Dayak tribesman wins environmental award
JAKARTA (JP): Before April 14th, few people had heard of Dayak tribesman Lois Botor Dingit of Bentian, East Kalimantan -- let alone associated his name with the concept of sustainable development.
It was on that day that Dingit, his fellow tribespeople and other indigenous people in the province, received a prestigious international environmental prize in San Francisco, California.
The San Francisco-based Goldman Environmental Foundation chose Dingit and his tribespeople as the winners of one of its seven 1997 awards for grassroots environmentalists.
According to the eight-year-old foundation, Dingit, 59, galvanized both national and international attention toward the sustainable conservation practices of East Kalimantan's indigenous people, and convinced government ministers to support the rights of forest dwellers.
"The 1997 winners have demonstrated their commitment to protecting the earth and the benefit of future generations without regard to personal risk," foundation president Richard Goldman said last Monday.
Dingit, who has spent most of his life as a rattan farmer, was appointed paramount chief of the Bentian Tribal Council in July 1995.
He is one of the community elders who helped unite Bentian tribespeople with other Dayak sub-ethnic groups to save their ancestral heritage, the forest.
The Indonesian Environmental Forum (Walhi) said Dingit has, in the last decade, fought to publicize the plight of the forest dwellers' community and indigenous people at the hands of forest logging concessionaires, owned by well-connected people.
Since 1986, he and his tribe have petitioned the government to grant them land ownership certificates for their ancestral lands.
Their fight to win back their rights from the big timber companies, that have allegedly degraded their environment and threatened their livelihood, met with success in 1994 when Dingit and his friends met with the Minister of Transmigration Siswono Yudohusodo.
The meeting earned the country's indigenous people government recognition of their rights. Siswono announced the importance of respecting the rights of the Dayak people in Kalimantan.
In September last year, the tribespeople scored another victory when the office of the State Minister for Environment announced it would send a team of high-ranking officials to meet Dingit to try to solve the local people's dispute with the companies holding logging permits.
The office has shown considerable interest in the tribe's unique environmental management, which involves cultivating profitably while preserving the natural diversity.
Another achievement was recorded several months ago when the local office of the Ministry of Forestry issued a letter declaring logging activities in the Bentian area illegal.
Dingit said: "It's very important that indigenous people who have long lived in harmony with the environment should preserve the forest and their land."
The Bentians, Benuaqs and other indigenous communities of East Kalimantan have proved they are responsive to market power and could play a role in the agroforestry trade.
The Bentian concept of wisely exploiting their natural resources while preserving them for future generations dates back 200 years, according to Walhi. At that time, they were given the freedom to develop a nature-focused management concept which yielded ample export crops for the then Kutai kingdom. (aan)