Wood supply becoming problematic for Dayaks

By Indra D. Himrat

KUTAI, East Kalimantan (JP): Forty-two Dayak families in this village are homeless as they find it difficult to find wood, the main construction material for housing, in the area.

These 169 Dayaks live in Jelmu Sibak village, Bentian Besar, Kutai, East Kalimantan. They account for one third of the population of Jelmu Sibak and their names are on a list at the office, which is also the home, of the head of Jelmu Sibak rural community resilience agency.

Wood is getting scarcer. Wood is a means of living for many villagers and can no longer be depended on as the primary support in their lives.

Many villagers complain that they must go deep into the forest to find wood when they want to build a house. Sometimes they cannot get any wood at all because the forest is controlled by a forest or timber estate concessionaire.

"Yes, the wood which is good for house building is available far away from the village and also you cannot fell a tree just anywhere," said Nyaran, a state elementary school teacher.

Salmiah, an activist added, "It may not make sense but it is reality. It is getting more and more difficult for villagers to find wood for house building even though their village is somewhere in a forest."

Also, she said, villagers can no longer go freely about looking for wood because the land and the forests are now controlled by forest concessionaires.

All this can only mean that it will be increasingly difficult for these villagers to build a house, especially since other materials needed in building a house are also difficult to obtain. This will be the next serious problem that the villagers are going to encounter, after the problem of food scarcity.

Some village elders, including the tribal chief of Jelmu Sibak village, have suggested that a special location be designated as a reserve forest for the villagers. This would mean that not all the villagers' forest areas would be handed over to forest concessionaires.

"No forest concessionaires may touch the forest area in the east, across the Lawa River," said Yahya Holeh, the tribal chief of Jelmu Sibak village.

"That area is a reserve forest area for villagers, whose lives are very dependent on the forest," said Yahya in a recent interview at his relative's house in a housing compound owned by Timber Dana Kali Manis Group, where he has been staying lately.

Socioculturally, there are several types of houses particular to East Kalimantan. The first type is a lou, which is known as a longhouse and normally called lamin by the locals, indigenous or otherwise. This is a traditional house, where a large family lives. The second type is an ordinary house for a small family, but may also be occupied by more than one family. These two types may be found in a village or a residential area. The third type is a resting house, which is also a rice storehouse. This house is located in a paddy field.

Traditionally, an estimate of the need for houses in a village does not depend on the number of families in the village but, rather, on the need and the development of a family. So it may happen that a family has two houses or more. On the other hand, there are families who do not have a house of their own; they live in a house along with other families.

In Jelmu Sibak village there is a longhouse measuring about 15m x 40m which is owned by the tribal chief. The villagers' houses are made of wood all through, are smaller in size and stand along the road in the central part of the village, at the side of the Lawa River. Both the old lou and the villagers' houses are built on many large and small wooden poles. Some of these poles have lasted three generations but are still strong because the wood they are made of is ironwood, which is water- resistant. Unfortunately, this ironwood is no longer easily available to the villagers.

The present wood "crisis" has made locals fear that there will soon come a time when it is no longer possible for the villagers to build their longhouses. "It is very likely that this village will no longer have a longhouse in future," said Nyaran.

In fact, a lou is a cultural center for the Dayaks. It is here that they carry out various sociocultural and religious activities. If no more lou can be built, this will signify the rural community's cultural doom because the continuance of their culture depends on the presence of a lou, and their own survival depends largely on the different types of wood around them.

This is a phenomenon which needs further disclosure because tree felling continues not only in this village, but also in other villages where the villagers rely on the forest as their means of living, not simply as a place where they can obtain wood for house building.

The writer is an anthropologist