Conflict in the Forestry Sector
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Extraction activities by way of forcibly appropriating natural
forest resources from communities create multi-dimensional
conflicts. Forest extraction that is initially aimed at benefiting
the community and at the same time providing added value for
economic growth in Indonesia ultimately ends in failure when the
initial objective of benefiting the communities is not achieved.
Essentially, development of the forestry sector in Indonesia can
only be described as a success if it is able to maintain the
existence and supportive capacity of the local environment.
Development fails when it is unable to improve the welfare of the
community, as one of its primary target groups.
If we observe
the path of forestry development in Indonesia over almost three
decades, combined with various research and/or records about the
communities in and around the forests, we will witness a colossal
parade of failures of the forestry sector to respect community
rights or support community welfare. This is evident, for example,
in the lack of options that the Siak River community has to deal
with the impacts of forestry industry along the river . |
In
1991, the communities of three districts in South Aceh were
threatened by starvation because their land was controlled by five
companies with forestry concessions. The Sakai people in Riau still
have to move due to the appropriation of their land by Arara Abadi,
an affiliate of APP, and the Caltex oil company. They have been
evicted from their land and have to work as laborers in order to
rent a house plot on what used to be their people’s farming
land.
All this could only occur because the forestry
development process is founded on an erroneous paradigm. Forestry
development focuses on both domestic and foreign investment, which
is hoped to have a subsequent trickle down effect. This has been
unsuccessful. Instead, the people’s economic sectors have subsidized
the economic activities of businessmen. Millions of hectares of
people’s land have been taken over by businessmen through State
policies that have ultimately failed to respect the rights or ensure
welfare for the people.
Makinudin and Effendi (2001) gave an
example from South Aceh regency, which had an average economic
growth of 6.2% in 2000 (with 50% contributed by the forestry sector
annually), when the growth of the “green economy” was 3.6% at most.
Why? The reason is that almost 50% of conventional economic growth
in South Aceh had caused serious depreciation of forest resources.
Flooding and landslides color the region’s economy ever more
frequently. Of course, it is the community around the forests who
suffer these impacts, combined with crop failures in the downstream
agricultural sector.
Appropriation of people’s lands, which
is then claimed as State land, has multifold impacts that ultimately
strip people of their means to rebel. Aceh is one of the most
obvious examples. Rebellion in Aceh during the last two decades has
partly been based on the injustice of natural resources
exploitation. However, this is usually seen merely as an issue of
factional politics in the political arena .
Subdivision of
forest (read: community) land into business concessions doesn’t just
narrow the community’s living space but also cuts off their access
to forest resources. This can only occur in a country that positions
the Government as a power that has exorbitant rule over
resources.
The Government does actually acknowledge the
existence of communities and their systems of land tenure. These are
regulated in Law No. 5/60 on Agraria Principles and Law No. 5/67 on
Forestry Principles, which was subsequently updated with Law on
Forestry No. 41/99. However, regardless of this acknowledgement, it
is also firmly stated that the opportunity to demand forest
exploitation rights and collective rights may not override the
national interest. This means that if the State has given rights to
forestry businessmen to profit from the forests, the people must
give way to (subsidize) these businessmen. From the point of view of
the Government, the presence of industry at the location will have a
trickle down effect – and provide a trickle of profit for the
surrounding community.
In the short term, a portion of the
community indeed feels these economic advantages (apart from the
group who lose their land and their economic support). Dozens of
people carry out economic activities at the site, for example,
supplying foodstuffs and other necessities, and getting employment
opportunities – although most members of the community become
laborers due to their limited education. Economic profits are
derived. In the short term, when the process of exploitation is
underway, the village pulses with the beat of life. In the long
term, after the concession ends, the forest soils have lost their
fertility, the community has lost access to the forest commodities
that existed before the concession, and there are often horizontal
conflicts and new pests, as well as new threats of flooding and
landslides.
Sardjono (2004) ranks several factors
contributing to the sub-optimal impacts of forestry development
policies for the local community:
Table 1.
Several Causes for the Sub-Optimal Impacts of Forestry
Development Policies for the Local Community
There is only
one outcome for these many adverse impacts: conflict. The previous
discussion provides the background for this conflict. It only
requires one or two triggers – social envy, crop failure and so on –
to make this conflict permanent.
Such conflicts have been
occurring since the colonial period. Although the triggers for
conflict in the past and the present have significant differences,
the root of the problems that emerge is always the same: differences
in understanding of forestry resource management.
During the
era of kingdoms, forests were regarded as a single unit with the
people. The King could not arbitrarily make decisions about the
ownership of a forest area which was under a community’s
administration. Instead, the King would ask for a tribute from the
managing community. The same thing occurred if the kingdom had
particular interest in the land; however this was always accompanied
by adequate compensation. Despite this, in historic recordings, it
is noted that the Padalarang people in West Java migrated when the
Pasundan Kingdom forcibly appropriated the forests there for use as
a hunting ground . This migration reflects one of the conflicts of
the time.
During the colonial period, the forests according
to Javanese understanding were blessings from God who would indicate
specific groups of people to receive these blessings, who then had
the right to manage them. In a community with this sort of static
thinking, dimensions of conflict and reflection on conflict would
obviously develop in a very different and far more refined
way.
Education and opportunity to access information and
knowledge transformed this outlook into something more dynamic.
Despite this, there were still people from an adequate educational
background who continued to hold the view that management was a
blessing given to selected community groups, and not the result of
humans’ own hard work.
During the New Order period,
reflections on the conflict itself were not transparent. The
repressiveness displayed by the State through the military and
police meant that people thought twice before demanding their
rights. However, this was only a matter of time. The root of the
problem were muted, but only required a push for dimensions of
conflict to reemerge.
The following graph shows the
dimensions of conflict in the forestry sector in 2000 – 2006. Only
those conflicts that emerged during this period are included. A
number of conflicts that arose in previous years but have not yet
been resolved are excluded.
Graph 1. Frequency of National
Conflicts in the Forestry Sector, 2000 – 2006
From the
table it is evident that in 2000 – 2006 there were 317 incidents of
conflict in the forestry sector. The total number of conflicts
declined from 59 conflicts in 2000 to 34 in 2002, and then increased
again to twice the number in 2004. The post-decentralization growth
in the number of non-government organizations can be seen as
indicative of the size of their access to sources of conflict, hence
leading to escalations of conflict in 2000, 2004 and
2006.
The start of 2004 saw a change in the regime. Regime
change, as shown by history, always makes people feel as if things
will get better in the future. At the same time this pushes people
to be more open and to have more aspirations since they hope that
the problems they currently face will improve in the
future.
Another interesting finding is that a high proportion
of conflict occurred in the plantation and forest concession
sectors, followed by conflict in the conservation and industrial
timber estate zones.
Apart from conflicts in the plantation
sector, conflicts in the logging concessions, protected zones and
industrial timber estates also deserve our attention, remembering
the significant proportion of conflicts that occur here. It needs to
be determined, as mentioned above, how many of these conflicts are
new rather than old recurring conflicts.
Graph 2.
Recapitulation of Conflicts in the Forestry Sector, 2000 – 2006
There are at least five major causes of conflict, that
is, forest exploration, timber poaching, environmental destruction,
regional boundaries or access and shifts in land use zoning. The
most common cause of conflict in a range of areas (36%) is unclear
forest boundaries for the surrounding community .
In any part
of the world, economic crises and conflicts that are accompanied by
violence always receive the particular attention of Governments,
non-Government organizations and even the private sector. The World
Bank states that civil war and natural resource conflicts can bring
development processes to a critical point, retard national economies
and send communities’ social systems several years into the
past.
Attempts to prevent conflict, build understanding and
peace between disputing parties, and carry out rehabilitation after
conflict is a very difficult process. It requires Government and
non-Government intervention, and also has political and technical
dimensions that are fundamentally intertwined and cannot be
separated.
Indonesia, a country categorized as a “Developing
Country”, is not free from natural resource conflicts. They are
innumerable and have become a dominant factor as the major trigger
of conflict, most of which end in violence. Research conducted in
Riau Province found that 67% of a total 649 conflicts in the
province between 1999 and 2003 arose from natural resource
conflicts, and more than half ended in violence that caused
fatalities .
On one hand, violent conflict can be triggered
by economic disparity, unequal access to natural resources,
environmental degradation, population growth, disintegration and
fragmentation within community groups, and failure of the State to
perform its functions.
On the other hand, conflict can arise
due to the ineffectiveness of democratic institutions and conflict
resolution mechanisms, unsupportive policies, loss of social
identity and culture, and human rights violations. Although economic
activities can trigger conflict, economic activities can also
function as triggers that create peace between the disputing
sides.
In the last two decades, natural resources, including
timber from natural forests, have played a foremost role as a source
of conflict. Of 134 natural resource conflicts that occurred in Riau
from 1999 – 2003, 13% were triggered by timber disputes related to
stands, logging areas and distribution of profits . Indeed, research
conducted by CIFOR shows that approximately 40% of forest cover in
the world excluding Brazil is found in countries that have
experienced many such conflicts.
The disputes and conflicts
in Indonesia, at both national and regional levels, that have been
caused by timber cannot yet be proven academically. However,
numerous natural resource conflicts that have occurred between the
community, State and private sector show that the conflicts exist at
significant frequency.
In many cases, this conflict is
triggered by illegal logging practices, both by the community,
companies, and even by the State itself through State enterprises or
by backing up or being otherwise involved in these
practices.
Research that has been carried out in Indonesia
depicts the important role of the timber industry in the bigger
scheme of conflicts. Although the data is still fragmented, it
illustrates the respective roles of the stakeholders in conflicts.
The involvement of the business sector itself is quite variable in
WALHI’s notes, from the unilateral cancellation of agreements to
violence that ends in murder.
Companies often use violence to
intimidate and stifle any opposition to their activities. The local
Government police, and in many cases the military, also support
timber companies when there is conflict with the community. This
pattern emerged during the Soeharto Government and continues to be
played out, though now in more creative forms and models. Companies
still bribe the police, military and local Government to suppress
anybody resistant to the company’s activities. Violations of human
rights often occur in regions where there are industrial activities
and Government security units, where these forces generally have a
low educational background, minimal supervision and are free from
the attention of the mass media and NGOs. The Government often
tolerates and even supports these violent practices .
In an
attempt to maintain their traditional rights, communities tend to
act pragmatically by seizing companies’ heavy equipment, blocking
roads that companies must pass through, and the anarchical action of
burning company field offices in order to stop company activities.
The majority of these conflicts occur because of boundary issues
that the companies and Government have not wanted or been able to
resolve, environmental damage that has directly affected community
life, failure to pay the agreed level of compensation, weak law
enforcement, corruption and negative effects of decentralization
become the triggers of larger conflict regarding natural
resources.
An interesting feature of conflict in the forestry
sector that makes it distinct from other sectors is that conflict in
the forestry sector involves many parties, from the local scale to
the national scale, and even the international. Furthermore, the
difference in status between the “strong” and “weak” parties is very
distinct. The stronger parties are usually easily able to maintain
their position because they have the power to oppose the weaker
parties. They have more information and greater financial capacity
than their weaker counterparts . This difference in power makes it
difficult to find a solution for conflicts in the forestry
sector.
Another characteristic that distinguishes forestry
sector conflicts to those in other sectors is that the public is
often unaware of conflicts in the forestry sector. This is because
they often occur in isolated areas or are co-opted by the various
law enforcers so that journalists working in the field have little
chance of adequately covering the story .
Tenurial
Conflicts
Tenurial conflicts within the dimensions
of Indonesian natural resource conflicts take first place in
frequency. Border issues and unresolved compensation processes
represent a portion of an increasing number of tenurial conflicts.
Almost all of these conflicts occur because of differences in the
perception of legal issues. Companies with timber concessions or
industrial timber estates maintain that they have obtained official
permission from the Government. On the other hand, the Government
never does a ground check to see if the permits that they have
issued disturb the community or not. This issue actually stems from
the politics of “State forests” that has been applied thus far.
Although regulations require confirmation of regions that have been
designated as State forests, which are marked by boundaries (so that
the potential for conflict with community ownership rights can be
ascertained), the Government has neglected this confirmation in
practice. The Government itself admits that boundaries for less than
20% of State forests have been confirmed. Therefore, if we refer
back to the regulations, these forestry concessions could be
described as illegitimate because they have not been issued in State
forests.
Tenurial conflict is a consequence of the
‘nationalization’ of forests. A paradigm of development based on the
rate of domestic and foreign investment has led this country to give
unlimited power to the Government. The Government provides an
enormous opportunity to investors to invest their capital at the
same time as ‘asking’ the people to subsidize the investors in terms
of land. This process has proceeded smoothly with the incorporation
of military interference. Runtu Village, South Arut District in
Central Kalimantan is still a controversial case, where the
involvement of the police and military to salvage investment has
proceeded without any legal action whatsoever to address the
favoritism demonstrated by the police.
Since 1982, Runtu
Village land has been “forced to subsidize” the PT Astra Agro
Lestari company. New Order repression at that time succeeded in
forcing the Runtu Village population to shut their mouths and accept
the policies that were unilaterally issued by the central
Government. It was only during the reform period that the community
was brave enough to openly demand the land that had been
appropriated by the company. In a subsequent meeting held by the
company and the Government, the West Kotawaringin Local Government
disingenuously found that the land could not be returned because of
the agreed partnership between the West Kotawaringin Local
Government and PT Astra Agro Lestari. Clearly, this agreement took
place between the company and the local Government, subsequent to
previous agreement with the central Government. The agreement of the
community was not necessary because the development paradigm in
Indonesia gives greater consideration to the amount of money
invested by investors.
Meanwhile, conflicts are also
frequent in conservation regions. This could only occur because the
determination of regions as national parks or protected forests was
done without the participation of the local community. People
unexpectedly discover national park boundary markers in their
backyards. The impacts of these conflicts vary. The Government most
often carries out evictions to solve the problem. The community are
evicted from their villages because they are perceived as having
crossed into the national park zone, although the community were
living there well beforehand.
The issue of compensation and
outstanding compensation often emerges in tenurial conflicts. This
accusation has some connection with history. Companies often ignore
community concerns, often with encouragement from the Government.
Companies are also often aided by military and police forces to
assert their will on the people. This sort of behavior has fed the
community’s hatred and mistrust of the Government and
police/military forces, which became a major issue in the mass media
in 2001. The freedom stemming from the reform period gave them an
opportunity to demand the rights that they had lost over the
previous years.
The opposition displayed by the victimized
community is often of a pragmatic nature. In many cases, the
community is forced to close down companies’ activities by blocking
roads or bridges. The community then lobbies the Minister for
Forestry and relevant institutions with letters to demand that
concessions be retracted. Is there a close connection between the
increase in the number of conflicts and the reform era? The close
association cannot be denied. Pressure applied to the community and
mass media has meant that many conflicts in the forestry sector have
not been exposed. For instance, when the strings of several national
mass media are tugged, red lines are visible between the company
owners and Golkar. Even if there are no direct relations between the
two, Soeharto would control any news they released. The Minister for
Information at the time, who in some people’s opinion could more
accurately be identified as Golkar and Soeharto’s spokesperson,
controlled the issue and retraction of press/publishing licenses.
This much power meant that it was relatively easy for Soeharto to
control journalism, by wielding the retraction of press/publishing
licenses as a threat. In this way, Soeharto co-opted the
media.
The fall of Soeharto did not suddenly herald a
democratic climate. During the BJ Habibie era, Government and
military/police powers were still very strong, and able to control
the mass media. Although repressive practices declined compared to
previous years, this was not significant enough to give
people/communities the courage to acknowledge conflicts in the
forestry sector and bring these to the fore.
It was only in
the Abdurrahman Wahid period that the energy from several conflicts,
which had previously been repressed, suddenly erupted. The graph of
conflicts in a range of sectors increased sharply. The press started
to feel the aura of freedom to report on what had previously been
taboo.
From the analysis above, it can be seen that
boundaries are one of the main triggers of the conflicts that have
emerged in the last decade. There is also, of course, an element of
Government error in performing its duties and functions. To date,
the Government has undertaken all necessary steps for forest
gazettal in only 17% of the forests that it claims are State
forests. 83% of the so-called State Forests have been created
without following the regulations to establish their boundaries.
This means that, according to regulations, more than 80% of State
control of forests is illegal. This plundering continues until
present. Where the policy for determination of boundaries has been
handed over to local Government, the relevant local leader never
carries it out, even though the industry in question has submitted
their payment to the local cashbox for the boundaries to be
set.
Subsequently, a relevant question is, which borders need
to be obeyed? Is it the boundary set by the Government or the
borders acknowledged by local communities, which often overlap with
the Government claim? Border issues will continue to recur if an
appropriate solution is not found. It is not easy to reach an
agreement about boundaries, but a solution must be found in order to
end boundary conflicts in forestry areas. This uncertainty about the
boundaries of customary land is often exploited by a section of the
community to claim ridiculous areas of land.
It is worth
noting that the boundary issues are not new problems in the forestry
sector. There needs to be agreement regarding the definitions,
processes and determination of boundaries. In the Timber Legality
Standard, one of the factors indicating whether a concession is
legal or not is the existence of Boundary Delineation Notifications
and map appendices, the verification of which has reference to
community considerations.
Conflict Caused by
Damage to the Environment and Health
Environmental
damage and pollution that affect community health also contribute
significantly to conflicts in the forestry sector. Although there
has been no thorough research that examines the patterns of conflict
caused by environmental damage, conflicts arising from logging
practices and timber industry operations have occurred everywhere,
including in the natural forests, industrial timber estates,
national parks, pulp and paper factories, and plywood factories.
Depending on the location and situation, conflicts can involve
Government institutions, business stakeholders, the community,
logging groups and security forces.
In all parts of the
world, the forests are indeed an arena for conflict between the
various parties with stakes in forest resources. The interests of
one party often clash with those of others. In many cases, conflicts
of interest between companies with logging concessions and
industrial timber estates often infringe the rights of the local
people. The two sides both need timber to meet their production
capacities. The industrial timber estates have tended to delay
planting trees using the cost as an excuse. The money spent on
developing industrial timber estates, including the permanent costs
and the re-planting costs are far more expensive than accepting
timber from other sources, which ultimately come from natural
forests.
Moreover, these two industries often carry out
logging like a person eating hot porridge. That is, starting from
the edge and heading to the center. In many cases, when a company
carries out logging, it does not only log from the edge of its own
concession, but penetrates deep into the natural forests, which are
not part of its concession. In 2003, PT Arara Abadi clearly
harvested timber far from its concession near Giam Siak Kecil Game
Reserve. The distance between the logging and its concession was up
to 11 km. Two companies (PT Arara Abadi and PT Riau Andalan Pulp
& Paper) operating near the Zamrud Nature Reserve in Riau logged
trees 14.2 km from their concessions .
An example of conflict
that really attracted the attention of both the national and
international mass media was the case of the PT Arara Abadi (a
subsidiary of Asia Pulp & Paper – Sinar Mas) security forces
attacking Mandi Angin Village in Riau Province. Since 1999, PT Arara
Abadi had carried out logging on 2,000 ha of community land (Rasau
Kuning Resort). According to PT Arara Abadi’s testimony, this land
was part of the company’s concession as proven by Decree of the
Minister for Forestry No. 743/kpts-II/1996 on 25 November 1996 .
However, the company have refrained from showing the map of this
land. The local Government was similarly reluctant to help the
community to ascertain the actual location of the PT Arara Abadi
concession.
On 23 February 2000, the problem was taken up by
the Minister for Forestry in Jakarta, and a status quo was decided
for the land. However, seven months afterwards, the company took
5,000 cubic meters of timber from the land. The community became
angry and detained 20 PT Arara Abadi trucks. Two weeks later at
14.30 WIB, 500 of PT Arara Abadi’s militia carried out a surprise
attack on the community settlement in Mandiangin village. The 500
men were transported in 10 trucks and brought sharp weapons such as
machetes, axes and iron pieces. Meanwhile, the villagers only
numbered 300 men. The attack by the militia saw two homes completely
burnt down and 30 people injured. Interestingly, eyewitnesses
testified that they saw police present who did nothing. Another
interesting observation was that the militia did not forget to bring
two ambulances. The Mandiangin Village Head, Syaiful Wakni, has
continued to write letters to the company that essentially state
that agricultural and collective land should be
returned.
Other conflicts that deserve attention are
conflicts caused by the water and air pollution around factories.
Although the problem of waste disposal is regulated in the Law on
the Environment and companies must conduct an environmental risk
analysis (AMDAL) before beginning operations , in reality many
companies have unsatisfactory waste installations.
This is
also the case where discarded materials that are considered by the
Environmental Impact Analysis do not correspond with the materials
that are actually discarded. The construction of waste installations
is indeed expensive and will reduce businessmen’s profit margins in
the short-term. Hence, companies usually build solitary disposal
pipes that are not actually connected with the sewerage pipes
leading to the waste installation. By this means they can dupe
auditing officers.
Even the Environmental Impact Analysis
process contains many deceptions. The academics used to conduct the
Environmental Impact Analysis often have poor cultural and social
knowledge of the local community. Even without considering the
possibility of corruption in the form of data manipulation, the
problems of conducting an Environmental Impact Analysis deserve
close examination. Prior and Informed Consent Without Coercion must
be the focus of attention because this has become the bargaining
tool for whether or not a company’s entry is accepted, or considered
to threaten the territory and rights of the
community.
Conflicts related to environmental damage and
pollution can be found in the conflict involving the Porsea
community and PT Inti Indorayon Utama (now Toba Pulp
Lestari).
Thousands of the Porsea community protested against
the re-opening of PT Inti Indorayon Utama for operation, which has
now changed its name to PT Toba Pulp Lestari (TPL). They felt that
the peaceful life and healthy environment that they have enjoyed for
four years would be lost with the re-opening. However, a cabinet
meeting on 9 January 2002 explicitly decided to open, as seen in the
results of the decision which depicted Rini Soewandi (Minister for
Industry and Trade) as the team leader to observe the location and
Yacob Nuwaewa to publicize the re-opening of Indorayon. Moreover,
the plant had been operating on the sly for two to five hours per
day since January 2003. The company also used military forces
(Mobile Brigade and Police) to support the re-opening. These have
already displayed their cruelty in capturing, assaulting and
torturing members of the community who participated in the protest
action.
The Government’s stubborn attitude in allowing the
reopening of Indorayon in Porsea has clearly hurt all of the
community there, who feel that their lives have suffered immensely
since the company began operating.
During its course,
Indorayon has affected community life through effects on the
environment, human rights, culture and society. The forests have
been severely damaged. This is proven by Landsat Satellite Image: as
much as 24,116 ha land outside the Sibatuloting forest region now
lacks cover and suffers heavy erosion including severe gully erosion
and landslides. A rotten odor was constantly released during
previous operations and the current re-opening of the pulp mill.
Research undertaken by the University of Indonesia Public Health
Faculty in collaboration with WALHI showed that this pollution has
reduced the robustness of community health. Agricultural yields have
also declined by 40%. Ducks, chickens, pigs and fish that are raised
as well as hard plants such as stinkbean (petai), pithecolobium bean
(jengkol), coffee and clove have become completely unproductive
because of the pollution.
In addition to the environmental
losses and reduced level of health, the community also suffered
materially, for instance due to the appropriation of 225 ha of their
customary grazing land, which was surrendered to PT IIU for 30 years
for compensation worth Rp 12,500/ha. In 1989, PT IIU charged 10 old
women from Sugapa village for opposing Indorayon by maintaining
their customary land. Landslides in Bulu Silape village buried and
killed 13 people in 1989. Several instances of shootings and torture
by militia have also left victims. To present, at least 20 people
have died in the course of Indorayon’s operations.
The data
and incidents described above basically indicate to us that
conflicts in the forestry sector exist, and at a high level relative
to conflicts in other natural resource sectors. These conflicts have
the potential to grow geographically and have many
dimensions.
In logging concessions and industrial timber
estates, conflicts are often tightly suppressed so that they cannot
emerge in either the mass media or the legislative, which is the
representation of the people in Government. This silencing is done
using violence. It has only one aim, that is, so that the people do
not voice their stories to the public and so that other people
cannot help, which would possibly incur costs on the
company.
Conflicts in the forestry sector associated with
tenure, environmental damage and/or health can be classified
as:
o Appropriation of land by companies,
followed by intimidation by police/military forces or company-owned
militia, who generally have a background as petty
criminals;
o Restriction of access to forests
so that communities cannot benefit from forest yields to improve
their welfare;
o Available employment cannot
accommodate the educational level of the community in the
villages;
o Convoluted and unfruitful
negotiations. Companies tend to send representatives who cannot make
decisions, with the aim of stalling for time so that the community
becomes bored with negotiating and resolving the conflict that has
occurred;
o Environmental damage, with the
common symptoms being flooding, emergence of new pests and/or
pollution;
o Restriction of access to the
benefits of resource extraction activities. Various programs for
community development are conducted without negotiation with the
community.
Conflict due to Decentralization of
Power
It seems that decentralization can give birth
to conflict. Local Governments feel dizzy with their new authority.
They have always had the guidance of central Government, and now
that it is time to be autonomous, it seems that not all provinces
are capable and ready to perform their duties. The politics of power
played by Soeharto also proved that political education has been
inadequate. The people do not value the existence of differences in
opinion.. The repressiveness of the New Order still maintains a good
grip on everyone’s memory and when the opportunity arises, they put
this into practice with the expectation of a similar response, that
is, the obedience and subservience of political opponents. Regional
level rulers have transformed from being the repressed to becoming
the new repressors. Hundreds of Soehartos have emerged in all
corners of Indonesia.
The shift in power in 2000 deliberately
recalled the issue of separatism. The central Government, which has
been terrified of losing income from various natural resources in
Indonesia, then gave responsibilities for agriculture, industry,
trade and employment to the 360 regencies at the time (2000).
However, defense, security, national planning and natural resource
exploitation remained the jurisdiction of central
Government.
Although from one perspective this has greatly
influenced the political climate in Indonesia, it has also had
impacts elsewhere: the depletion of natural resources. More than
three-quarters of regencies in Indonesia have a budget that is
inadequate for carrying out regional administration. This is not a
problem for areas that have natural gas and mineral resources
because the proceeds from the Specific Allocation Fund is large
enough to turn the wheels of government, although some still claim
this is inadequate.
To address this, the central Government
issued regulations that allowed regencies to issue logging permits
on 100 ha areas of land, which was originally aimed at helping poor
communities around the forests to develop subsistence agriculture
using capital from the logging. This objective was abused. While
claiming to support the development of subsistence agriculture, the
100 ha permits were continually used as a money-making tool by the
associated regencies.
The 100 ha money machines not only
caused problems with land degradation. The euphoria of
decentralization had made the regents arrogant and they felt as if
they had unlimited power over their jurisdiction. Boundary conflicts
arose. This was caused by the great many regents who issued policies
that conflicted with those passed by the central Government. 100 ha
permits for timber processing (Timber Forest Proceeds Exploitation
and Collection Permits) overlapped with industrial timber estates
and logging concessions which had previously been issued by the
central Government, as well as with community-owned lands.
A
study was conducted to see how far these problems met uncertainty
and inconsistency in the regulations, which eventually ended in
conflict. Regulations that were found to be inconsistent, unclear
and problematic included: 1) decentralization of licensing; 2) weak
and corrupt law enforcement; and 3) significant differences between
official regulations and traditional rights. It was estimated that
more than 500 regulations, laws and policies that regulate forests
overlap. What needs to be recognized is that all this uncertainty
has just one outcome, that is, environmental degradation and
deterioration in health due to the unsustainable factory and logging
operations.
Another problem that has emerged from the 100 ha
licensing is that there is no obligation for concession holders to
carry out reforestation. The permits are also only valid for one
year. This is sufficient time to clearfell all of the tree stands in
and outside the concession (timber poaching); however it is not
sufficient time to arrange a work plan for reforestation in the
region.
In reality, decentralization has produced an
imbalance of power between national and local level Government.
Political behavior at the regional level has ultimately manifested
as a reincarnation of the nepotism and collusion commonly employed
by Soeharto. Decentralization has suddenly created mini-Soehartos
alongside a horrifying increase in corruption. In 2002, the
Government passed Governmental Regulation 34/2002, which was aimed
at reducing deforestation and stopping the issue of concessions by
local Governments. This regulation also stipulated that concessions
issued by Regency governments since 2002 were illegal and were
therefore to be retracted. Here, the central Government has no idea
how to enforce the law, since the police and military receive bribes
from the illegal loggers or are actively involved in the illegal
logging themselves .
The problem becomes even more difficult
because these two levels of Government both feel as if they have the
right to issue permits. The lack of clear regulations regarding this
problem, which could potentially solve the problem, means that
resolution often occurs in the field. The figures for deforestation
have escalated drastically across the board without any further
attempt to seek the root of the problem. Forestry industries are
falling over one by one because of the scarcity of legal raw
materials.
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(http://www.eng.walhi.or.id/)
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