| Abstract: |
| In the Batang Toru area of North Sumatra, people have live alongside orangutans for many centuries. Can this coexistence continue in the face of enhance conservation of biodiversity and the need to improve the livelihood condition of the local community? There are multiple claims on land and complex negotiations to find new arrangements that will work for all stakeholders, human as well as flora and fauna.
A Rapid Land Tenure Assessment (RATA) method has been developed by ICRAF and it’s partners since 2003. It has become one of the tools for gaining a better understanding of land and resource tenure claims by the different interest groups. The refined understanding on land and resource tenure is meant to be used together by other related bodies of knowledge to support the negotiation processes among the different interest groups, which may improve the quality of the negotiation for better management of the natural resources. The purpose of the RATA field test at Batang Toru Watershed aimed to seek policy options to protect the biodiversity and improvement of the livelihood of the local community in and surrounding the Batang Toru watershed, North Sumatera as well as to improve the tool to be more applicable for various land and resource tenure claims in other parts of Indonesia.
The field test was conducted in January 2007 in three villages in Aek Nabara (South
Tapanuli district), Huta Gurgur (Central Tapanuli district) and Sibulan-bulan (North Tapanuli district). These three villages are located in and surround the Batang Toru watershed where ICRAF-SEA and CI-Indonesia are working together with the support of USAID.
The key findings are:
1. The boundaries of the designated forest areas are overlapping with the village’s productive forests and agriculture lands. The designated forest area (penunjukkan kawasan hutan) do not provide a legal basis to define private-public lands. The appropriate (legal) process should be followed by forest delineation (penataan batas kawasan hutan) and forest gazettement (penetapan kawasan hutan), as specified in the forest law. Once the forest gazettement is finished, then the area can be called state forest areas (kawasan hutan negara). However, the civil rights of the communities over the land and resources in those particular areas will be protected as well, if the legal process is followed. The protection of those rights is clearly regulated in the North Sumatera Provincial Spatial Plan (Perda Prop Sumut 7/2003 Article 9). The state action against the civil rights of the local communities over the land and natural resources could be considered as the violation over those rights.
2. The three village’s settlements are located outside the appointed forest areas (kawasan hutan yang ditunjuk) but some of the rubber agroforests and the village-forests are located in the areas designated as forest areas. Specifically in Aek Nabara: some of the rice fields and mixed farms as well as the village-forest are located in the state forest area (kawasan hutan negara). This area was delineated in 1920 as part of the Dolok Sibual-buali nature reserve. Until today the forest boundary in Aek Nabara remained in dispute.
3. Nine policy options that could be discussed and negotiated with the local community
regarding the tenure security of their farm and forest. These are (not in rank):
a. Community Forestry (Hutan K
emasyarakatan)
b. Village Forest (Hutan Desa)
c. Area with Distinct Purpose (Kawasan dengan Tujuan Istimewa)
d. Community Planted Forest (Hutan Tanaman Rakyat)
e. National Park (Taman Nasional)
f. Nature Reserve (Cagar Alam & Suaka Alam)
g. Recognition and Registration of Adat Land (Pengakuan dan Pendaftaran Tanah Adat)
h. Certification of Individual lands (Pendaftaran Tanah Individual)
i. New negotiated policy
Findings and recommended actions for the follow up of the facilitation in the area are:
1. There is a need for continuing the facilitation process for improving the local community understanding on each policy options. The facilitation process should be
conducted by independent facilitator (individual or group) with strong facilitating
skills, exploring all policy options and adhering to the principles of Free and Prior
Informed Consent (FPIC).
2. If the spatial data in this report are not sufficient for the interest groups to conduct
good planning and decision making on the policy options, it is recommended to follow up the offer from UPTD-PTGH (Forest Area Zoning Unit under the Provincial Forest Agency) to overlay the various spatial data on their working maps.
Even though there are several policy options for the local community, there is no current policy that can accommodate the integrated agroforest practices which protect the biodiversity as well as utilize the land and the resources. The policy settings remains “trapped” in a segregated approach with several insignificant exceptions, such as pendukung budidaya in conservation areas. In discussing these policy options, it is important to consider two major factors that influenced the local communities in choosing one of the options, these are:
1. The strong feeling of the adat communities that their resources have been “grabbed”
for the sake of the development, but their social-economic conditions are left behind
by this development. This feeling strengthened efforts to seek recognition for their
adat identity which some times blended with their economical interest. Several
policy options that are using both identity symbols (recognition of adat land/adat
forest) and economic interest are preferable but could also disposes other members
of the communities in the villages who belonged to other identity group.
2. Currently the North Tapanuli and Central Tapanuli districts are under the process of
developing a new Province (Tapanuli) which is separate from North Sumatera Province. South Tapanuli may remain in North Sumatera Province or develop its own new province. Parallel with the new province development, some part of South Tapanuli district, where some part of Batang Toru watershed is administratively located, will become a new district (Angkola Sipirok).
All the discussions over the policy options need to consider these internal and external factors that will affect the local community’s choices and the local government administrative procedures in applying the policy.
The field test of RATA in Batang Toru concludes that the version 1 of RATA Guide Book for Practitioners published in December 2006 is a good tool to be used in a the chosenworking area to understand better the land and natural resources claims. The supporting condition to the assessment is the good relationship between ICRAF-SEA and CI field staff with the key informants. The personal network of the assessor with some of the other key informant is an additional supporting factor. But RATA may be hard to be used in areas where there is no trust between the assessor and the key informants.
There are three recommendations to be added to the RATA Guide Book for
Practitioners version 1:
1. Add as simple diagram to explain the complex relations between different subjects
(people) and their relations to the objects (land and natural resources)
2. Quote relevant articles of the laws and regulations that are mentioned in the guide
book to enrich the understanding of the user.
3. Explain an
d quote the articles of the laws and regulations concerning the cancellation of the rights
4. Check List table as an appendix for assessors to manage the abundant of dataKeywords
Community-based forest management, fastwood, forest policy, illegal logging, Indonesia, land tenure, smallholder timber. |
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