Farmers the most defenseless in forest fires

Farmers the most defenseless in forest fires

By Pandaya

TANI BAKTI VILLAGE, East Kalimantan: Life is harsh for Appe
Said, his wife and three children even though they have spent
almost four years in this "promise land."

The vast and breathtaking hilly landscape surrounding their
homes with the grass swaying in the breeze is probably the only
thing the hundreds of families living here can take for granted.

Giant scorched tree stumps left by the legendary 1982 fires
that destroyed three million hectares of forest dot the seemingly
endless landscape.

"We're more miserable now than ever. Nobody has gone on haj
pilgrimage (to Mecca) since we were resettled here," says Appe's
wife, Asriana, undeterred by the watching officials.

Appe, who is of the well-known hot blooded Bugis ethnic group,
says he is ashamed to return to his home village in South
Sulawesi. But life in this resettlement site is not as rosy as
officials promised.

"People in my ancestral village now have decent homes, radios
and all that. If I return, I will have to start all over again,"
he says, staring at his six-months pregnant wife.

In the resettlement village located about three kilometers
from the Balikpapan-Samarinda highway, they live in a humble
wooden house the government supplied.

The two-hectare plot of agricultural land, also given free to
them, is so arid they cannot cultivate it in the dry season. Then
it becomes necessary for them to work in construction and
forestry projects many miles away from home.

The village does have an elementary school, but children lucky
enough to have the privilege of attending junior secondary school
have to walk at least five kilometers to the nearest one.

Water is scarce as the dam built for them by the government is
dry and residents have to spend hours fetching water from wells.

The Appes are just one of some 500 families that were
resettled here after being evicted several years ago from their
land which the local government declared part of the 63,000
hectares of the Bukit Soeharto reserve.

There are hundreds of other farming families living in Bukit
Soeharto to be resettled elsewhere under the state-sponsored
transmigration program to "secure" the national park extremely
prone to fire.

Farmers have been made the biggest villains in the forest
fires that commonly occur in the dry season in many parts of the
Kalimantan jungles.

The eviction process is apparently not that easy because many
occupants fiercely cling to their demand for a higher
compensation than the government is offering.

But the government has been intensifying the pressure. "We
have been denied bank credits for farming because officials say
the land we have occupied since the 1960s belongs to the state,"
said Suparlan, a neighborhood unit chief in a Bukit Suharto
village.

Farmers practicing slash-and-burn techniques have been the
prime scapegoats in this year's current fires which so far has
destroyed thousands of hectares of forest across Kalimantan,
leaving untold damage in financial and, notably, ecological
terms.

People have to clear land by burning the bushes to reduce the
level of soil acidity to allow crops to grow.

In their defense, farmers argue that the technique has been
safely practiced generation after generation and only in the past
decade or so have they been blamed for forest fires.

The indigenous Dayak people, ethnics in the Kalimantan
hinterland, for instance, are well-known for their traditional
slash-and-burn farming method. They have practiced this method
for generations without affecting the ecological balance. They
consider themselves as part of the nature they ought to protect.

The division of what was once the indigenous' traditional
property into concessionaire forests has not only generated
confusion for the indigenous people, but also heightened tension
between them, the businessmen and officials.

The recent fires that turned into a blaming game was a case in
point.

Minister of Forestry Djamaludin Suryohadikusumo says nomadic
farmers burnt 1.5 million hectares of forest on various islands,
"settled" farmers 2.8 million hectares, while government-owned
industrial estates "only" 17,000 hectares. Fires started by
plantation and reforestation activities destroyed about 36,000
hectares.

Farmers point the finger at businessmen from the towns for
most of the fires.

Suparlan, a Banjar ethnic who has lived near Bukit Suharto for
more than three decades, said forest fires became commonplace
after concessionaire holders moved in during the 1970s and
disturbed the ecological balance of the forests.

"A virgin forest is unlikely to catch fire because the level
of humidity is very high," he said, pointing out that fires
usually raze "secondary" forests and bushes which were once a
jungle.

Earlier this month, the Indonesian Foresters Community (MPI),
a non-governmental organization under timber tycoon Bob
(Muhammad) Hasan, sponsored a press trip for Jakarta-based
journalists to East Kalimantan where he reportedly controls many
thousands of hectares of forests.

The MPI mission was vague but clear enough: to convince
everyone that forest concession holders were not responsible for
the fires.

MPI officials led the newsmen to burned areas in Sungai Wain
reserve forest and Bukit Soeharto national parks where, as if
orchestrated, local forest authorities were unanimous in their
support of the concessionaire's insistence that fires were
started by irresponsible farmers.

Journalists were also shown places where low-grade coal was
smoldering underground, a natural cause of fire which isn't
doused by downpours and which is commonly found in Bukit Soeharto
and its surrounding areas.

Gozali Abas of the Mahakam Hilir forestry office, who
supervises a dozen poorly equipped forest rangers in securing
Bukit Soeharto, says there are 47 places in the reserve where
coal smolders year-round.

"The government has made no special effort to put out the
embers," he says.