Turning old enemies into new allies
22nd May 2007
After the political upheaval of the late 1990s, villagers living in
Indonesia's forests grew used to being at the centre of bitter and violent
conflicts over land. Visits from forestry officers, in which heavy-handed
methods were used to wrest back state soil from local farmers, created a
background of instability and fear, and hostility was also common within
individual villages, with neighbours arguing and coming to blows over the use of
water supplies and other valuable resources. One of the key ambitions of the
DFID-supported
Multistakeholder Forestry Programme (MFP)
was to defuse conflict in the countryside, and so help bring peace and
prosperity to rural Indonesia. Innovative strategies were adopted, and, over the
course of the programme, these have
yielded some substantial results.
Turmoil in Indonesia's forests
Most
of the troubles in Indonesia's forests stemmed from the days when 70% of forest land was
handed over to logging and other businesses by the authoritarian Suharto regime.
This meant that, for millions of forest-dwellers, daily activities such as
harvesting wild fruits, collecting firewood and clearing land to grow rice
became illegal. After President Suharto fell in 1998, many communities began to
stake a claim to the land they had lost, resulting in numerous clashes. These conflicts led to evictions, arrests, injury and, occasionally,
death.
In the village of Simpang Sari in Sumatra, forestry officers enlisted the help of the police to pull up coffee bushes planted on state land and drive the villagers away from the forest. In nearby Dwi Kora elephants were used to destroy homes and crops on state land. Escalating disagreements between villagers and the local plantation company in Gading Permai saw houses burned down, damage to the village mosque and numerous arrests. In the region of Lombok, it was not unheard of for people to be killed in arguments over the allocation of water. Similar stories of conflict can be heard almost everywhere you go in rural Indonesia.
Settling conflict and forging new partnerships
Negotiation,
which was a central element of MFP, has been a powerful tool in solving
conflicts and improving people’s lives and livelihoods. In Sumba, the
renegotiation of a national park boundary has given the local community access
to land that, a generation ago, was seized from them. Not only is the community
much better off, but they no longer exploit the forests illegally. In Lombok,
negotiations that took place under an MFP-funded project helped to resolve a
conflict between two villages competing over freshwater supplies.
“When forestry officers come to the village,” explains Erfan, a farmer in Simpang Suri, “we often tease them by reminding them of their rough behaviour in the past.” In Erfan’s village, new regulations have allowed dozens of families to access state land, on which they have since grown profitable tree crops. The villagers’ incomes have increased, and the hillsides are now much better managed. As Warsito, the head of the District Forestry Office, explains: "In the past, the department acted like a police force. It chased people from the forests and arrested persistent offenders, because that was what the regulations demanded. But the regulations have changed, and so has our attitude."
In Simpang Sari, as in many other places, villagers are now working with forest officers rather than struggling against them. Those who were once enemies are now allies, as a consequence of meeting, discussing and working out a mutually beneficial way forward.
Key Facts
- MFP encouraged public consultation processes to generate new regulations and initiatives. These brought together government officers, local businesses, community groups, academics and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In the region of West Lampung, Sumatra, public consultation resulted in a new regulation - or PERDA - which guarantees local communities a major role in forest management.
- MFP co-funded the research-based project PAR Rinjani in Lombok. The project aims to protect the region's biodiversity and enhance its inhabitants' economic well-being by encouraging interested parties to agree on a management plan for local resources and conflict resolution. In Lombok it involved government departments, academia, NGOs and local communities. The project co-ordinated research exercises which included analysis of existing policies and field work in local villages.
Links
- A brighter future for Indonesia's forests
- Reforming forestry and building democracy
- Getting to the roots of poverty in Indonesia's forests
- Tackling illegal logging in Indonesia
