The Competing Demands between Economic Growth, Environmental Sustainability, and Indigenous Livelihood on the Kalimantan Forests and its Impacts
The island of Kalimantan in Indonesia is no stranger to the news. The Kalimantan forests are famous for being the home of the iconic orangutan species,[1] which is also “Asia’s only great apes”.[2] However, there has been an ongoing media and public attention over the wellbeing of the orangutans because of their habitat destruction precipitated by the degradation and fragmentation of the Kalimantan forests, caused by human activities.[3] These human activities by corporations and smallholders are changing the forest cover of Kalimantan from natural forest to timber, logging areas, and oil palm plantations.[4] In the pursuit of economic growth, these agribusiness plantations have caused major deforestation and impacted environmental sustainability because deforestation is linked to tremendous greenhouse gas (GHG) emission and the loss of animal habitat.[5] In the face of economic growth and sustainability issues, there is also the question of Kalimantan’s indigenous people and their livelihood. In West Kalimantan alone, half of the population live in forested areas and compete for land access with oil palm companies and the forestry department.[6] However, it is important to note that some of the indigenous population also benefit from the economic growth provided by these corporations.[7] This creates a complex situation of competing demands in the Kalimantan forests.
Thus, this essay aims to examine the competing demands between economic growth, environmental sustainability, and indigenous livelihood in the Kalimantan forests and their impacts. Hence, this essay posits the following argument: the competing demand for economic growth with environmental sustainability shows that economic growth has impacted the environment through environmental degradation. Meanwhile, economic growth has had a positive impact on state and regional economies and to an extent, has improved the livelihood of a few indigenous people. However, economic growth propelled by agribusiness plantations have caused land conflicts and limits the access of indigenous people to the forests, a site that is important for their livelihood. In addition, some indigenous people work with the agribusiness companies and thus, implicate themselves in the path of environmental degradation. In contrast, other indigenous communities have dedicated themselves to environmental sustainability against the lure of economic profits and better indigenous livelihood.
Background
Kalimantan is a vital region for forest biodiversity.[8] With a land area of 532,100 km2, an estimated 57% percent of that land (303,525 km2) are natural forests with 110,232 km2 of that land are under official protection in the form of national parks and nature reserves.[9] It is also home to around 12% of the world’s mammals, 16% of its reptiles and amphibians and 17% of all bird species, as told by former Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.[10]
However, the Kalimantan forests are also home to economic exploitative activities that have raised issues of environmental sustainability. 105,945 km2 of forest landscape has been sold as timber concessions, which includes one-third of the habitat of the endangered orangutans.[11] In addition, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoF) claimed that up to mid-2015, over 5 million hectares of forest land had been converted into oil palm plantations, with the government planning to expand the plantations to 20 million hectares by 2020.[12] The consequences of land clearing can be seen in Central Kalimantan where only 1.5 million hectares (57%) of the total 2.6 million hectares of peatlands are still considered pristine as the remaining 43% percent of peatlands have been used for agriculture and plantation.[13] Moreover, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) warns that “only half of Borneo’s forest cover remains today”.[14] Given the current deforestation rate of 1.3 million hectares per year, it is estimated by 2020, all of Borneo’s forest cover will only come to 24%.[15]
The issue of land clearing in Kalimantan can be traced back to the different governments and issues of recentralisation and decentralisation. The Suharto era, dubbed the New Order (1966-1998), was a highly centralised regime.[16] The Basic Forestry Act was passed in 1967, which defined the Kalimantan forests as ‘state territories’.[17] As a result, large forestry concessions were given to private corporations to maintain the nation’s economic growth.[18] In addition, the 1980s and 1990s were a golden period for timber exploitation, following the passing of the New Forestry Law in 1999 during the Habibie presidency that witnessed systematic land grabbing and dispossession of millions by defining the adat or customary forests as part of state property.[19] Consequently, the new law further restricted the indigenous people’s already limited access to land.[20] Following the fall of Suharto, the nation was transformed by decentralisation reforms. The 1999 Regional Autonomy Law granted autonomy to legislators and executives in Indonesia’s 33 provinces and nearly 500 counties (kabupaten) and municipalities (kota).[21] However, this decentralisation effort has caused several problems. The amended 1999 Forestry Law states that the administering and regulating of forestry issues should be handled on the national level by the MoF.[22] However, many of Indonesia’s local governments believe that they are empowered by the Autonomy Law to control resource usage and the granting of concessions.[23] Consequently, the MoF and local governments often have different processes and interests for issuing concessions.[24]
Economic growth vs environmental sustainability
There is a competing demand between the pursuit of economic growth with maintaining environmental sustainability in the Kalimantan forests. This can be seen in the Indonesian government’s priority in supporting national development, particularly economic development.[25] In a recent report by the World Bank, Indonesia’s economic growth is linked to stronger net exports.[26] Thus, the government is incentivised to focus on exports of key commodities particularly crude palm oil (CPO) from oil palm plantations, given that CPO is Indonesia’s second largest agricultural product and is a major export commodity for Indonesia.[27] As a result, the Directorate General of Estate Crops (Direktorat Jenderal Perkebunan) estimates that Kalimantan’s combined provinces have a total of 4.3 million hectares of oil palm plantation and have produced 10 million tonnes of CPO in 2017 alone.[28] In addition, the government is further compelled to commit to oil palm plantations because of their perceived impact on employment and social development as well as poverty reduction. Because of the labour-intensive process of extracting oil palm from the plantations, the oil palm sector is a major employer of approximately 3 million people.[29] As such, the impacts of the industry expansion of palm oil are the economic growth of regional and national economies and helping alleviate rural poverty.[30]
On the other side of the debate is environmental sustainability. The obligation to advance economic growth is often at odds with the demand for environmental sustainability. Deforestation is one of the biggest impacts of land clearing for these plantations in Kalimantan, which causes a plethora of issues.[31] Because Indonesia has lowland rainforests which are biodiverse and peatlands that hosts significant carbon reserves, land cover change contributes to a tremendous amount of GHG emissions, which is 26% of Indonesia’s net carbon emissions.[32] Not only is cutting forests emitting large scale GHG but it also limits the ability of the forests to sequestrate carbon dioxide, which exacerbates climate change.[33] A study on West Kalimantan also shows that there are secondary impacts of these plantations such as air pollution, water pollution, soil erosion, waterway siltation as well as flooding.[34] Loss of biodiversity, particularly in relations to the habitat destruction of the orangutan is also another key sustainability issue.[35] A study in 2018 shows that 63 to 75% of orangutans were affected by land clearing for oil palm and paper pulp plantations in Kalimantan, in areas that are deforested or converted to plantations.[36] Between 1999 and 2015, the study concludes that there has been an estimated loss of 148,500 individual Bornean orangutans.[37] The Sebangau National Park in Central Kalimantan is another battleground between economic growth and environmental sustainability. The park is crucial in conserving the environment because 17.4% of the province’s peatlands are located in the park (462,718 hectares).[38] Moreover, the park is an indication of environmental sustainability efforts because the park is meant to conserve the biodiversity of the peatlands and protect their carbon sinks.[39] However, extensive illegal logging was found and land was cleared to make way for oil palm plantation in the park’s rehabilitation zone (zona rehabilitasi) and wilderness zone (zona rimba).[40] Furthermore, over 1,000 hectares of park land is occupied by a farmer’s group called Saluang Welum, where the Palangkaraya (capital of Central Kalimantan) mayor, deputy mayor and other legislative staff are allegedly part of this group as their names are on the Saluang Welum’s plantation map.[41] This indicates yet another example of economic interest of the local governments, farmers, agribusiness companies competing with the efforts to conserve the environment.
Hence, there are impacts of economic growth on environmental sustainability such as deforestation which causes global warming,[42] loss of biodiversity,[43] all of which negatively impact the environment. However, economic growth has had a positive impact on national and regional economies and to an extent, in alleviating rural poverty.[44]
Economic growth vs indigenous livelihood
The pursuit of economic growth is also at odds with indigenous livelihood in Kalimantan. From a purely economic standpoint, oil palm plantations have contributed positively to Indonesia’s economic development through increased state and provincial revenue, as shown by a study in West Kalimantan.[45] However, conflict over land has often arisen between indigenous people and the timber and oil palm concessions holders.[46] In West Kalimantan alone, there are 200 recorded cases of land conflicts.[47] This is because of the ambiguity and ignorance of the rights of the indigenous people of Kalimantan. Adat rights are not explicitly clear in forest law because Article 5 of the new Basic Forestry Law states that the adat community are only able to use and manage adat forests if they are acknowledged as a community by the state.[48] However, the process of being recognised by the state is often decided unilaterally and without input by the local communities, which further causes land conflicts.[49] Consequently, ancestral and customary lands are often infringed upon by agribusiness plantations by claiming the land as belonging to the state.[50]
By having their land taken away from them for economic exploitation, the indigenous population of Kalimantan has seen their livelihoods being affected. The most affected are former landowners and customary land users who must now walk a greater distance to collect forest products or to open new fields for cultivation.[51] In addition, families relying on the forest land for income and food have no choice but to find other sources of livelihood such as off-farm work.[52] In a survey regarding land transfers to oil palm plantations in West Kalimantan, nearly 50% of customary land users reported negative livelihood changes with 86% respondents showing adverse livelihood changes because of reduced access to forest products and food.[53] A research of the Kapuas Hulu, West Kalimantan villages of Empakan and Riu similarly yielded results that demonstrate the importance of the Kalimantan forests for indigenous livelihood.[54] These two communities rely on swidden cultivation on dryland (ladang) and foraging fruits and plants from the forests for subsistence.[55] The Sei Serosat, Sei Kodang, and Pompang indigenous people provide another example of the competing demands of oil palm plantation with indigenous livelihood.[56] Hailing from Sanggau, these ethnic groups were coerced by the local governments and the oil palm companies to sell their subsistence farming land.[57] Consequently, all their forest and agricultural lands were converted to oil palm plantations in the 1980s, which forces them to buy food and daily necessities at the local market at a higher price.[58] As a result, these people must now look for extra jobs to generate enough income for their daily necessities and working at the now established oil palm plantations is exploitative because they must work twice the working hours while only receiving 30% less income than what they earned previously with their own land.[59]
As such, the Kalimantan forests are an important source of income for the island’s indigenous people and the efforts done by the oil palm and logging companies in the name of economic growth directly competes with indigenous livelihood.[60] Economic growth has positively impacted state and provincial revenues.[61] However, the impact of economic growth on indigenous livelihood is tremendous because not only are their customary lands infringed but also their access to land becomes limited and thus, impacts their indigenous livelihood which is highly reliant on the forests.[62]
Sustainability vs indigenous livelihood in Kalimantan
While many indigenous people continue to be affected negatively by economic growth, as it turns out, some indigenous people have benefitted from these companies and thus, involve themselves in competing for the Kalimantan forests against environmental sustainability. Many smallholder oil palm communities have emerged as oil palm becomes a more favourable income opportunity for Indonesian farmers.[63] Moreover, the Indonesian Palm Oil Commission found that over 41% of total palm oil plantations now belonged to smallholders.[64]In a study conducted in Sanggau, West Kalimantan, Northern Barito, Central Kalimantan, and Malinau, East Kalimantan, the data shows that all four communities were “eager for economic development”.[65] Even in the remote community of Malinau, villagers compete to attract logging companies and oil palm developers.[66] There was even a case where customary laws were used to oust timber companies in favour of what was perceived to be more profitable oil palm industries.[67] To increase profits, the Sape Village reclaimed the state land under “customary claims” from a timber company to be used by an oil palm company.[68] In addition, the Indonesian government has sponsored oil palm companies as a means to improve rural socio-economic conditions.[69] As such, there are some indigenous livelihoods that have benefited from oil palm and logging companies.
In addition, with economic growth and improved indigenous livelihood comes the issue of environmental sustainability. Now that these indigenous people are part of the agribusiness industry, they are also implicated in the destruction of the environment. According to the WWF, oil palm plantations are “the main driver[s] of deforestation in Borneo.[70] Nearly 40% of the total deforestation in Kalimantan is directly correlated to land conversion to plantation since 2000.[71] Moreover, deforestation is linked to GHG emission. Agribusiness plantations are large GHG emitters because the annual carbon emissions from tropical deforestation contribute to nearly 10% of the global total GHG emissions by human activity.[72]
However, there are also indigenous communities who have made it their mission to bolster environmental sustainability in the face of economic exploitation and lure of immediate indigenous income generation. The Empakan community is an example. They have a forest reserve specifically created to protect the forest by preserving both big and smaller trees to allow them to grow.[73] Furthermore, as a community, they also replant previously burnt, bare land and logged-over areas with rubber, local fruit and timber plants.[74] Additionally, other parts of the forest were labelled as sacred forests and left untouched to protect the environment.[75] The indigenous people of this community have long-term goals of sustainability because they claimed that the use of the forests for future descendants, such as land for rice and cash crops cultivation, is more important and that handing the forest over to the oil palm plantations would take away the future generations’ right to a prosperous life.[76]
Thus, as more indigenous people are lured to the agribusiness plantations, wealthier people with access to capital benefit highly from improved livelihood.[77] However, by joining these plantations they contribute to environmental degradation, deforestation and, GHG emissions.[78] Only a select few like the Empakan community can overcome agribusiness plantations and thus, impact the environment they live in by committing to sustainability.[79]
Conclusion
This essay has demonstrated the competing demands between environmental sustainability, indigenous livelihood, and economic growth on the Kalimantan forests. Economic growth brought by agribusiness companies has contributed to increased state and provincial revenues and to an extent, improved indigenous livelihood. However, these improvements come with significant environmental costs and negatively impacts the livelihood of those who are unable to access the agribusiness plantations. Moreover, there are indigenous people who have cooperated with these agribusiness companies and as such, are implicated in the destruction of the environment. Consequently, environmental sustainability is affected but there are indigenous communities who are willing to put the environment over the lure of improved income. This creates a complicated web of competing demands on the Kalimantan forests.
Endnotes [1] Andrea E. Johnson et al., “A survey of the orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii) population in and around Gunung Palung National Park, West Kalimantan, Indonesia based on nest counts,” Biological Conservation 121, no.1 (2005): 495. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2004.06.002 [2] Anne Russon, “Orangutans,” Current Biology 19, no.20 (2009): 1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2009.08.009. [3] Rebbeca Henschke, “A battle to save Indonesia’s orangutans,” BBC, June 19, 2018, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44380704. [4] Kimberly M. Carlson et al., “Committed carbon emissions, deforestation, and community land conversion from oil palm plantation expansion in West Kalimantan, Indonesia,” PNAS 109, no.19 (2012): 7559. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1200452109 [5] Krystof Obidzinski et al., “Environmental and Social Impacts of Oil Palm Plantations and their Implications for Biofuel Production in Indonesia,” Ecology and Society 17, no.25 (2012): 4. http://dx.doi.org/10.5751/ES-04775-170125.
[6 ] Martua T. Sirait, Indigenous Peoples and Oil Palm Plantation Expansion in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. (Amsterdam: Cordaid Memisa, 2009), 9. http://www.worldagroforestry.org/downloads/Publications/PDFS/RP16385.pdf. [7] Lucy Rist et al., “The livelihood impacts of oil palm: smallholders in Indonesia,” Biodivers Conserv 19, no.1 (2010): 1012. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10531-010-9815-z.
[8] Michael Watts and Nancy Peluso, “Resource Violence,” in Critical Environmental Politics, ed. Carl Death. (New York: Routledge, 2014), 184.
[9] David L.A. Gaveau et al., “Reconciling Forest Conservation and Logging in Indonesian Borneo,” PLoS ONE 8, no.8 (2013): 1-2. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0069887. [10] Simon Butt et al., “Brazil and Indonesia,” in Law, Tropical Forests and Carbon: The Case of REDD, ed. Rosemary Lyster, Catherine Mackenzie, and Constance McDermott. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 264-5. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139236904.016.
[11] Gaveau et al., “Reconciling Forest Conservation,” 2. [12] Doni Prabowo et al., “Conversion of forests into oil palm plantations in West Kalimantan, Indonesia: Insights from actor’s power and its dynamics,” Forest Policy and Economics 78, no.1 (2017): 32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2017.01.004. [13] Arif Surahman et al., “Improving strategies for sustainability of short-term agricultural utilization on degraded peatlands in Central Kalimantan,” Environ Dev Sustain 21, no.3 (2018): 1371. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-018-0090-6. [14] “Borneo Deforestation,” World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), accessed May 25, 2019. https://wwf.panda.org/our_work/forests/deforestation_fronts/deforestation_in_borneo_and_sumatra/. [15] “Borneo Deforestation,” WWF, accessed May 25, 2019.
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[31] David Gaveau, “Satellites check oil palm expansion in Borneo,” Scidev Net, February 14, 2019, https://www.scidev.net/asia-pacific/conservation/opinion/satellites-check-oil-palm-expansion-in-borneo.html [32] Carlson et al., “Committed carbon emissions,” 7559. [33] Reshmi Banerjee, “Climate Change in Indonesia: A Glimpse of Riau and East Kalimantan,” Journal of Resources, Energy, and Development 9, no.2 (2012): 91. EBSCOhost. [34] Obidzinski et al., “Environmental and Social Impacts,” 13. [35] Sirait, Indigenous Peoples, 74. [36] Maria Voigt et al., “Global Demand for Natural Resources Eliminated More Than 100,000 Bornean Orangutans,” Current Biology 28, no.1 (2018): 765. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.01.053. [37] Voigt et al., “Global Demand,” 764.
[38] Independent Forest Monitoring Network (JPIK) and Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), THE LOSS OF OUR FOREST AND PEATLAND: An investigation into forest and peatland conversion and illegal logging in Sebangau National Park, (Bogor, Indonesia: JPIK, 2018), 3. [39] JPIK and EIA, THE LOSS OF OUR FOREST, 3. [40] JPIK and EIA, THE LOSS OF OUR FOREST, 3. [41] JPIK and EIA, THE LOSS OF OUR FOREST, 10-1. [42] Banerjee, “Climate Change,” 91. [43] Voigt et al., “Global Demand,” 764. [44] World Growth, The Economic Benefit, 12.
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[53] Obidzinski et al., “Environmental and Social Impacts,” 10. [54] Elizabeth Linda Yuliani et al., “Keeping the land: indigenous communities’ struggle over land use and sustainable forest management in Kalimantan, Indonesia,” Ecology and Society 23, no.4 (2018): 3. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10640-230449. [55] Yuliani et al., “Keeping the land,” 3. [56] Sirait, Indigenous Peoples, 61. [57] Sirait, Indigenous Peoples, 61. [58] Sirait, Indigenous Peoples, 61. [59] Sirait, Indigenous Peoples, 63. [60] Sirait, Indigenous Peoples, 61. [61] World Growth, The Economic Benefit, 12. [62] Obidzinski et al., “Environmental and Social Impacts,” 9. [63] Rebecca Elmhirst et al., “Gender and generation in engagements with oil palm in East Kalimantan, Indonesia: insights from feminist political ecology,” The Journal of Peasant Studies 1, no.1 (2017): 10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2017.1337002. [64] World Growth, The Economic Benefit, 4. [65] Rist et al., “The livelihood impacts of oil palm,” 1013. [66] Rist et al., “The livelihood impacts of oil palm,” 1013. [67] Prabowo et al., “Conversion of forests,” 36. [68] Prabowo et al., “Conversion of forests,” 36.
[69] World Growth, The Economic Benefit, 4.
[70] “Borneo Deforestation,” WWF, accessed May 25, 2019.
[71] Gaveau et al., “Reconciling Forest Conservation,” 3.
[72] Varsha Vijay et al., “The Impacts of Oil Palm on Recent Deforestation and Biodiversity Loss,” PLoS ONE 11, no. 7 (2016): 2. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0159668.
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[74] Yuliani et al., “Keeping the land,” 6.
[75] Yuliani et al., “Keeping the land,” 6.
[76] Yuliani et al., “Keeping the land,” 8.
[77] Elmhirst et al., “Gender and generation,” 10.
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