Globales Lernen: Unterrichtsprojekt Regenwald

HOMEPAGE Unterrichtsprojekte Regenwald Material

Material: 5.1

Conflicts and Fire Causes in a Sub-District of Kutai (East Kalimantan)

Christian Gönner

General Setting Conflicts between villages and companies Conflicts within the villages The Fire Situation in 1997/98 Fire Causes Conclusions

General Setting

The area of this case study was until recently managed traditionally by Dayak farmers. Most families made annual swiddens (ladang) for the cultivation of upland rice and vegetables, using the fallow partly for the establishment of forest gardens (rattan, rubber, fruit trees).
Rotation cyles differ among the villages ranging from 10-35 years. Cash income is mainly generated from rubber, ironwood, rattan (in general cultivated) and a big, however, conomically less important variety of other forest products.

The landscape was dominated by secondary lowland forest, interspersed with a patchwork of several thousand forest gardens. 

Land conversion started in 1993, when a HTI-Trans project was started and several hundred hectares of locally managed forest were cleared. Four years later the transmigration site (300 houses) was abandoned and the logging company's license withdrawn. Nevertheless some new transmigration projects started in 1997/98. 

A coal mining company has been surveying and exploring the area since 1993. The size and location for future exploitation is not yet clear, but there seems to be much overlap with villages and other companies.

In early 1996 an oil palm company started land clearing in a concession of 100,000 ha, overlapping three sub-districts. By September 1997, when the fires started, more than 10,000 ha of former utilized forest and scrubs had already been opened.


Conflicts between villages and companies

The arrival of the former HTI-Trans project immediately caused severe conflicts between the project and two villages. Rattan and fruit gardens, as well as, graveyards had been destroyed without any previous information or agreement. Despite the efforts of several legal consultants including NGOs no compensation was ever paid.

An atmosphere of distrust was still present, when the oil palm company arrived in early 1996. Many villagers rejected the idea of replacing their productive agroforestry systems with a new and unknown resource, mainly controlled by another big project. Some farmers had visited oil palm farmers in Pasir, who complained about low prices and a declined life stile. 

The company asked for village meetings, where they promised the farmers development beyond their imaginations. Those villagers who had organized protest activities were offered well paid jobs, and in due time five out of seven villages officially agreed with the project, although this agreement was often only made between the village chief and the company, with no regard to the rejection of other villagers.

Finally, the company started its land clearing activities in February/March 1996 using chainsaws and bulldozers. Many farmers, including people from still protesting villages found temporary labor as tree fellers (men) or wage workers in the nursery (mainly women). 

Serious problems started when a rubber garden was cleared by a bulldozer team. The owner asked for compensation, which he was promised at a later time. Then one night about 20-30 youths appeared at the manager's home and threatened to beat him up. The police was called, and finally this first dispute was settled peacefully.

During the following months several conflicts of this kind arose culminating in a near clash in the middle of 1997, when a farmer was beaten by external oil palm workers, as he refused to give his garden to the company. His family waited for a cultural feast, when hundreds of people came to the main village including the external oil palm workers, who lived in barracks at that time. One of the suspected external workers was caught and beaten so hard
that he had to be sent to the hospital in the provincial capital. The other workers organized themselves the same evening and were about to come back to the village in a group of two to three hundred. By then the police and army had closed the road preventing further bloodshed. The Dayak farmers, however, were already waiting with their blowpipes. Two days later the military from Balikpapan was sent in for the following week to maintain security.

Compensating destroyed gardens still remains an open question as not every farmer has received payment yet. The compensation paid by the company is below the district's standards. Prices are generally negotiated on an individual basis between owners and the company, or in some cases with the involvement of middlemen (e.g. village chiefs). Since a family usually holds up to 20 or 30 gardens, some people got a rather big sum in very short
time. This money was used to buy gold, chain saws, motorbikes, motorized canoes, TV sets and many other items. It was rarely invested into new agricultural activities. 

In 1997 most conflicts were caused by the company's non-observance of traditional land rights. Although the company had initially promised to enclave those forest gardens which should not be converted into oil palm estates, and although those gardens had been marked with signs saying "Jangan digarap!" (do not convert), many of them were cleared with bulldozers. In the end no one trusted the company at all, and many people tried to bargain for
compensation before they would lose their gardens to conversion or fires without being paid.

Conflicts within the villages

Conflicts were traditionally solved by adat law, often leading to night long discussions. Acknowledged mediators, usually local honourable men and women (often the kepala adat or traditional chief) could generally reach an agreement between the disputing parties. In cases where no solution was found, a fission of the longhouse was the ultimate alternative.

Nowadays these conflict solving patterns only partly work. Most families moved from the longhouse to individual houses some thirty years ago, and social control is getting weaker due to a rather strong individualism.

In some cases disputes between two families had a decade long history, including former accusation of theft and arson. Thus, suspicion against arch-enemies rose quickly, when the forest gardens started burning.

The sudden wealth of people, who were compensated well, raised financial envy among those who felt cheated or whose gardens were not yet converted. Sometimes this envy was further enhanced by those "nouveaux riches", when they asked still rejecting farmers, whether they didn't want to have a "white motorbike". 

Once the forest gardens were burning, internal conflicts increased due usually to unproved suspicion and revenge, entering a vicious circle that could not be cut until the fires stopped due to rainfall in April 1998.

The Fire Situation in 1997/98

The first severe forest fires in the sub-district started in September 1997 after almost four months of drought. The general pattern was that most fires occurred at the edge of the already cleared land in locally managed forest, overlapping with the oil palm concession.
During September and October many of those gardens, which were not yet given to the company caught fire, including enclaved gardens surrounded by nothing but completely cleared land. 

One big fire escaped from the former HTI-Trans site into old secondary forest, destroying almost 80% of one village's forest gardens.

Forest fires went out, when rain came in the first week of November, but started again in the middle of January and lasted until April. During this second period many fires again occurred along the concession boundaries but also within (slashed and bulldozered vegetation, enclaved gardens). In addition, many forest gardens also burned outside the concession area.

By the end of April the fires had destroyed more than two thousand forest gardens. The rattan resources grown over the last ten years were finished, rubber and fruit gardens severely damaged. The villages had virtually lost their bank accounts.

Fire Causes

A broad variety of fire causes was mentioned depending on who was asked. The oil palm company denied the accusations made by villagers and blamed them in reverse. As early as September many villagers had put the blame on the oil palm company, and the fire pattern seemed to match this hypothesis (see above). At least in this early phase only the company was benefitting. But proof was still missing.

In November my wife witnessed some men coming back from burning forest patches carrying petrol cans. She adressed them in the local language, which they did not understand. When she asked for whom they were working, they frankly admitted that it was for the oil palm company. 

During the whole fire period no fires originated from swiddens, since not a single farmer had dared to burn before the first rain came in early November. Traditionally clean corridors are made around swiddens before burning in dry years. But 1997 was much to dry to prevent a fire from escaping into the forest. Since the origin of such a fire would be obvious and adat fines for burning forest gardens is high, farmers waited for rain to come. Besides, only a
small portion of the farmers tried to make a swidden because of the drought and rather poor harvest prospects.

Once the first gardens were destroyed other gardens started burning, sometimes outside the concession area, and a saying went: "If it burns on the left side of the path, it will also burn on the right side". According to many villagers frustrated people started destroying gardens of others as they did not want to be the only ones who suffered severe losses. In some cases years of disputes were "solved" by fire. 

New internal conflicts arose over land titles. Quite often it was unclear who was entitled to get compensated for a specific garden. Most villages were devided into people who wanted to join the oil palm project and those who rejected it. Even within families disputes broke out, and it was not uncommon that the garden of interest burned as a result, leaving everyone on the losing side.

In fact, the only winning party was the oil palm company, benefitting from most fires.

In other cases big gardens burned and people said it was because someone did hold a grudge against the owner due to a large sum of compensation money.

A slightly different case occurred in village D. The company had agreed to a boundary of six times six kilometers around the village. This land was supposed to meet the demand for forest gardens and future swiddens. Farmers whose gardens were located outside got compensated. But soon this compensation money and the luxury items purchased with it created new envy in the village. Now people holding gardens within the 36 km2 also wanted
to sell them. This was at first rejected by the company, since there were too many private gardens in between. Finally most of those "disturbing" gardens caught fire, until the formerly agreed 36 km2 were reduced to only one.

These revenge and envy fires had already started during the first phase (September/ October), but they played a much bigger role in the second one (January-April).

The family of farmer A had been lucky. Although most families in the village had lost many forest gardens, A's rattan remained unburned until early March. Then at several occasions fires started in A's rattan garden, but each time it could be put out before causing too much damage. Finally, the family came too late (A was not in the village at that time) and their garden was destroyed completely. Since someone had seen farmer B coming from the
direction of the rattan garden, and since family A had a long feud with family B, the explanation was immediately available. When I passed the forest the next day, farmer B's rubber garden was burned to ashes, but no one knew where the fire had come from…

Despite those internal fire causes, the perspective among villagers persisted that it was the oil palm company with its land clearing activities, which was the real one to be blamed. Complaints about burned enclaved gardens increased and finally reached the provincial government. Two inspection teams were sent into the area, but no proof for the company's guilt was found. However, both teams had announced their arrival several days in advance
and were shown around the concession area only by the company's management. Their tour was kept far from any recent fire within the concession. 

A third team (this time from Jakarta) seemed to have learnt from the two former visits and chose their inspection route based on local informants. They finally found proof of fires within the concession area, but no substantial legal measures followed.

At the end of March 1998 all field activities stopped on the oil palm plantation due to the drought and financial problems. Many so called manors (minor assistents) were sacked as well as the daily wage workers. One of them in his anger spoke very frankly about the burning practices of his former company and even took pictures of burning rubber gardens in the middle of the concession.

According to the former manor C the company's management is structured as follows. On top of each branch is a field manager, who commands eight assistants. These have dozens of minor assistants (manor like C) under themselves, who have to help negotiate with the villagers. On the lowest level were hundreds of wage workers, all employed on a daily basis.

Every assistant was responsible for 100 ha of a certain area for which he got 150 million Rupiah for his negotiations. Following C's explanation, in order to reduce the amount of compensation money and to increase the sum of pocket money for themselves the assistants ordered their manors to burn forst gardens. 

C was willing to report this to a legal court, but withdrew later out of fear for the company's revenge.

Although C's version sounded plausible, some villagers (not linked to the company) had their doubts. One even suspected C of having set the mentioned rubber garden on fire to take revenge against the company by accusing them of burning and reporting this to journalists and the police.

Conclusions

Although the actual cause of most individual fires remains unclear due to several, often contradicting explanations given by the various stakeholders, it is true, what the chief of one village said. The fires did not fall down from heaven, they were caused by human beings. And for his particular village it is also true, that there were no forest fires in 1982/83, when there was no company. Thus, his conclusion was that the fires were caused by the company.

If this version is not interpreted in a monocausal way it contains a lot of truth. Some fires were caused directly by the oil palm company. It had its own interest in clearing land as cheap and fast as possible. Other fires were the result of conflicts, often created by the company's way of practice, which had disturbed a dynamic but not unstable steady state much more than the villagers had experienced before. Traditional ways of conflict solution and of dealing with a confrontation from outside did not work anymore. Too much had changed too fast, too little remained under the control of the villages.

Especially the initial performance should have been different. The primary planning was not participatory at all. Traditional land rights were ignored, ground checking of already existing resource management systems was omitted. A co-operation with the local population (not only with their leaders!) might have avoided many of the recent conflicts.

If these kinds of fire causes want to be reduced, the way of planning and performing plantation projects must be changed in many aspects. If this is not done, the mere presence of such projects is enough to trigger large scale social destabilization leading to more fires in the future. Empty promises, lost gardens, forests, jobs and perspectives, have angered the people and increased the danger of future revenge fires - then directed against the oil
palm company.

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