El Nino, man-made disaster threaten Dayaks
El Nino, man-made disaster threaten Dayaks
By Carol Colfer
BOGOR (JP): Pictures of the dramatic flooding that
characterizes El Nino in the western hemisphere have been rampant
in recent weeks. But there is a different side of El Nino in the
eastern hemisphere: drought. It may provide less dramatic
disaster photographs but the effects on local people are just as
profound.
I first went to Kalimantan in 1979, to do ethnographic
research on the interactions between people and forests. I became
a part of the Dayak community of Long Segar, in a sense, and have
maintained my connections with the people and my interest in
their way of life ever since.
One of my studies is land-use history, which looks at people's
use of land and forest since the people first moved to Long Segar
from their homeland further inland, in 1962. I first did this
study in 1980, returned for an update in 1991, and yet again this
past June.
El Nino did not prompt these studies, but its importance has
been obvious from the beginning. There was a serious El Nino in
1971 to 1972. The most obvious impact on local people can be seen
in their rice production, their most important food, crop and the
main source of their subsistence. People averaged 72 kilograms of
rice per hectare in 1972 (in contrast to their overall average of
1.2 tons).
In the 1982 to 1983 period, El Nino was more famous globally
because it resulted in serious forest fires that razed some three
million hectares, including the area surrounding Long Segar.
They were able to save their village from fire only by heroic
efforts. That year, their rice harvests averaged 143 kg per
hectare.
The increased destruction from the 1982 to 1983 El Nino was
obvious, even though rice yields were better than they had been
in 1971 to 1972, suggesting a possibly less severe drought. Could
the added carnage be -- related to the fact that the surrounding
area had been logged in the interim -- drying out the forest and
making it more prone to burning?
During their harvest festival in Long Segar in 1995, local
farmers reported that it was their fourth year of drought, with
predictably bad harvests yet again.
Was it an accurate commentary on their past four years or just
a human tendency to exaggerate in the midst of misfortune?
Some alarm bells rang though because now, in addition to the
logging activity that had been underway since the mid-1970s,
53,000 hectares of nearby logged forest were being cleared for
industrial timber plantations, part of the Indonesian
government's policy to provide trees for pulp and paper
production.
The company had cleared 23,000 hectares already and brought in
four communities of transmigrants to work on this plantation.
Since the early 1980s, another huge transmigration area -- based
on food and tree crops -- had sprung up north of Long Segar,
bringing thousands of families who appeared to be increasingly
reliant on shifting cultivation to meet their daily needs.
My latest study raised a frightening specter. Rice harvests
since 1991 have declined from the previous average of 1.2
tons/hectare to one ton; the people lived through two successive
years of harvests averaging only 0.7 ton/ha; the third and fourth
year's production were only 0.9 ton/ha and 1.0 ton/ha,
respectively.
In the previous 28 year data set, there were only five years
where average production fell below 900 kg; and only one two-year
stretch of yields this low (1971 to 1972 and 1972 to 1973).
There had been no declining trend in rice fields over time.
From a global standpoint, 1991 to 1992, 1994 to 1995 and now 1997
to 1998 have all been classified as El Nio years, with this year
showing all signs of being a whopper.
Fires have been blazing all over Sumatra and Kalimantan
throughout September. Water levels in East Kalimantan's Mahakam
river have been so low throughout the month that Samarinda has
been without piped water due to saltwater intrusion from the
ocean.
Airports throughout Borneo have regularly been closed because
of poor visibility related to the forest fires. The Straits Times
reported on Sept. 20, 1997, that pollution in the Bornean state
of Sabah surpassed the maximum 500 mark on the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's Pollutants Standard Index, registering 658 on
Malaysia's Air Pollution Index, and was endangering people's
health.
Malaysia declared Sarawak a disaster area (International
Herald Tribune Sept. 20, and Sept. 21). Indonesia reported
evacuating people from one Riau village because of air pollution
levels. Predictions are that the rains will not come until
November or December.
I have no doubt that this year, rice yields will again be
below 100 kg per hectare. I fear even more devastating fires.
In the past, the people of Long Segar, and other forest
communities, have had the surrounding forest as a back up food
supply. Animals could be hunted, forest foods could be gathered
(ferns, palm hearts, edible leaves, fruits), forest fibers and
medicines could be gathered for sale.
But now, much of the forest has been cut (for government-
planned transmigration and plantations).
The forest people, whose much maligned "slash and burn"
agricultural systems allowed them to coexist with and benefit --
along with the rest of us -- from the forest for centuries, may
now genuinely be about to lose it and lose out completely.
The writer is an anthropologist a the Center for International
Forestry Research.