(ANTARA, August 6 2008): Well-managed Tra­di­tional For­est Due to Dayak Iban’s Tra­di­tional Wis­dom. “Dayak Iban tribe holds its cul­tural value strongly, and they refuse the investor’s offer to exploit their tra­di­tional com­mu­nity for­est area. This is why the for­est area is still well man­aged until now. This is a rare local wis­dom, and after under­go­ing a series of Sus­tain­able Com­mu­nity Based For­est Man­age­ment (SCBFM) assess­ment, we grant the first eco­la­bel cer­tifi­cate in Indone­sia,” said Ir. Tau­fiq Alimi, LEI’s Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, in Putus­si­bau, Kali­man­tan Barat on Wednes­day. ANTARA reporter who fol­low the activ­ity from Putusi­bau reported that the hand­ing over cer­e­mony was sched­uled on Thurs­day (7/8) attended by the Forestry min­is­ter, M.S. Kaban, the Gov­er­nor of Kali­man­tan Barat, Drs. Cor­nelis and other stake­hold­ers such as NGOs, local gov­ern­ment and Indone­sian donor institution.

He explained that in 2004–2006 LEI, AMAN, For­est Watch Indone­sia (FWI), and Euro­pean Union held a col­lab­o­ra­tive pro­gram in Kam­pung Sun­gai Utik. The col­lab­o­ra­tive pro­gram also involved three com­mu­nity advo­cacy orga­ni­za­tions based in Pon­tianak. The three orga­ni­za­tions are Lem­baga Bela Banua Tal­ino (LBBT), Pem­ber­dayaan Pen­gelo­laan Sum­ber­daya Alam Ker­aky­atan (PPSDAK), dan Pro­gram Pem­ber­dayaan Sis­tem Hutan Ker­aky­atan (PPSHK). The orga­ni­za­tions pre­pared the stan­dard imple­men­ta­tion of Sus­tain­able For­est Man­age­ment prac­tice in which the tra­di­tional com­mu­nity is capa­ble of play­ing the role. On March 2008, a series of SCBFM cer­ti­fi­ca­tion assess­ment was held by PT. Mutu­a­gung Lestari (MAL) as the qual­ity cer­ti­fi­ca­tion body under LEI’s accred­i­ta­tion. The result of the for­est cer­ti­fi­ca­tion (eco­la­bel) assess­ment stated that the com­mu­nity of kam­pong Sun­gai Utik is enti­tled to receive the sus­tain­able for­est man­age­ment certificate.

Tau­fiq explained that the main spirit to con­vey to the pub­lic both at national and inter­na­tional level is that amid the for­est exploita­tion and con­ver­sion to plan­ta­tion and min­ing area, a tra­di­tional com­mu­nity group still exist and man­ag­ing their for­est area by using their local wis­dom. This is a good exam­ple for­est man­age­ment prac­tice. “Their resis­tance in tak­ing woods in large scale is actu­ally based on their tra­di­tional beliefs of wood uti­liza­tion. Tak­ing woods in large scale of vol­ume is actu­ally some­thing that their local belief is for­bids. “This is the main idea enabling them to pre­serve their for­est area later on’” said Taufiq.

Rumah pan­jang (Long House)
Accord­ing to Tau­fiq Alimi, Iban’s loy­alty to the tra­di­tional norms can not be sep­a­rated from the exis­tence of their “Rumah Pan­jang”. Rumah Pan­jang ot Long House is Iban’s iden­tity and sym­bol of sol­i­dar­ity. Rumah Pan­jang plays an impor­tant role in con­trol­ling the access to and own­er­ship of an area for both inter and intra vil­lage com­mu­nity mem­bers. Tau­fiq added that under the lead­er­ship of Tuai Adat, vil­lage head, tumeng­gung and his hulubalang all prob­lems related to daily issues can be addressed and resolved at “Rumah Pan­jang” meeting.

Mean­while, Pak Janggut, the Tuai Adat of dayak Iban in Sun­gai utik explained that the com­mu­nity has been man­ag­ing for­est area in accor­dance to rules and tra­di­tions they obtain from their ances­tors. The rules and tra­di­tions have been prac­ticed from the old days until now. “There is always fish and veg­etable for every­one, com­mu­nity mem­bers under­stand their respec­tive area bor­ders as pre­vi­ously agreed upon and the bor­der to the national park for­est has laso been marked,’ said Pak Janggut. The tra­di­tional area of Dayak Iban tribe in Sun­gai Utik is adja­cent to Betung Kar­i­hun National Park (TNBK) which lies in the bor­der of three coun­tries, Indone­sia, Malaysia and Brunei Darussalm.

“This is an ideal con­di­tion for the vil­lage to build their long house of which other nearby vil­lages around Sun­gai Utik do not posses”, said Tau­fiq. The gov­ern­ment pol­icy of rumah sehat” or healthy house is imple­mented in the other vil­lages thus mak­ing the com­mu­nity mem­bers dif­fi­cult to build their long house. In addi­tion to the prob­lem, for­est con­ces­sion­ary areas are also being expanded in the sur­round­ing area, so even if the com­mu­nity mem­bers man­age to build a long house, the house will be too small and insuf­fi­cient to accom­mo­date the whole fam­ily mem­bers. This was the main fac­tor sep­a­rat­ing Iban big fam­ily into to smaller nuclear families.

LEI study con­ducted in 2005 revealed that com­mu­nity mem­bers who reside out­side the Dayak Sun­gai Utik tribe area found it dif­fi­cult to resist the Malaysian investors offers to sell the woods from their tra­di­tional for­est areas. LEI researchers Satria Astana, Wibowo Djat­miko, Semi­arto Aji, Luhut Siman­jun­tak and Wahyu F Riva stated aside from the finan­cial profit from the log­ging indus­try, the Malaysian investors also offered to build Rumah Pan­jang should the com­mu­nity mem­bers are will­ing to sell the woods gen­er­ated from the tra­di­tional for­est to them. Rumah Pan­jang plays an impor­tant in deter­min­ing the sta­tus and iden­tity of a cer­tain group of com­mu­nity. There is a com­pe­ti­tion between com­mu­nity groups to build bet­ter Rumah Pan­jang. The Malaysian investors really under­stand the sit­u­a­tion and take advan­tage of it. Sun­gai Utik Dayak tribe is very proud of their old and orig­i­nal Rumah Pan­jang. Other com­mu­nity groups of Dayak peo­ple out­side Sun­gai Utik that pos­sess no Rumah Pan­jang have the desire that some­day they will have Rumah Pan­jang that they can be proud of.

For this mat­ter, log­ging busi­ness is clos­est thing for these com­mu­nity groups to achieve their dream of hav­ing a Rumah Pan­jang. The Malaysian investors really under­stand and take advan­tage of this sit­u­a­tion by giv­ing promise to the com­mu­nity mem­bers that they will also build asphalted road and set up elec­tric­ity sys­tem in addi­tion to the Rumah Pan­jang. When the log­ging indus­try reched its glo­ri­ous time, other vil­lages located out­side Sun­gai Utik Iban area have man­aged to have Rumah Pan­jang (bet­ter than the Sun­gai Utik Iban’s) com­pleted with elec­tric­ity and bet­ter road facil­ity. Nev­er­the­less, envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion such as muddy river area resulted from the indus­try is a neg­a­tive impact that they have to pay as an exchange of the above facilities.

Respond­ing to this sit­u­a­tion, Pak Janggut said that the nature and river are the breath of human beings. If they are not pro­tected they will bad impact to the com­mu­nity. “Water is blood and soil is a place where human is orig­i­nated will come back later on,” he said. How­ever Pak Janggut is con­cerned of for­est exploita­tion activ­ity for both plan­ta­tion and plan­ta­tion for­est pur­poses. This was due to the fact that Dayak Iban tribe of Sun­gai Utik area is strate­gi­cally located close to the bor­der of Ser­awak, Malaysia. This vil­lage is adja­cent to two other vil­lages namely Kam­pung Mung­guk and Kam­pung Lauk Rugun. Embalok Hulu regency shares the bor­der with Ser­awak at the North and West sides, Putus­si­bau Regency at the East side and BAtang Lupar regency at the South side. Kapuas Hulu Dis­trict shares the bor­der Ser­awak (Malaysia) at the North side, Kali­man­tan Timur at the East side, Sin­tang Dis­trict at the South sand West sides.

Sun­gai Utik for­est is rich of var­i­ous species of wood trees. The dom­i­nant species are mer­anti and kapur. Other species are ladan, gerung­gang (wooden roof mate­r­ial), kem­pas, and jelu­tung. The Dayaks use the woods for the mate­r­ial to make boat, for fire wood despite the fact that the tree species are of high price and eas­ily sell. “The biggest prob­lem is to pre­vent the for­est area to be con­verted to Indus­trial Plan­ta­tion For­est area or Palm oil plan­ta­tion area,” said Pak Janggut. He con­vey the fact dur­ing the LEI study when asked what would be the biggest prob­lem the Sun­gai Utik com­mu­nity faced with regard to sus­tain­abil­ity issues. With the eco­la­bel­ing process the effort to main­tain Sun­gai Utik Dayak com­mu­nity can be car­ried out. On Mei 2008, PT. MAL stated that this com­mu­nity has passed the sus­tain­able for­est man­age­ment assessment.

“The com­mu­nity requires writ­ten acknowl­edge­ment so that they have the doc­u­ments and can show it to the world. Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is an impor­tant step to take and pro­vide ben­e­fit to the com­mu­nity. Sun­gai Utik cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is an exam­ple for other area. “Com­mu­nity must keep up with the world’s change,” he said. (N42)