1. Introduction.
Colfer, Carol J. Pierce ; Yuliani, Elizabeth Linda
This special section of Volume 41 of the Borneo Research Bulletin
has been compiled in honor of Dr. Reed Lee Wadley, an anthropologist who
conducted research for two decades in the Danau Sentarum area before
dying prematurely in June 2008. We have assembled more recent research
in the area, at the invitation of Dr. Cliff Sather and with the
encouragement of Dr. George Appeli. The compilation is
multidisciplinary, bringing together researchers from the fields of
anthropology, economics, botany, earth sciences, ecology, geology,
geography, law and soil science. The authors also work in a range of
research settings and include university professors, consultants, NGO
personnel and people working in research organizations. We believe that
Reed Wadley would have been particularly supportive of this diversity,
given his own extraordinarily diverse interests and areas of expertise.
Wadley's Work: A Partial Snapshot
Reed Wadley's work on the Iban of Wong Garai in West
Kalimantan has been widely appreciated for its systematic and
comprehensive nature. Although space does not allow a thorough review of
his work, we acknowledge its unusual breadth and scope. He was a
prolific writer. In his short life, he managed to produce three books,
38 journal articles, and 12 book chapters and articles in proceedings;
and he edited four special issues of journals. He also produced 60 other
publications, such as book reviews, manuals and encyclopedia entries, on
a wide range of topics, from environmental history, kinship and social
organization to labor migration, warfare and colonization. The following
few paragraphs are designed simply to give a sense of his breadth.
He began his career with a doctoral dissertation on migration
(Wadley 1997) and maintained his interest in demography, more recently
co-editing a book on peoples living in borderlands (Horstmann and Wadley
2006). He was instrumental in the conception and early phases of
organizing a very successful March 2008 international meeting in Hanoi,
titled "The Demise of Swidden Agriculture," the results of
which morphed into a special issue of Human Ecology, Volume 37, 2009.
His commitment to conservation concerns was repeatedly demonstrated; for
instance, he analyzed illegal logging (e.g., Wadley and Eilenberg 2005),
people's time use (Colfer et al. 1999) and wildlife use and
management (Wadley et al. 1997), among other related topics.
His interest in conservation did not reduce his concerns for
people's livelihoods (e.g., Wadley and Mertz 2005; Wadley 2007).
Nor was he devoid of some of our stereotypical anthropological concerns;
he studied sacred forests (Wadley and Colfer 2004), shamanism (Wadley et
al. 2006) and ancestor worship and mourning taboos (Wadley 1999).
He was ahead of his time in his interest in the ethnography of
climate change. In 2006, he made a presentation at the Center for
International Forestry Research (CIFOR) titled "Ethnometeorology,
or what people say they know about the weather and why CIFOR should
care." In 2008, CIFOR made climate change its central and highest
profile focus--though his talk was admittedly just one of a growing
number of pressures in that direction. He continued to facilitate and
engage in interdisciplinary exchange until the end of his life. Indeed,
the article he conceived for this journal (Chapter 11) was intended for
conservation biologists--a wish we are still trying to fulfill more
directly through re-publication in a journal biologists are more likely
to read.
He worked in the Department of Anthropology at the University of
Missouri, in Columbia, from 2001 until his illness incapacitated him a
few months before his death on 28 June 2008, at the age of 45. Prior to
his work in Missouri, he spent three years in the Netherlands conducting
archival research on West Kalimantan, and he served from time to time as
a consultant for the Center for International Forestry Research, in
Bogor, and for Wetlands International-Indonesia. It was in this latter
capacity, as a consultant, that Wadley's work linked most closely
with that of most of the authors in this special section.
Wadley had a personal commitment to the people whose lives he
studied so faithfully. He was an active contributor to the work of an
environmental NGO, Riak Bumi (led by Valentinus Heri, Chapter 5). He
would have been most pleased to hear of these essays, which bring
together the work of so many of his friends and colleagues. He would
also have been pleased at the Indonesian representation in this
collection, since so much of the internationally available, published
work on Borneo has been dominated by foreigners.
Danau Sentarum National Park: Another Snapshot
Wong Garai, Wadley's primary field site, is located in the
buffer zone of Danau Sentarum National Park, so the destiny of the
peoples he worked with is bound up in the park's management and
future. In this section you will read much more about the area and its
people; we provide only a bare-bones introduction here.
Located on the northern side of the Kapuas River, 700 km upriver
from Pontianak in West Kalimantan, the park is bordered on the north by
the Malaysian state of Sarawak. The peoples are primarily Malay (Melayu)
within the park proper, with Kantu', Iban, and Embaloh surrounding
the park's western, northern and eastern borders, respectively
(roughly). The Iban, whom Wadley studied, are the dominant Dayak group
in the area.
The park covers 132,000 ha and consists of a core area, which is a
series of interconnected seasonal lakes (of some 82,000 ha), with
surrounding hillier dryland areas. Management of the park has been
problematic, with frequent incursions by loggers (Wadley 2006) and, more
recently, oil palm companies (see Chapters 5 and 7). There have been
recurrent threats of dams and transmigration programs, though none have
yet materialized. Fortunately, the government has grown quiet about
damming Danau Sentarum, at least for the time being, since Yuliani et
al. (2007) summarized the potential detrimental effects to the ecosystem
and to the livelihoods of local people in particular, whose income (from
fisheries), health and transport within the park would be affected.
Governmental policy also has changed erratically, with national security
concerns related to the border areas mixed with the national need to
provide foreign exchange and funding for military budgets, further
complicated by corruption at various levels. And the population has
grown precipitously (Chapter 5).
Decentralized corruption, collusion and nepotism are major factors
in the establishment of new, large-scale oil palm plantations around
DSNP (Chapter 7) including a possible take-over of some parts of the
territory of Wong Garai (the village where Wadley centered his research)
for a plantation. The oil palm plantation is likely to harm local
people's livelihoods and biodiversity conservation. Many
organizations are now collaborating to ensure the viability of Danau
Sentarum ecosystems. Riak Bumi Foundation, for example, is working with
local communities from all over the Danau Sentarum area and with CIFOR
to conduct participatory action research, build collaboration and ensure
good governance in managing park resources sustainably. Several NGOs,
such as Sawit Watch, the Indonesian Environmental Forum (WALHI), Titian
Foundation and West Kalimantan Alliance for the Indigenous People (AMAN
Kalbar) form the Coalition for Danau Sentarum's Redemption. A
central goal is to save Danau Sentarum from oil palm expansion.
Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) is conducting an orangutan awareness
program in Wong Garai, and a tree-planting movement is underway in the
Labian-Leboyan watershed and the corridor between DSNP and Betung
Kerihun National Park to the northeast.
This Special Section and Its Organization
The articles in this special section are organized into three main
parts. First, there is a series of three introductory chapters,
including this one. Chapter 2, by Julia Aglionby, provides the
historical context, taking up where the earlier Borneo Research Bulletin
special issue on Danau Sentarum (Giesen 2000) left off. Chapter 3 is the
most anthropological of the contributions to this special section,
focusing on how diverse local identities link to livelihoods and to the
diverse perceptions of resources and territories. Emily Harwell examines
the interplay of notions of identity, livelihood and entitlement and how
these relate to historical realities and change. The chapter takes into
account the power dynamics in the region, which bring together local
people, neighbors and the state in attempts to resolve boundary
questions.
The second set of chapters (Chapter 4-8) is more topical. Each
describes a slice of Danau Sentarum's reality. Chapter 4, by Gusti
Anshari, is a geologist's look at the peat soils in the area; their
potential contribution to mitigating climate change, and thus their
value in the coming decades give this article its relevance.
Chapter 5, by Valentinus Heri et al., is a full accounting of the
dangers threatening the park and the people living in it. The author
comes from the village that Wadley studied, and his long history in the
region and continuing commitment to its sustainable management provide a
unique perspective on the threats.
The next chapter (6) is by Yayan Indriatmoko, a CIFOR
anthropologist, who takes a quick look at population growth in recent
years. Although earlier resource use by local communities was fairly
sustainable (see, e.g., Dennis et al. 2001), the region is unlikely to
be able to sustain continued human growth at the present rate without
adverse environmental consequences.
One of the most worrying threats is the expansion of oil palm,
which has resulted in controversies in many parts of Indonesia.
Anthropologists tend to conclude that oil palm has primarily negative
effects on local people's livelihoods and rights and on
biodiversity conservation; economists focus on tax revenue from the
companies and the employment and additional income opportunities for
local people through the nucleus estate system. Linda Yuliani and her
coauthors, in Chapter 7, emphasize the current dangers of oil palm, in
the park context.
The last chapter in this part looks at conflict in the area. Yurdi
Yasmi and his coauthor examine a series of specific conflicts both
within Iban and Malay populations and between them. There has been a
long and bloody history of violent conflict in this region, and only a
decade ago, similar conflicts verged on war in a nearby region of West
Kalimantan (Peluso and Harwell 2002). The goal of Yasmi's analysis
is to examine how to reduce the likelihood of continuing or accelerating
conflict in this region.
The final part of this special section focuses on action research
designed to promote benefits for local people from conservation actions.
Chapter 9, by Leon Prasetyo, reports on his efforts to encourage the
cultivation and maintenance of wild orchids. Danau Sentarum has many
species of orchids, some very beautiful. Prasetyo has taught local
people methods of cultivating and conserving orchids; he describes the
learning processes that lead to self-organization and bottom-up
decisions, including successes and challenges he has encountered in this
process.
In Chapter 10, Mathew Minarchek and Yayan Indriatmoko describe an
experiment in the construction and use of a simple microhydro generation
facility in one of the Iban villages in the northeastern quadrant of the
Danau Sentarum National Park. Prior to this experiment, which drew
partially on expertise from Sundanese farmers who had constructed a
similar facility in their village, the only possible source of
electricity had been a small generator. The fuel for the generator had
become exorbitantly expensive in this remote location. The authors
analyze the pros and cons of this effort.
The final essay in this special section is reserved for Reed
Wadley's work. He and his coauthors, all individuals with long
experience in Danau Sentarum, explore the human interactions of three
earlier teams of researchers with villagers, other stakeholders, and
among themselves. The authors argue that the specificities of individual
people and their interpersonal skills have a previously ignored impact
on conservation success or failure in any given area. They provide
examples of their own and others' mistakes and successes with some
indications of the results for conservation.
The Park Now and in the Future
Although this special section of the Borneo Research Bulletin, like
most research, provides information on the past, some quite recent, the
park represents a very dynamic context. In this section, we introduce
the most recent activities of which we are aware, some of which hold
both potential benefits and dangers for local people and for the
environment.
Since February 2007, the park has been managed by the National Park
Authority, which consists of 38 staff--30 pegawai negeri tetap
(permanent staff) and eight pegawai honorer (temporary employees). The
main office is in Sintang, several hours downriver from Danau Sentarum,
and field offices are in the nearby towns of Lanjak, Semitau, and
Selimbau. The authority is using a management plan developed in 2006,
aimed to promote collaborative management of the park.
Officially abandoned between 1999 and 2004, the park now attracts
growing interest from researchers, NGOs, donors and carbon-related
projects. (1) As of January 2010, there are more than 20 projects being
conducted in the park: research by local, national and international
research institutions, community empowerment by NGOs, locations for TV
programs, and others. We briefly describe two new CIFOR projects that
began in mid-2009: an orangutan project and a scoping study for
reductions in emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD). The
orangutan project, funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is
documenting the orangutan population and habitat conditions, local
people's perceptions of conservation and traditional norms and
beliefs related to orangutans. The project will also develop an
awareness program and capacity building for local stakeholders on
orangutan conservation issues.
The REDD scoping study in Danau Sentarum is part of a global
comparative assessment. The entire world is gearing up to mitigate
climate change, and concerned researchers have begun to evaluate Danau
Sentarum as a potential site for REDD. A decision to implement REDD in
this area could have significant implications (positive or negative) for
local people and the environment.
A new project funded by the European Commission includes Danau
Sentarum as one of its sites. Beginning in 2010, the project will build
stakeholders' capacity in collaborative land-use planning for
sustainable natural resources management and better protection of
ecosystems that have important functions.
The National Park Authority has the critical role of ensuring
coordination and communication across projects and avoiding overlapping
activities and schedules. However, it has not yet played this role
effectively, which has led to considerable delays for some projects,
inefficiency and frequent disappointment. Despite efforts to devolve
responsibilities to field offices, internal political wrangling
continues to plague the authority's efforts.
Effective management of the park is also challenged by the national
recruitment and staff placement system. Of the authority's 38 staff
members, only two come from the area. The rest, newly appointed, come
from other islands, and several readily admit that they hope to be
relocated as soon as possible to their homelands. Many of the new staff
demonstrate inadequate knowledge of crucial general issues like
conservation and management of protected areas, and even less on
location-specific issues, and long-term personal vision and commitment
to better management of the park appear to be lacking.
Such attitudes undermine conservation efforts and the effectiveness
of park management. Efforts are now underway to combine several tools,
strategies and approaches (see, e.g., Yuliani et al. 2008, 2009) to
build the authority staff's motivation and passion to achieve
better management of Danau Sentarum.
In Sum
We have found the process of pulling together the essays in this
special section both challenging and rewarding. It was challenging
because of the diversity inherent in any international effort
(geographical, linguistic, cultural) and all interdisciplinary work
(different norms about style, format, content and process). But the
rewards have been far greater. The authors who have contributed to this
collection have strong personal attachments to the region, and many have
fond and cherished memories of Reed Wadley. All have done their best -
often with serious time, linguistic, and institutional constraints--both
to honor Reed's memory and to make continued contributions to both
the Danau Sentarum ecosystem and to the human beings who reside there.
References
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Yuliani, E.L., Y. Indriatmoko and V. Heri 2007 What Will Happen If
Danau Sentarum Is Dammed? (Apa yang akan terjadi jika Danau Sentarum
dibendung?). CIFOR-Riak Bumi Newsletter No. 2, December. Bogor: CIFOR
and Riak Bumi.
Yuliani, E.L., H. Adnan and Y. Indriatmoko 2008 The Use of
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the Study of Commons conference, Cheltenham, UK, 14-18 July.
Yuliani, E.L., D. Kuncarasakti, E. Rosdiana, Suhaeri and D. Wahab
2009 Birokrasi Departemen Kehutanan: Memicu Perubahan dari Dalam dengan
Energi Positif [The Ministry of Forestry Bureaucracy: Make Changes from
Within through Positive Energy]. FGLG Learning Paper 2. Inspirit and
IIED.
Carol J. Pierce Colfer
Center for International Forestry Research
JL. CIFOR, Sindang Barang
Bogor, West Java, Indonesia
c.colfer@cgiar.org
Elizabeth Linda Yuliani
Center for International Forestry Research
JL. CIFOR, Sindang Barang
Bogor, West Java, Indonesia
L.yuliani@cgiar.org
(1) We use the term "carbon related projects" to describe
a wide range of activities related to carbon and climate change, either
for carbon trading and REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and
[forest] Degradation) pilot sites, or for research.