Author, teacher, researcher, maintaining a strong interest in AR, e-learning, web2.0, Asian studies, Australia and restitution of cultural property. Latest book "Seen & Unseen: a century of stories from Asia & the Pacific"
Slash and burn activity on the margin of a conservation area, Riau.
This morning my colleague Prayoto Tonoto sent me a diagram. It illustrated the stages in the transformation of forests from closed canopy systems to the monocultural plantations that are such a major feature of Riau’s landscape.
Selective logging over a 20-year period. Logs are can be removed using push carts on portable light rail systems or slid along tree trunks. This opens up the canopy lowering humidity and making forest prone to fires in dry periods. If selection cutting is carefully controlled such impacts can be contained but regulation is difficult.
This process is not always legal and can involve incursion into Parks, Conservation areas and Reserves. It is also often at the expense of the land rights of Indigenous people.
Stage 2: More extensive illegal logging
This can also involve the use of small streams for log transport. Being non-selective this type of extraction can cause irreversible degrading of the forest ecosystem and loss of forest cover.
Stage 3: Slash & Burn Encroachment
Drainage of peat is essential for any agricultural crop (except for sago on the coast). In some cases, small ditches left from previous illegal logging are used to assist peatland drainage. Once an area is dry, fire is the cheapest means available for land clearing. On peatland, without rain, fires can smoulder and farmers are neither motivated nor do they have the capability to extinguish fires. When rains don’t come, as in the El Nino year of 2015 fires can spread, raging out of control.
Stage 4: Productive Agriculture
Next, the opportunistic patchwork is gradually transformed into organized plantations of palm oil and rubber. Pioneers are bought or pushed out by larger organisations that have acquired concessional access or land titles. In these situations, the focus is on legal compliance but auditing is difficult and breaches of codes continue.
Developing the diagram
The basic diagram, in the centre, is clear enough. Since we’ve both collected many images documenting this process I decided to combine some of them. Here is the result. I think it conveys a more accurate sense of what is going on in Riau.
Deforestation & plantation development. Source: Prayoto Tonoto & Russell Darnley
This post is in collaboration with Prayoto Tonoto who has many years experience in forestry in Riau Province, Indonesia. He is now at Hiroshima University completing a Master of Engineering in Development Technology. His principal skills and expertise lie in Conservation Biology, Agriculture, Landscape Ecology, Carbon Sequestration, Land Use Change and Wetland Ecology.
Though Indonesia’s President has called for a moratorium on peatland clearing in Indonesia, the process of deforestation and clearing continues. Despite the grave conditions that developed in 2015, fire is still the cheapest means of clearing remnant forest areas once valuable species have been removed.
Following a PM Haze volunteer visit to Riau on 23 February 2017 I began to map the relentless destruction of Riau’s forests.
The red line shows the course of a helicopter flight. The path traverses a variety of landscapes and land use. Additional photos have been added along with shaded areas showing the location of recent fires.
There is much more to say on this issue but to sum it up in one sentence is easy. There has been a failure of the different levels of government in Indonesia to apply the law in the face of pressed from vested interests with a capacity to pay for special consideration.
In theory, the central government has power to influence the oil palm supply chain through law and policies; district-level governments have the most jurisdiction for law enforcement and information-spreading; and village governments are closest to plantation developers, thus having the responsibility of dealing directly with them.
However, good governance for the industry is not as simple as a top-down approach. From consumers to mills, refineries and developers, players in palm oil influence governance processes in different, sometimes unexpected ways.
Back in the 1980s I worked with the NSW Department of Education as Project Officer for the Country Areas Program (CAP). I enjoyed the work. It allowed me to deepen my knowledge of rural life and travel the state.
On my first trip to Bourke, somewhere around 1983, I remember seeing signs of windblown sand along the Mitchell Highway where geographic reason told me there should be none. I reflected on the loss of woodlands in the face of sheep, wheat and cattle. Closer to Bourke, in places irrigation water from the Darling River touched the land with a green hue.
I’d already been to the Menindee Lakes, Broken Hill and Silverton and crossed Nullabor to Perth, appreciating desert where I expected to find it. Later I spent time travelling through South Australia where encounters with abandoned farmhouses were a testimony to the folly of agriculture on the fringes of the desert.
Educated during the 1950s and 1960s, I’m part of the generation taught that Australia rides on the sheep’s back and that our inland waterways were critical in ‘opening-up’ the interior affording an opportunity for the sheep wheat industry to thrive becoming a fundament of our wealth.
This first trip to Bourke came as a shock. My sense of the place seemed wrong. Images used to illustrate a series of CAP readers for children compounded my disquiet as one, a tale of paddle steamers plying the river as far as Brewarrina and Walgett, had left me with an expectation of a healthy riparian world flush with water, at least in the wet season.
Figure 1: Paddle steamer ‘Brewarinna’ and barge ‘Coledida’ with Narrara wool on the Barwon. From the collections of the State Library of New South Wales
What I saw was a trickle and I wondered how anyone could survive on it. Yet it had once been a mighty riparian system. In 1950 Bill Wheate (see Figure 2) writing in the Walgett Spectator lamented the demise of paddle steamers.
Figure 2: “Gone are the Days of Paddle Steamers”.
Taking the Darling’s Water
Since my first visit to the Menindee Lakes in 1967 then Bourke in 1983, there has been a steady and relentless extraction of water from the Darlings’ tributaries in southern Queensland and Northern NSW. Most tragically the development of massive storage ponds to support the cotton industry has been a feature of this extraction.
That we have a cotton industry on the upper reaches of the Murray Darling system strikes me as an absolute absurdity. Why on earth would the world’s driest inhabited continent attempt to cultivate and export a crop that is so water intensive? In reality, we are exporting water.
Perhaps one reason that more Australian’s are protesting about this is that they aren’t sufficiently aware of the prevailing climatic and riparian conditions. As more than 85% of us live within 50 kilometres of the coast this is understandable. So, I thought I should begin with the basics and with apologies to my geographically literate readers.
Australia’s geographic context
Australia is the world’s second-driest continent (after Antarctica), with average (mean) annual rainfall below 600 millimetres (mm) per year over 80% of the continent, and below 300mm over 50%. Year Book Australia, 2006
Figure 3: Annual average rainfall for Australia
Mean precipitation is low for several reasons
Continentality
Distance from maritime influences ensures greater aridity and a relative absence of the moderating effects of oceans meaning that summers tend to be hotter than coastal locations at a similar latitude and winters cooler. the distance from maritime influences;
Latitudinal position
Australia’s latitudinal extent is from 10° 41′ 21″ S to 43° 38′ 40″ S. The Horse Latitudes, areas around 30° north and south latitude, have a large impact on continental Australia. Latitude 30°S, runs from Woolgoolga, NSW to Leeman, WA. Significantly it passes close Bourke on the Darling River, close to the confluence of the Darling’s main tributaries the Barwon, Culgoa, Warrego, Paroo, Gwydir and Namoi.
Orographic rain in Eastern Australia
Figure 4: The orographic effect creates a rain shadow west of the Great Dividing Range.
Rainshadow effects of the Great Dividing Range are evident with decreasing westward precipitation.
ENSO
The ENSO effect (El Niño Southern Oscillation). This refers to the large-scale ocean-atmosphere climate interaction linked to a periodic warming in sea surface temperatures across the central and east-central Equatorial Pacific. It causes a seasonal variability in rainfall throughout Australia, the South West Pacific and the Indonesian archipelago in particular. During an El Niño year, drought is common
The Indian Ocean Dipole
The Indian Ocean Dipole refers to the changes in the difference between sea surface temperatures in the tropical western and eastern Indian Ocean. Its positive phase has a significant impact on agricultural output in the northwestern parts of Australia as cooler water builds up along the coast increasing aridity.
Evaporation rates
These factors combined ensure that evaporation exceeds precipitation over approximately 80% of the continent as illustrated in the Australian Bureau of Meteorology maps below.
Figure 5: Average annual evapotranspiration [3]Figure 6: Average annual pan evaporation [4]
The Murray Darling Basin (MDB)
The Darling, Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers form the Murray Darling Basin (Figure 7) extending for 3672 km. It faces many problems.
Figure 7 : Boundary of the Murray Darling basin
The Murray and Darling are the principal sources of water from south-east Queensland to South Australia. While the Murray rises in the wet Southern Alps, the confluence of the Darling’s tributaries is in an area characterised by aridity and high evaporation.
Although distinct in riparian character, the two systems are still referred to as the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB). The MDB is well described by the Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) which makes the following points:
It’s one of the flattest catchments on Earth;
94%of the basin’s 530,000 GL of precipitation is lost through evapotranspiration and pan evaporation;
The average flow of water into the basin is 32,500 GL but Australia’s climatic variability means this can range from 7,000 GL (in 2006) to almost 118,000 GL (in 1956).
Figure 8: Australian Hydrological geospatial fabric. (Click Click on the map to download a full-size image.)[5]
The Basin’s subdued topography, warm to hot semi-arid conditions in most regions, and slow-flowing nature of the creeks and rivers contribute to the high evaporation rates.
Rainfall is summer dominant in the north and winter dominant in the south.
Tributaries that rise in the Great Dividing make the largest contribute most water, despite their smaller size.
the upper Murray, Murrumbidgee and Goulburn–Broken rivers drain only 11% of the basin but contribute 45% of the Basin’s total annual runoff from
The Darling River and its tributaries cover 60% the Basin’s area but only contribute 32% of its water.
The Darling River covers 11% percent of the Basin’s area but contributes less than less than 0.5% of annual runoff.
86% of the Basin’s waterways are ephemeral
Water from overbank full flows that spreads out onto floodplains evaporates quickly
One of the most telling realities about the MDB is that the Murray–Darling system is that mean annual discharge is 0.4 megalitres per second (ML/s). The Amazon is 290 ML/s and the Ganges–Brahmaputra is 38 ML/s.
The average annual flow of the Murray-Darling would pass through the Amazon River in less than a day.[6]
The entire water flowing in Australian rivers amounts to about 13% of the Amazon’s annual discharge.
Australian soils
Salinity is a significant problem in soils across Australia’s arid region. The Australian Bureau of Statistics[7] notes that Australia’s soils are susceptible to degradation by agricultural activities.
One of the most significant causes of soil degradation in Australia is salinity, which poses a serious threat to native species, ecological communities and functioning ecosystems (ANZECC 2001).
Salinity has been caused by extensive land clearing in Australia, predominantly for agricultural purposes. European farming practices, which replaced trees or other deep-rooted native vegetation with shallow-rooted crops and pastures that use less water, has resulted in rising water tables which can cause dryland salinity.
Dryland salinity is more difficult to remedy than irrigation salinity which is well understood and managed.
In 2000, 5.7 million hectares of Australia were assessed as having a high potential to develop salinity. Predictions indicate that unless effective solutions are implemented, the area affected could increase to 17 million hectares by 2050, most of which is agricultural land (more than 11 million hectares) (NLWRA 2001). In 2002, about 20,000 farms and 2 million hectares of agricultural land showed actual signs of salinity (ABS 2002). For many farms, salinity has meant loss of productivity and income.
There are also many off-farm impacts of salinity, the most significant of which appears to be the salinisation of rivers which affects drinking and irrigation
Salinity management is one of the most significant challenges in the Murray–Darling Basin. If it is not managed well, salinity has serious implications for water quality, plant growth, biodiversity, land productivity and the supply of water for critical human needs.
Human activities such as irrigation development and land clearing often exacerbate salt mobilisation, causing it to concentrate in certain parts of the landscape and rivers.
Unregulated, illegal interception of flows presents a risk for all water users in a catchment. Not only does it mean lower levels of flow in main channels but it also has an impact on water table levels.
By reducing flows there is increased risk downstream to:
crop yields
pastures
drinking water in rural and urban communities.
the ecological health of streams and estuaries.
For these reasons, riparian flows in Australia, particularly in the Murray-Darling basin require careful management as a means of avoiding increasing salinity.
Overuse of water and water theft
It’s hard for an outsider to know much about these issues in detail. Looking at the state of the Darling and the Menindee Lakes is enough to show that there is gross mismanagement of the entire system. While large water exporters like the cotton industry enjoy a privileged and profitable position, it is at the expense of all downstream water users.
Expecting taxpayers to fund the construction of a water pipeline from the Murray to Broken Hill confers an outrageous subsidy on upstream water mismanagers. It also masks increasing water theft
There is little point in me engaging in further commentary on the since Cry me a river does it so thoroughly. The large irrigator’s threadbare arguments that their interceptions of water and storage in deeper ponds reduce evaporation and that the Menindee Lakes are inefficient because they are shallow and have high evaporation rates, is a selfish position that ignores numerous inefficient practices where evaporation rated are extremely high.
[4]http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/climate_averages/evaporation/index.jsp “Evaporation is the amount of water which evaporates from an open pan called a Class A evaporation pan. The rate of evaporation depends on factors such as cloudiness, air temperature and wind speed. Measurements are made by the addition or subtraction of a known amount of water, which then tells us how much water has evaporated from the pan.” http://www.bom.gov.au/watl/evaporation/
Indonesia’s moratorium on peatland burning is failing. Focusing on Riau province, the region with the most extensive of peatlands, in the period 1 to 8 March, 2018, there have been 99 fire alerts in the following areas:
Between 2 – 3 March seven hotspots were detected in Riau Province, two of them in Meranti Islands, with Kampar, Rokan Hulu, Dumai, Indragiri Hulu and Pelalawan, each one hot spot. Of course, hotspots don’t immediately mean a fire is burning but images from the ground tell the story.
At the time of writing Riau still had forest and peatland fires in several districts. At Lukun Village in the Meranti Islands, 1,224 hectares of peat forest was burned in 16 days.
Estimates are based on drone observations at altitudes of 100 metres and supplements by satellite image analysis.
Drone footage of fire damage at Desa Lukun in Meranti Regency, Riau. Peat is still smouldering. (See Google map for more locational detail)
Mapping Riau’s Fires
The embedded map shows the approximate location of some of the larger fires burning in Riau in during February and the first week of March 2018. I must acknowledge the assistance of Prayoto in sharing much of the data for this map. Working between maps he generated using GloVis, and Google maps that are easier for me to disseminate to educational networks has been challenging if only because GloVis uses complete statements of latitude and longitude in degrees, minutes and seconds and Google uses a decimal system. In the end, I abandoned precision for speed. Consequently, some of the fire areas I’ve shown are approximate. The map will be updated as more data comes to hand.
Mongabay highlights problems of fire and finance
Mongabay Indonesia has provided excellent coverage of the present problem, that would seem to indicate a failure of the peatland burning moratorium. It is important to acknowledge that only one fore, in the period covered, was on a RSPO classified oil palm concession. moratorium As of 26 February the Regional Disaster Management Agency (BPBD) in Riau, identified 731.5 hectares of fires while the Riau University Research Facility assisting the Peat Restoration Agency (BRG) identified 1,224 hectares of forest fires.
According to Haris Gunawan, Deputy 4, at BRG suggests illegal logging activities, canalisation and fuel availability as possible causes of the fire near Lukun village
Illegal logging
Presumably, he is suggesting that the logging activities might employ fire for clearing or that illegal loggers were using fire for other purposes. Their presence was clear because of the wood-lined paths, for forest timber extraction, were found along with a forest hut and no doubt other evidence;
Canalisation
The construction of five kilometres of peatland drainage canal, up six metres wide and four meters deep, that cause drying and increased flammability of peatlands during the dry periods
He also observed that BRG has a peat restoration project in Lukun and there was no fire around the project.
Serious fires occur within a few kilometres of the restoration site and have not intervened BRG programs. Haris Gunawan stresses that restoration activities cannot be stand-alone initiatives, that concession holders must also make an effort. This is a sound principle as restoration activities can be undermined if drainage canals continue to be cut in other parts of the same peat dome. In essence, if restoration strategies are to be effective they must be must holistic and involve whole peat dome management
Penyengat Village, Siak, also has an active fire but the remote forest location is making it difficult to extinguish. He estimates, it has burned about 80 hectares in the last 10 days
Firefighting budget trimmed
Adding to the problem the provincial budget for forest firefighting has been cut from Rp29.3 billion to Rp6.6 billion, a 77% reduction. Tarmizi, Head of Research and Advocacy of Budget Transparency Forum (Fitra) Riau, said
“I do not know why this year the budget is so drastically reduced. Even though the authority of forestry management is Provincial Government and no longer in the district. A big responsibility, minimal budget allocations, this is also a problem” he told Mongabay , last weekend.
He explained that the funds are spread across agencies, the Office of Environment and Forestry, the Regional Disaster Management Agency and the Plantation Crops Department. All of which have programs for forest and land fire prevention.
He considered, the budget of fire handling every year at least Rp30 billion, the same as the previous year. The funds, he said, should contain a peat recovery program.
BRG itself allocated Rp49 billion. The amount is outside of the donor agency. Such a budget is for rewetting programs, revegetation and revitalization of living resources in six areas of hydrological unity.
BRG targets 140,000 hectares of peat recovered this year. For five years to 2020, about 900,000 hectares of damaged peatland in Riau will be recovered.
“Peat in Riau 5 million hectares. It hurts 20 years. (Target restoration) 900,000 hectares work five years, let’s see five years later. The areas that are now burning are not in the intervention areas (BRG), “said Haris, in front of a number of agencies in Riau firefighting unit, last week.
Dealing with peatlands holistically
Haris Gunawan explained that BRG, is “not tackling forest fires, but restoring healthy peat to reduce burning vulnerability”. Others have criticised BRG for being less a than effective in applying a holistic approach to peatland restoration. In the Desa Lukun area, for example, the damage to peatland caused by two big companies PT.LUM and PT NSP has resulted in drying and increased flammability. So, fire has been a persistent problem in this area notably in 2014 and now again in 2018. Lukun highlights the problem that dealing with peatland restoration must be comprehensive. Peat domes are part of a system and their restoration requires cooperation between all stakeholders throughout the drainage system, from headwaters to the coastline.
My interest in the rights of Indigenous people dates back many years. As an Australian, of European descent, I acknowledge the prior ownership and customary land rights of Australia’s Indigenous nations. This is an interest that I’ve revealed elsewhere on this blog and one that was well expressed by our former Prime Minister, Paul Keating.
I’ve included this as a reflection on the Australian context, part of the wider reflection that writing this post has prompted. If your interest is principally Riau, read on and watch this later.
The motion, “Calls on the Commission to adopt binding regulations on agricultural commodity importers’ supply chains, in order to ensure a fully sustainable palm oil supply chain by 2020”, citing many areas of concern rendering palm oil without RSPO certification unsustainable. It notes that:
the deforestation of rainforests is destroying the natural habitats of more than half of the world’s animal species and more than two-thirds of its plant species and endangering their survival;
multiple investigations reveal widespread abuses of basic human rights during the establishment and operation of palm oil plantations in many countries, including forced evictions, armed violence, child labour, debt bondage or discrimination against indigenous communities;
a substantial part of global palm oil production is in breach of fundamental human rights and adequate social standards,
child labour is frequently being exploited, and
there are many land conflicts between local and indigenous communities and palm oil concession holders;
What stood out for me was “forced evictions, armed violence, child labour, debt bondage or discrimination against indigenous communities” and “conflicts between local and indigenous communities and palm oil concession holders”. It stood out because I knew so little about the specifics. Apart from the Dayak peoples and the forest dwellers of the Mentawai Islands, I hadn’t realised that there were many indigenous people in Sumatra. It’s ironic because from where I live, Sumatra is clearly visible.
Investigation the status of Indigenous people
When I began investigating this subject I soon discovered that, like Australia where many Indigenous people were labelled with the one label Aboriginal, in Riau the generic term was Siak. Writing in the Jurnal Antropologi: Isu-Isu Sosial Budaya in Desember 2017, Takamasa Osawa observes that “The eastern coasts of Sumatra, Indonesia, are low and marshy lands, which are divided by numerous brackish rivers, and covered by vast mangrove forests. This region was a largely unpopulated area where some orang asli (‘indigenous’) groups and a few Malay people lived before the colonial era.”[1]
Figure 1: Sumatran peatlands
While there is some nipa palm swamp and mangrove on the margins, most of these low and marshy lands are swampy peatlands that originally supported closed canopy rainforests. They also stabilised the Pleistocene coastline of East Sumatra.
Osawa continues observing that “The Suku Asli are Austronesian speakers living on the coasts of eastern Sumatra in Riau province, who were recorded as the Utan (Orang Utan; forest people) in past records.
As this name implies, they were semi-nomadic (coastal) forest dwellers who engaged in hunting, gathering and fishing in the forest, distant from the political centre of the state. Before the nineteenth century, this region was characterised by low population density, such that the Suku Asli moved freely from place to place in this low and marshy region using canoes, and lived on the banks along channels and brackish rivers that run complexly between and within the islands. Therefore, their settlements have been scattered over the islands and coasts of a vast area around the estuary of the Siak and Kampar Rivers until the present.”[2]
Encountering Riau’s Orang Asli
On my first visit to Sungai Tohor, on Tebing Tinggi island in the Meranti group. I remember my friend Yi Han explaining the dangers of fire on peatlands. We stood along a rough track cut through land that had been burned two years before by a palm oil company.
Suddenly the sound of a motorbike reminded us we were on what passed as a local road. Moments later our small group was forced to part, opening the way as a solitary man on a step-through Honda moved between us. I wrote about this earlier. It was a common event in many parts of Indonesia, but the man rode with a small sway-back pig trussed and draped in front of him.
“Strange that he’s carrying a pig. Isn’t everyone here Muslim,” I asked the young man standing beside me.
“He’s from the forest. His people don’t have a religion,” he replied.
“None, at all?”
“No, they believe in forest spirits.”
“Where is he going?”
“Into the forest. His people live there.”
This simple encounter prompted my interest.
When I began discussing this with my friend Prayoto he was quick to supply me with leads. Soon I had some key documents on the history and culture of Riau’s Indigenous people. Since he is cartographically skilled he produced the map in Figure 1. showing the distribution of Riau’s Indigenous groups.
Our encounter with the man on the step-through Honda was in the yellow shaded area.
These classifications are based on generalised Ethnonyms applied to the respective Indigenous groups, first by the Dutch and then assumed by the Republic of Indonesia (RI). They are not the terms used by the people themselves. The process and the misnomers that arise are similar to what has taken place in Australia. Generally speaking, the names assumed by the people themselves related to the specific biogeographic niches they occupied. In the riparian systems so dominant in Riau, these names often reflected the particular part of the system they inhabited.
Figure 3: Peatland during the wet season along the Siak Kecil river. The Indigenous people of this system were called Siak by outsiders. (1°.08749, 101°.66885)
The Dutch and then the RI used the simple names as a way of distinguishing between the Indigenous peoples and Malay settlers.
The myth of emptiness
Understanding Indonesia as a country with a densely settled core, Java, Madura and perhaps Bali, and empty spaces beyond that were ripe for resettlement, was an idea that took hold during the period of Dutch colonialism. While some socialists in Holland advocated a future for Indonesia based on an industrialising centre, a view also adopted by the first Vice President Hatta, what prevailed was an approach to development based on resettlement of these ’empty spaces’. This doctrine of empty spaces was akin to the principle of Terra Nulius adopted by Australia’s European colonisers. Both concepts are based on myths and a failure to recognise prior customary rights to land. A map of Indigenous groups in Australia provides a clear sense of the pre-colonial diversity.
Transmigrasi (Transmigration)
From the end of the 19th century, the Dutch began to implement what was called the ‘Ethical Policy’. It rested on the ideas of ‘irrigation, emigration and education’. Rather than attempting to promote population controls in Java, they saw value in promoting emigration to the ’empty’ periphery. This also sat conveniently with the chance to exploit the resources of the outer islands.
After Indonesian independence, the doctrine developed as the policy of Transmigrasi (Transmigration). Now families were relocated from the ‘overpopulated’ core and sent to the ’empty’ margins on a much larger scale. The approach received an added stimulus with the increased military power following the 1965 coup, which caused great disruption, Irian Jaya now West Papua being a particularly prominent example.
Transmigration is discussed in detail in by Riwanto Tirtosudarmo in his PhD thesis Transmigration and its centre-regional context; the case of Riau and South Kalimantan Provinces, Indonesia (See Google search). He quotes from, Tjondronegoro, S. M. P. 1972 ‘Land Reform or Land Settlement: Shifts in Indonesia’s Land Policy, 1960-1970‘, Land Tenure Centre Paper, No. 81, Madison, University of Wisconsin.
Figure 4: Population distribution by province: Indonesia 2014. Ministry of Internal Affairs
Relocating transmigrants
Commenting on the period 1965 to 1985 Mariel Otten wrote: “Initially, in order to avoid the more populated regions, transmigrant families were predominantly relocated in cleared forest areas. Indonesia has about 140 million has. of tropical forests, constituting 60 % of the total land area. In 1979, however, the clearance of these forests for transmigration purposes was banned by General Suharto who immediately cancelled six proposed projects. At the time, clearing of rainforests was considered to be ecologically unwise and attention shifted to swamp reclamation in the coastal regions of southern Kalimantan and eastern Sumatra and to non-irrigated rainfed land in other provinces of Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi.” [3]
Subsequently, there was an idea that Indonesia’s swamplands could be developed with resettlement.
Otten observes that in 1987 the World Bank claimed “A recent survey indicates that Indonesia has some 40 million hectares of coastal lowland or tidal swamps of which some 3.3 million hectares are already occupied. More significantly it is estimated that a further 5.6 million hectares are suitable for agricultural development. This is larger than the total irrigated rice area in Indonesia today. Furthermore, this area has a greater agricultural potential per hectare than most of the remaining upland rain fed areas. If managed properly, lowland swamps can support a wide variety of food and non-food crops and yield a higher income per hectare than can normally be expected under upland food crop conditions. There are substantial technical, managerial and institutional problems to be overcome in tapping this potential, such as defining suitable land and water management practices for peat areas and areas with adverse soil conditions caused by oxidation of acid sulphate soils, applying of appropriate drainage criteria in the light of more diversified agriculture, and ensuring integrated single.” Such land stretches from West Papua to Aceh.[4]
While the World Bank made this claim it does not seem to have valued or understood the complexity, diversity and interdependence supported by peatland ecosystems, much less their role as carbon sinks and stabilisers of coastlines. This was despite the already published claims by experts such as Tjondronegoro, already claiming that “swamp reclamation will, in the end, be more expensive than settlement on other sites, because of declining soil fertility.”[6]
the World Bank inspired settlements went ahead on the basis that there was a future for swamp reclamation and settlement on tidal areas.
The role of the Five Year Plans (Repelita)
In Repelita IV, Indonesia’s fourth five-year plan (1984/85 – 1988/89), despite projected shortages of trained ‘manpower’ within plantation agriculture priority was given to rubber, oil palm and coconut planting. The Government aimed to plant about 1.4 million ha of these crops on public estates and smallholder schemes, a 150% increase. Tree crop programs were seen to offer substantial benefits offer substantial benefits as export earners, sources of employment and regional development, and therefore deserve priority in the allocation of investible resources. The government envisaged that in the case of oil palms development should be concentrated on new block-planting in areas where new Settlement is warranted. In the plan, new irrigation development on the Outer Islands, including swamp reclamation for transmigration sites were emphasised.
Transmigration continued in subsequent five-year plans. It brought new settlers that were culturally different to the existing Indigenous communities. When it was associated with new plantation industries this encroached onto the land of Indigenous communities. Other issues arose over access to resources when Transmigrants had access to health and education while the traditional landholders didn’t.
Riau’s settlement
Most transmigration in Sumatera was focused on Lampung and although Transmigration settlements were established in Ria, there was also significant spontaneous migration, particularly Christian Batak, with the completion of the Trans Sumatra Highway.
In a previous post on Riau, I offered some background on the Indigenous people (Orang Asli) of Riau. Orang Asli were closely connected with the Rokan, Siak, Kampar, and Indragiri rivers and their tributaries. The pressure of settlement and competition for land, driven both by formal and informal population movements, has had adverse consequences on the health of the biophysical environment and for the survival of Riau’s remaining Indigenous people.
While people of the Siak river system were referred to as Orang Sakai, they preferred the term Orang Batin, meaning the followers of batin or the Pebatin system (see below).
Sakai, Batin or Orang Asli settlement
Prayoto offered this insight: The Orang Sakai are a Malay-dialect-speaking forest-dwelling people. They traditionally practise shifting cultivation of cassava as well as trapping, hunting, and gathering food from the forest and nearby rivers. Many Sakai families today cultivate dry rice. They also collected, and still collect, forest products. Although today most Sakai are Muslim, they are recent converts to the faith. Their Sakai forebears were non-Muslim people living on the margins of the Siak kingdom (Kerajaan Siak). Then as now, they lived in the upstream Mandau (Sungai Mandau Hulu), and its branching minor rivers (Sungai Samsam, Sungai Beringin). The Mandau River is a tributary of the Siak River, which flows by the town of Siak Sri Indrapura, the old kingdom’s political centre, connecting the hinterland with the Melaka Straits
Prior to the establishment of the Dutch East Indes, the Malay Siak Sultanate administered the region.
Pebatin was an ancient pre-Islamic Malay system of administration, imposed by the Siak Sultanate that ruled modern-day Riau from 1723 to 1946 CE before becoming part of the Republic of Indonesia in 1945.Pebatin applied to the non-Islamic forest peoples living on the margins of its territory. There were other Indigenous forest dwellers as well, see Figure 2. “The pebatin system of administration was based on a group of people living in a certain area following a headman whose position was ratified by the Malay sultan of the kingdom of Siak (East-Coast Sumatra). Each batin headman served as the representative of the forest-dwelling people to the kingdom. Election to the batin post followed matrilineal principles, and a successor was usually the previous batin’s sister’s son.” [7]
Traditionally the Batin lived in swidden-clearings (ladang) and in wooded secondary forest areas (bu’luka’). Their houses were set on poles usually consisting of one main room. Walls were usually made of bark and the roof from kopau palm-leaf thatch.
Clusters of related family dwellings were constructed within walking distance to each other. Beyond the houses were swidden fields and areas of regrowth. Beyond these settlements, closed canopy forest remained. Houses were sometimes built on river banks because of the ease of travel using dugout canoes.
Figure 5: Likely a contemporary Batin house set by the Siak Kecil river, during the wet season.
The pebatinan (plural for pebatin) named themselves using the nearest rivers so there were: Pebatin Paoh of river Paoh, Pebatin Penaso of the river Penaso and so forth.
Several observers, including Porath, note that in recent years the Batin have reluctantly accepted the term Sakai though also use the term Orang Asli, to describe themselves.
The other groups
The other Indigenous groups. At this stage, I can only rely on Prayoto’s map. He has identified seven Indigenous groups in Riau:
Akit;
Bonai;
Hutan;
Kuala Petalangan Sakai; and,
Talang Mamak.
Figure 6: The people of Penyengat Island, Riau are Orang Akit
[1]Osawa, T. JURNAL ANTROPOLOGI: Isu-Isu Sosial Budaya. Desember 2017 Vol. 19 (2): 109-123. ISSN 1410-8356
[6] Porath, N. The Healer’s Madness and the Forces of Social Change, in Behera, M.C. ‘Interventions, Familiarity and Continuity: Dynamics in tribal Communities. COMMONWEALTH PUBLISHERS PTY. LTD. 2016. ISBN 978-81-311-0573-3
[7] Porath, N. The Healer’s Madness and the Forces of Social Change, in Behera, M.C. ‘Interventions, Familiarity and Continuity: Dynamics in tribal Communities. COMMONWEALTH PUBLISHERS PTY. LTD. 2016. ISBN 978-81-311-0573-3
I’ve had much highly professional assistance with this blog post from Prayoto, I’ve included his CV in recognition. He is a man of principle. Working with him is a privilege.
Writing this post breaks a sequence of posts I’ve been intending to create, but it caught my eye and resonated well with these words
It is this knowledge of the natural world that is so apparent even with the briefest of contact with Indigenous peoples.
So, back to the story. It was written by Max J. Rosenthal who is the Digital Editor for Public Radio International (PRI). The article contains an interview with Jonathan Loh, a Research Associate of the Zoological Society of London, who co-authored a new report from WWF, Biocultural Diversity: Threatened species, endangered languages finds that where biological diversity is reduced, so is linguistic diversity.
Visiting both East Kalimantan and West Sumatra in 1989 Indigenous people told me about language loss and I saw the ecosystem loss firsthand. They told me that without their place, without their forest they could not educate children in their language.
The Kenyah Dayak grandmother from Rukum Damai in (Figure 1), could speak no Indonesian. I was forced to rely on a translator to communicate with her. Even then, she was reluctant to say very much. Children from her lamin (longhouse) were already in a state school and a satellite dish connected the community to the outside world.
Just as in the Mentawai islands, people were being forced off their land by logging companies, aided by authorities like the Department of Health, and resettled along the larger channels of the Mahakam River
Some older men were prepared to voice their concerns. I came away from this experience with a clear sense that loss of contact with traditional lands meant language loss and a process of becoming foreigners in their own land, having to learn a new language.
Impacts of the cash economy
Figure 2: Dayak farmers clearing a hillside. East Kalimantan, 1989.
Where I did see Dayak cultivation, as in Figure 2, it was on a much larger scale than I had imagined swidden cultivation to be. I left with the impression that they too were being forced into the cash economy leaving their more traditional practices behind, and having an ecological impact that was unsustainable.
Orangutan, their benign nature so apparent, have become one of the most prominent and iconic symbols in the global movement to save rainforests from destructive exploitation.
Figure 1: Mother and child
Their helplessness along with the striking appearance of Tigers, Javan and Sumatran rhinoceros calls out to those of us who love and value the natural world. In my next book, Voices of common and not so common folk, a work in progress, I have more to say about the heritage we are bestowing on future generations.
Our failing global stewardship
This post explores the consequences of failing stewardship for the first of three groups of Indigenous people, the Orang Mentawai. Subsequent posts will explore the challenges faced by theOrang Siak or Batin and finally the Orang Rimba. These are general terms and with the possible exception of the Orang Rimba, they cover a variety of different groups, just as the term Aboriginal covers many Indigenous nations in Australia.
Deep ecology
Patriarch Bartholomew has much to say about humans and their relationship with the natural world. In one instance he writes: “Our original privilege and calling as human beings lies precisely in our ability to appreciate the world as God’s gift to us. And our original sin with regard to the natural environment lies, not in any legalistic transgression, but precisely in our refusal to accept the world as a sacrament of communion with God and neighbour”.[1]
According to the Indigenous people of Siberut’s, largest of the Mentawai islands, forests, all living things, humans, animals and plants, have a spirit. These spirits can separate from their bodies and roam freely. If harmony between the spirit and the body is not maintained, the spirit will go and cause humans, animals and plants aches and sickness. If daily activities are not in accordance with customs and beliefs this can disrupt spiritual balance and harmony in nature.
Visiting Siberut island
In 1989 I visited Siberut island for the first time. The purpose of this visit was to bring attention to the cultural uniqueness of Siberut’s Indigenous people and assist them to develop a form of ecotourism that valued their traditional cultural practices.
Figure 2: The Mentawai Islands
My travelling companions were a tourism academic, a travel agent and two Batak guides from the mainland, one of whom spoke the languages of the Sarareiket River (see Figure 3). Collectively they had imparted little about our final destination other than the increasing pressure faced by Indigenous people as logging and ‘modernism’ encroached on their world.
We had just come from East Kalimantan where we had been scoping out similar possibilities for developing sensitive ecotourism.
Figure 3: Drainage basins and language groups
Journeying up the Sarareiket River from Muara Siberut to Rokdok village
After an overnight stay at Muara Siberut (1°12’09” S, 99°12’09” E), we headed up the Sarareiket river bound for our first stop at Rokdok.
Accustomed as I was to the wide Mahakam River, journeying up the Sarareiket River from Muara Siberut to Rokdok village was more like travelling up a mining sluice. It was a raging turbid torrent of sediments and tree trunks fuelled by a constant downpour. Sitting in the centre of the motorised canoe, I was amazed at the debris that came tumbling past me. Beneath my broad-brimmed hat and plastic cape, I roughed out notes on the surroundings whenever the downpour eased enough for me to peek out.
At the stern was our boatman, Pak Eddie, gunned the outboard motor across pools while deftly avoiding rocks and snags at every riffle with practiced use of rudder and throttle.
It was hard to imagine struggling upstream through this riparian gateway would be so difficult. Forestry was the problem, although that was the wrong word for it. Forestry itself conjures up a sense of an orderly enterprise but nothing remotely orderly was responsible for this turbidity. In recent years, cash cropping had followed the timber cutters and there was nothing orderly about that process either. It was a systematic rape of a fragile environment and culture unrestrained by the rapacious demands of the marketplace and the corruption of Suharto’s New Order regime.
Increasing pressure on traditional culture
After an hour, we made it to Rokdok, a village with a school and amenities block in the centre and two lines of thatched single dwellings on either side. I later learned that none of these was a typical traditional Mentawai dwelling or Uma.
Figure 4: A traditional ‘Uma’ was an isolated longhouse, often located on secondary or tertiary branches of river systems
From early years of nationhood in Indonesia, a policy of ‘civilising’ local people was adopted. Before we arrived, there had been a systematic attempt to ban shamanic practices, insist that people wear modern clothing rather than loincloths made from bark, and adopt an official religion.
Traditionally all that the people had was from their immediate environment.
Figure 5: Siberut islanders in dugout canoe with woven rattan basket. Before 1930.
“In 1980 the district administrator (Camat) in charge of the southern half of Siberut ordered that all traditional ceremonies be stopped and that all shamans hand over their traditional religious paraphernalia.”
When I arrived in 1989 there was evidence of some people retreating deeper into the forest to avoid persecution from police and government officials. One old man that I met explained, “Much of our traditional life must remain hidden and unseen if we are to protect it. However, if there was some way of showing the value of our culture perhaps even selling examples of our tools, this would help us with money. At the moment, we have no money.” Later meeting a traditional Sarareiket family at Matatonan for the first time I was surprised that they all wore contemporary store-bought clothing. It was only later as their reserve subsided and they began to don traditional attire they explained they thought at first one of our party was a government official because of the hat he was wearing.
This pressure to change came with an increasing demand for Siberut’s valuable stands for timber and the suggestion that in the future the island might be used for oil palm cultivation. Up until this point, there had been little need for money but sadly new consumer goods were attractive so the interest in money grew. If this wasn’t enough outsiders were able to gain the cooperation of local people by introducing them to extremely strong tobacco that led to a nicotine addiction epidemic on the island.
No one remained immune to this exposure. Even the traditionalists expressed a desire for trade goods, wrist watches and radios being popular.
Earlier Observations
In the two years until 1978 the late Tony Whitten, and his wife Jane, visited Siberut. They followed a similar course up the Sarareiket river. Since he returned more recently I offer a few of his observations about changes he witnessed.
Nowadays people rarely paddle their dug-out canoes, preferring to use the long-shafted ‘pepongpong’ outboards which have reduced travelling times.
While some large settlements have concrete paths elsewhere only slippery, muddy paths through sago swamps are found.
mobile phones have made an appearance.
The cash crops have changed rattan, attempts at clove cultivation had largely failed. The demand for gaharu or agarwood resin for patchouli had imperilled and there has been an attempt at cacao cultivation.
Attempts at maintaining Siberut’s Unique Biosphere
Core area (s) 190,500 ha, declared as an area with the objective of conserving biodiversity
Buffer zone of 128,277 ha, including the Saibi Sarabua Marine Park has a declared function of production, protection and conservation with an emphasis on sustainable resource use.
Transition area of 84,223 ha consisting of the APL land used for interests outside the forestry sector and private land.
In a report published in June 1992 the situation in Siberut is described as worsening. At this time there were three logging concessions on the island. Although President Suharto cancelled their concessions, this was ignored. The report states “Logging has intensified and yet more local people are under threat of dispossession and increased poverty. ” It goes on to say that “the words of the President have had little effect on the ground: indeed the oppressive treatment of the people and the destruction of the forest by logging companies has escalated. The only effect of the Presidential Declaration has been to reiterate the area supposedly protected since 1981 when the whole of Siberut Island was declared a “Man and the Biosphere Reserve” under the UNESCO scheme. UNESCO have since reneged on their commitment and, in spite of their declaration 11 years ago, have now claimed that only part of the island was made a UNESCO reserve.” Significant changes have taken place in the land management since the original declaration. In 1992, twelve tears after the Siberuts declaration as a biosphere reserve, an organisation called SOS Siberut observed that “the oppressive treatment of the people and the destruction of the forest by logging companies has escalated.” Much of this was apparent at the time, even when I visited in 1989.
SOS Siberut also observed that “People continue to be forced out of their homes, to live in small regulation houses which they must build themselves in government appointed areas. The government resettlement programme is directed largely at indigenous people in Indonesia to civilise them and so integrate them into mainstream and “modern” society”. There is no obvious reason for this upheaval unless the government’s intention is to further dislocate the Mentawai people from their traditional culture”.
Figure 7: A government-appointed resettlement area in Matatonan, 1989.
Forced resettlement and diseases from the outside
Once people moved from their isolated Uma to resettlement areas like this certain diseases more common. Under Dutch colonial rule, there was an attempt to resettle people from Siberut’s interior to villages along the coast or large rivers. Such an approach was ongoing when I visited Matonan. Below the one remaining Uma, a new village set out on a grid pattern (Figure 5) had been established. I remember the sombre tone, the somewhat depressed expression of the people, contrasting with those living in the Uma on the hill above (Figure 6).
Figure 8: People from the Uma above the government resettlement village of Matatonan
Such crowded villages lack sanitary facilities, this alone promotes the spread of disease.
Between August and November 1989, shortly after my visit, dengue hemorrhagic fever broke out at Lubaga, a government established a village in northern Siberut. Some adults and 67% of the village’s 75 children died of the disease. In the late 1970s, an epidemic of cholera wiped out the crowded Simatalu village. Outbreaks of measles have also occurred. Such events are typical of the experience faced by Indigenous peoples confronted by the expansion of economically developed societies and modernism.
Since 1989
I’ve not been back to Siberut so I must rely on others for some analysis of the present situation.
So much of the logging activity on Siberut is difficult to map precisely, it has often been unofficial and opaque.
So attractive were the forests of Mentawai that both official and unofficial operations were set in train. According to Green Left Weekly, in 1994 all logging concessions were withdrawn earlier that year but despite the government decision to stop all logging activities on the island, illegal logging is still going on, according to local people.
The Indonesian company Carya Pharmin Pulau Siberut (PT CPPS) continues extracting timber, and the Indonesian authorities have not become involved so far.
According to the locals, the company intends to extract some 7000 cubic metres of timber on the way back to the coast from the now closed concession.
In 2001 Gerard A. Persoon of Leiden University noted that the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry has ended the implementation of an Asian Development Bank (ADB) funded multi-million dollar project on the island of Siberut (West Sumatra) aimed at the protection of the island’s biodiversity and its unique traditional culture. At the same time, provincial officials are preparing proposals to convert a large part of the island into a palm oil plantation.
He continues drawing on a historical summary of logging on the island from the Indonesian Department of Forestry that summarised the history of commercial logging accordingly:
Though some commercial logging on the island started already during the 1920’s the scale and impact were very limited and nothing compared to what happened since the early 1970’s.
In 1973 the entire island was granted to four logging companies. The concession maps on which their operations were based did not even mention the villages of the Mentawaians nor the locations where their fields were situated. In an official forestry document, it is stated that the pre-1973 period was: ‘the original situation: the whole of Siberut is free state forest’ (Departemen Kehutanan 1992).[2]
When Tony Whitten returned in 2009 he observed that:
There has been formal logging on and off over the last 30 years but we hadn’t found a map of exactly where. When we reached the basin where our study area had been, the views from the villages was of logged-over forest. The rights to log the forests had been negotiated with local clans, but in hindsight the benefits were pretty meager and short-lived.
I worried about people negotiating away their rights to the forest during my visit. Tobacco addiction was widespread and I knew that commodities with the inelastic demand of addictive drugs can be an enormous drain on people and their families when the addict’s cravings met. Everyone seemed to be smoking.
Figure 9: Smoking mother in Ugai village on the Sarareiket River
Tony Whitten continued, The trees the loggers sought were the large and magnificent Shorea, and with these now gone it is getting harder for people to make their dugout canoes. Also, we were struck by the contrast of the timber quality of the longhouses we visited in areas without logging against the timber quality of the small government-sponsored modern houses with corrugated iron roofs. The timber available now seems to start looking decayed as soon as it is nailed into place.
There is one active logging company on Siberut now, although their permit was revoked a number of times after a series of letters and class action suits, accomplished through cooperation between the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, the government conservation office, UNESCO Jakarta, Conservation International-Indonesia and local NGOs. There is a recent proposal from a company to take on a former logging concession on Siberut as a ‘restoration concession.’
Logging of forests is through the use of two governmental permits, the Right of Forest Use (Hak Pengusahan Hutan or HPH) and the Wood Utilization Permits (Izin Pemcmfaatan Kayu or IPK). Under the HPH system concession holders are required to use the Indonesian selective cutting and planting technique (Terbang Pilih dan Tanaman Indonesia or TPTI). By contrast, IPK permits allow logging companies to harvest all standing timber from a forested area so that the land is converted to another use altogether. The Ministry of Forestry holds full authority to issue IPK permits. Both these instruments have been central to deforestation in Siberut.
In April 2013 the Jakarta Post carried a story by Syofiardi Bachyul Jb, NGO says deforestation worsens Siberut flooding. Flooding has worsened in riverside resettlement areas like Rokdok since the issuing of HPH and IPK concessions in the headwaters of the Sarareiket River. Deforestation brings with it a loss of food plants, loss of medicinal plants and loss of language.
In 2014, the Mentawai communities convinced local officials to stop plans for industrial palm plantations on 1,000 square kilometers (about 386 square miles) of forests and indigenous territories after years of protest. And last year, a government program to build new houses for the indigenous peoples actually ended up cutting off their access to the forest.
He goes on to report that a company called Biomas Andalan Energi (BAE) is now planning to create timber plantations on a total of 200 sq. km . . . of primary rainforest and indigenous lands on . . . Siberut, citing the Rainforest Foundation Norway as saying the company wants to use the timber as biomass for burning in electricity-generating plants.
Over the years there have been several attempts at preserving this unique biosphere. impacts of the $1 million of grants which had focused on Siberut under the Phase 1 of the World Bank-implemented Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund. These grants had followed on from an Asian Development Bank loan project (pdf) from 1992-2000 which was not a resounding success for a variety of reasons. This had itself followed on from WWF projects.
Threats Continue
In 2015 the regent (Bupait) of Siberut Island Yudas Sabaggalet wrote to BAE and the Ministry of Forestry calling for BAE’s permit to be revoked. A reply was not forthcoming. Subsequently, BAE failed to meet the deadline for submitting its environmental impact analysis, yet by November 2017 BAE still had active plans for an Industrial Plantation Forest that would permit land clearing, planting of specific species, harvesting, processing and marketing.The net effect is depletion of biodiversity, disturbance of established ecosystems and tradional land holders.
The present situation in Siberut is well covered by WALHI who cite comments from Zenzi Suhadi,Head of their Research Department, Legal Advocacy and Environment when he says:
“Forest exploitation in the Mentawai Islands for industry is a reckless and dangerous idea. If you observe the position of access and connectivity within it is very limited. The ecological functions of the island arc of west coast of Sumatra should receive maximum protection. It had good forest cover before large-scale forestry licences were issued indicating that the adaptations and management awareness of the indigenous peoples were of a high standard in the protecting of their livelihoods.
In addition to stopping the process and not issuing forest plant permits, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry must also immediately cancel the reservation of 1 million hectares of forest for plantations. The burden of damage by HTI in peat ecosystems has exceeded the government’s control, so do not increase the catastrophe in the forest ecosystem”
[1] Chryssavgis, J. (editor) Cosmic Grace Humble Prayer: The Ecological Vision of the Green Patriarch Bartholomew. William Berdman Publishing CompanyGrand Rapids Michigan/Cambridge UKISBN 978-0-8028-6261-7. 2009 pp.284
[2]Persoon, Gerard A. The Management of Wild and Domesticated Forest Resources on Siberut, West Sumatra. Antropologi Indonesia 64, 2001 pp.76.This Paper provides a comprehensive coverage of the various stages in extraction of forest products from the Mentawai Islands
