Grand peat land project sacrifices local people

By Stevie Emilia

JAKARTA (JP): Gone are the years when Sumiadi earned enough money from his rattan field and fish ponds to send his children to good schools outside his village in Sungai Jaya, Central Kalimantan.

First, Sumiadi had to allow a part of his land to be used for the construction of canals for the one-million-hectare peat land project in Central Kalimantan, which was launched in February 1996 but started in early 1997.

And then another part of his field was decimated by forest fires.

The worst forest fires, which devastated the province last year, lasted for over six months and mostly occurred on peat land and surrounding areas, where most local people have their plantations.

Sumiadi's village, Sungai Jaya, was one of eight villages along the Mengkatip River severely affected both by the project and fires.

The Indonesian Forum for Environment (Walhi) estimates that indigenous people in the villages, known as the Dayak Ngaju, lost 57 percent their land due to the project and forest fires. About 2,400 families comprising 10,000 people live in the villages.

Last week Walhi organized a discussion here on the social and environmental impacts of the peat land project.

Sumiadi, one of the indigenous people invited by Walhi to voice their concerns, said in the discussion that before the project started he could support his family of six from the rattan and purun (rushes used to make mats) in his fields and fish ponds, locally known as beje.

"At that time, we could even send our children to study outside (the village). But now, we can't do it anymore. What we have now is just enough for us to eat," sighed the 52-year-old man.

He said he used to earn Rp 1 million per year from his one- hectare rattan field. Today, he gets only one fourth of that, while most of his rushes went up in flames.

His used to earn more from his 18 fish ponds, which were his main source of income.

"In the past, each beje could produce about one ton of fish worth Rp 1 million. I even used to sell some of my fish to Banjarmasin (South Kalimantan). But now, I have to buy fish myself," Sumiadi said.

In beje, locals used traditional fishing methods by constructing ponds along the riverbanks. Rain was a blessing for them. When rain came, the ponds were flooded by the river's overflow, along with fish. Fish harvesting time came during the dry season.

But the project's canals diverted the river, taking with it the overflow, he said.

"Since 1997, there's no flood (from the river) and our beje dried up," Sumiadi said sadly.

Walhi, which conducted a one-year study from June 1997 to July 1998 in villages affected by the project, found that 1,200 beje along the Mengkatip River were not functioning, while 487 beje were lost to the project.

And that's not the only problem local people faced alone.

Sumiadi lamented that they did not receive sufficient compensation from the government.

The government initially promised to pay Rp 500 per square meter for rattan fields and Rp 1 million for each of their beje.

But after the project started, he was only paid Rp 250 per square meter of his rattan field and Rp 17,000 for each of his beje, he said.

"And I still had to pay Rp 15,000 administration fee for each of my beje. So our beje was only priced at Rp 2,000 each," Sumiadi said with anger.

"We often heard Pak Harto (former president Soeharto) say that the project should not disadvantage people, but we, poor people, are being abused and could almost die of hunger," Sumiadi said.

Study

The project was supposed to convert one million hectares of peat land into 638,000 hectares of rice fields and 362,000 hectares for horticulture, plantations, conservation areas, housing and reservoirs.

But Walhi's study discovered that the project degraded the environment, which had already deteriorated due to illegal logging practices, and lowered local people's incomes.

The study comprising 99 respondents found that before the project started, 42 people earned more than Rp 10 million per year and none of them had no income at all.

But in October 1997, the number of those who earned more than Rp 10 million had decreased to 14 people. Nine people reported having no income at all.

The study also found that the project, which covered ancestral land (tanah adat), also led to the disintegration of social norms and functions.

The project, which was eventually halted due to the economic crisis, is being evaluated by the government.

"The government should stop the project right away and repair all the damages caused by the project and return people's rights...," said Walhi's executive director Emmy Hafild.

The chairman of the team assigned by the government to review the project, Gunawan Satari, also urged the government to reforest the area, saying the land allocated for the project was not suitable to grow food on and threatened the natural environment.

The project, he said, had destroyed 1.4 million hectares of forests, caused forest fires, polluted rivers in the locality and had cost local people their livelihoods from the rivers and the forests.

So far Rp 2 trillion has been spent on developing the project; around Rp 527 billion of which came from the reforestation fund.

Initially, the ambitious project, which aimed to guarantee the country's food security, was estimated to cost Rp 5 trillion.