Competing Legitimacy for Forest Resource Management in a Developing Country: The Case of Marga vs. the Industrial Reforestation Project in South Sumatra, Indonesia

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  • 途上国の自然資源管理における正統性の競合――インドネシア・南スマトラの事例から――
  • トジョウコク ノ シゼン シゲン カンリ ニ オケル セイトウセイ ノ キョウゴウ インドネシア ミナミスマトラ ノ ジレイ カラ

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Abstract

<p>In Indonesia, customary land rights are by and large approved, although they are not always regarded as legal. Such an environment helps the deprived indigenous people to re-claim their traditional land. However, once legitimacy based on ‘customs’ or ‘reality of life-world’ becomes mainstreamed, it functions as a double-edged-sword, which can also harm the more vulnerable sectors of society.</p><p>In South Sumatra Province, clan-like genealogically-tied communal institutions, called jurai or sumbay, used to manage traditional forestland. The Palembang Kingdom of the 16 th century reorganized jurai into Marga and was later succeeded by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) to control the forest. The Dutch authorized Marga Benakat or the Benakat clan to maintain their customary forest by written approval in 1932. In 1967, the independent Republic of Indonesia announced that all forested land in the country was to be exclusively controlled by the Republic, dismantling local initiatives on the forest. Since then, the central government has monopolized power over forests and given logging concessions to commercial enterprises.</p><p>Traditionally, Marga Benakat divided their territory into two parts. One was ‘Cultivation Land’ where any Marga member could conduct slash-and-burn farming, while the other was ‘Community Jungle’ where cultivation and commercial logging was banned. Thus Community Jungle remained relatively well preserved and was inhabited by tigers, elephants and other endangered mammals. Abandoned ex-cultivated land could be envisaged as ‘devastated land’ by foresters because of its grassy or bushy cover, whereas local dwellers regarded it as a part of the cyclical process of recovering forest. In 1989, the government implemented a huge scale industrial afforestation project. Soon the reforestation estate started to enclose and log Marga’s forests and plant acacia mangium exclusively in the cleared fields. When the company began to fell their Communal Jungle, Marga Benakat moved to claim their customary land rights over their traditional territory.</p><p>The customary land claims of Marga Benakat attracted several supporters including influential NGOs both nationally and internationally. Those NGOs accused the reforestation estate of illegal logging in the area, and accentuated the sustainability of Marga Benakat’s traditional management over the tropical forest. On the other hand, the company emphasized their scientific engineering technologies to afforest the vast area of ‘non-productive’ land. Thus, two different types of legitimacy operating on different levels clashed, competing for access to the forest. Backed by the local media’s anti- ‘illegal logging’ campaign, the dwellers reaffirmed their rights over their Community Jungle, while their customary Cultivation Land was almost all enclosed by the company. In this case, indigenous communal knowledge was able to compete with the scientific knowledge in the management of tropical forest.</p><p>However, the emphasis on ‘customs’ or ‘reality of life-world’ may also exclude the more marginalized members of society, such as migrant laborers, from the access to forest resources. In fact, many bloody conflicts between traditional communities and newcomers, sparked by the government’s notorious policy known as transmigrasi, were witnessed all over Indonesia, as frustrated natives attacked the newly founded villages in an attempt to regain their ancestral domains.</p><p>(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)</p>

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