Dayak tribesman wins environmental award
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)