantation companies such as palm oil were identified by the reporting media, although journalists rarely got into rural areas where the problem rooted.
The sad truth is that the Indonesian government continues to attribute the worst conflagrations are derived from the shifting cultivation (swidden field) of the small-scale traditional farmers such as the Dayaks. Some high-rank government officials in the forestry sector even look away from the big corporations as the driver of this disaster. As a native Dayak of Central Kalimantan, it is such a devastating feeling to notice ill-informed public perspectives on the course of this problem.
Indigenous and local communities who live inside and around forest areas are most exposed to the impact of forest fires since they rely heavily on the forest resources for their very basic survival and source of incomes. Prior to the fire disaster, we have always been practicing our shifting cultivation; there were not any reports or news informing huge forest fires as we are experiencing these days. Prof. Kumpiady Widen (2013) asserts that the Dayaks’ traditions and cultures are strongly attached to the nature and they have a set of values and practices to preserve the forests, rivers and land as an essential component of their lives and future generations. The loss of forests means the loss of the Dayaks’ lives. The question goes on, why do they burn the forest? We, the Dayaks, in our traditional knowledge, believe burning is an indispensable determinant of a good harvest because it generates the essential nutrients from the trees which turn into nutrient-rich ash. It, additionally, encourages the natural process of afforestation.
What is often uninformed about our traditional method is that in carrying out the land clearance, we have a set of procedures including controlled and supervised burning system, partitions, small size of land (1–5 hectares), wind direction, and timing. I still vividly remember my childhood where I grew up in a traditional Dayak farmer family on the highland of Central Kalimantan. During the land preparation stage, our extended family members worked hand in hand to safeguard the burning process to ensure the fires would not encroach somewhere else. After the harvest, we replanted the area with fruit trees such as Durian, Rambutan and some other endemic Borneo fruits. The value that still strongly grows in our community is to never take too much and treat the forest with a good care. This traditional practice still exists until today and has been playing an important role for the food security of rural communities.
The Indigenous Dayaks and forest-dependent communities have already had problems with access to our long-standing swidden fields, which have naturally regenerated, but were claimed as state forests by the government and managed by corporations. We have lost our forests because of private concession such as logging, mining, palm oil and large-scale agriculture. Ironically, the local communities do not necessarily benefit from the corporations which operate on their lands and get evicted instead. We lost our communal forest areas, which provided timber and non-timber forest products for our long-term survival.
The media often only spreads the news on how the fires affect people’s health, but never looks into and informs the public about how this disaster destroyed the most important sources of income for the Dayaks including rattan gardens, fruit gardens, rubber fields, mixed rice and crop fields. This has caused serious income decline and food crisis in some remote areas across Central Kalimantan. It became worse due to the incredibly high price of food coming from other areas due to limited or even no roads access connecting the remote villages with small town nearby where they can purchase groceries and other basic needs. Deep within, I would like to ask each of us if there goes a news on the excruciations that we have to endure? Our lands are grabbed by the corporations and local elites.
It is very obvious that the government has denied the rights of indigenous people and forest-dependent communities to manage their lands and to preserve their traditional lifestyle. This is a serious violation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP). As stated in Article 26 of the declaration, “Indigenous peoples have the right to own, use, develop and control the lands, territories and resources that they possess by reason of traditional ownership or other traditional occupation or use” (UNDRIP, 2007). Furthermore, the burning of lands by the local inhabitants is protected under the Act. No. 32 Year 2009; on the Protection of Land and Forest Management in Article 69; aimed at preserving local wisdom. The regulation at provincial level has also stipulated this practice of traditional farming under the Regulation of the Governor of Central Kalimantan No. 52 Year 2008 which asserts that land clearance using fire by the local communities is permitted, with a coverage area of no more than 5 hectares.
It is also undeniable that the traditional knowledge and customary system of the Dayaks have proven to be a sustainable forest management. Never in history that Kalimantan experienced wild forest fire until early 1990s, where President Suharto implemented conversion project known as the Mega-Rice Project (MRP) or the million-hectare rice project; covering 1,050,400 ha of peatland forests and built 1145 km of primary drainage canals (National Planning Agency, 2008). Forest fires have become an annual disaster since then. According to National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), the Indonesian forest fires in 2015 account for a state loss of IDR.221 billion, surpassing the loss in 1997; IDR. 60 billion. In 2015, Kalimantan also was recorded as the biggest carbon emitter in the world and Palangka Raya was recorded as the most polluted city (CNN, 2015).
The amendment proposal of Siti Nurbaya, Indonesia’s Minister of Environment and Forestry proposal, over the Act. No. 32 which allows the burning of forested lands for the preservation of local cultures and tradition is unfair for local communities and indigenous people in Kalimantan. The authorities have not carried out a holistic assessment on the roots of the forest fires and tend to criminalize the poor and look away or even back up the corporation such as palm oil companies. A research conducted by a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Forestry, Bogor Agricultural Instotution (IPB); Bambang Hero, in 2015 reveals the facts that many corporations take advantage of local inhabitants to burn forested lands to make a way for agriculture. Beginning the process of land clearance by fire is the local community and they claim the burned lands. This was done so that the corporation can come clean after the investigation since traditional farmers are protected by the law in this circumstance. In line with this, The Indonesian Forum for Environment in Central Kalimantan (WALHI KAL-TENG) stated that 78% out of 15.3 million hectares of total area in Central Kalimantan have been handed over to extractive industries. In 2015, there were 17,676 hotspots in Central Kalimantan; most of them were found in the vicinity of concession areas. Law enforcement, however, is still weak and partial. There were 30 new companies investigated last year, 10 were stopped from operating but the rest of the cases disappeared as the time goes. The follow-up on these cases are not made clear to the public. It becomes general skepticism in Indonesia about government officials’ willpower to enforce laws in a just manner.
This year is different; the regulation seems to have changed. Traditional farmers are no longer permitted to clear land using fires despite their compliance on the 2 hectare-policy. On 25 August 2016, Indonesia’s newly appointed police chief Tito Karnavian said police had prepared cases against 454 individuals in connection with burning land. “The arrest of individuals has increased compared with last year,” he said in Jakarta. “In Riau alone 85 people have been arrested” (Mongabay, 2016). This means that the majority of the cases took place in Kalimantan.
If our cultivation method is indeed the root of the problem and stopping such practice is the only way to put this long-standing problem to an end, will the government take care of our people? Will there be any available alternatives provided for us to switch into a more eco-friendly cultivation? The fact is that we never witness or even obtain adequate supports from the government to deal with this issue. No adequate fertilizers, agricultural training, workshops on the dangers of forest fires, enough fire extinguisher equipment, and robust fire prevention system have ever been provided by the national or local government. Thus, if Indonesia, specifically Central Kalimantan, wishes to solve this crisis, local governments need to provide feasible solutions, engage and embrace the local communities, and most importantly enforce the law in a just and holistic way.
To reiterate, collusion between business elites and politicians and corrupt dealings between them cover up their black deed and wash their hands of the forest fires. Not to mention that the prevalence of corruption at all government levels aggravates the current state of Indonesia’s forest management and ignores the rights of indigenous people and forest-dependent communities. Stopping such cultures in Indonesia is therefore critical. The Laws should not be like spiders’ webs, and will, like them, only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them. May justice reign, may the laws not be broken, may the wise men be poor, and the poor men be rich, without sin.