Researchers fear disputes over tribal land

Researchers fear disputes over tribal land

JAKARTA (JP): A group of researchers have called on the
government to slow down the process of registering traditional
lands, saying that moving too rapidly could do more harm than
good.

Unless the government moves cautiously, the process of land
registration and certification could raise potentially explosive
disputes over land ownership, a research unit led by Atma Jaya
University said on Tuesday.

The researchers presented their finding on land ownership
surveys conducted in West Sumatra, Central Kalimantan and West
Nusa Tenggara at a seminar on Tuesday. The National Land Agency
(BPN) also attended the seminar.

"Let the people decide when they want to register their land.
Do not force them to do so," researcher Rianto Adi said.

The team of researchers, including noted anthropologists T.O.
Ihromi and Loekman Soetrisno, defined traditional land as
property with special cultural characteristics that is inherited
from ancestors.

Rianto said that the registration of traditional lands without
certification remained the best way to protect their titles
against other possible claimants.

BPN representatives insisted that the registration and
certification of common land would give inhabitants greater legal
certainty, especially when disputes of ownership arise.

The head of BPN's Research and Development Center, Suryo
Suwarno, argued that an absence of legal documents made handling
land disputes difficult.

"In the case of traditional land being taken by force, which
has happened in the past ... it will be hard for the inhabitants
to win their land back because they never had any legal documents
to prove their claim," he said.

Suryo said that his agency has actively campaigned for people
to register their common land.

He said that registration was not the same as certification,
but people often confused the two. "Registration only indicates
the status, size and location of the land, but it does not confer
title."

Ihromi said that the land agency must pay attention to the
local cultures when approaching tribal people, especially when
measuring and defining land boundaries. "The local people are the
only ones who know the lines and the history of the land, and
they have done their own mapping," she said.

The Atma Jaya team said that the government's development
projects which involve land appropriation should respect the
local cultures and give them special protections for their lands.

"The process of land registration must come through their own
initiative. To avoid any form of malfeasance or undue pressure,
land registration should not be initiated by the local land
agency," Rianto said. (edt)