Government Recognizes Customary Forests

Government Recognizes Customary Forests

Nadya Natahadibrata

Jakarta -- The government was due to begin mapping areas defined as
customary and state forests following the Constitutional Court’s
ruling that rendered the government’s ownership of customary forests
void, a top forestry official has said.

On Thursday, the court decided to scrap the word “state” from
Article 1 of the 1999 Forestry Law, which says “customary forests
are state forests located in the areas of custom-based communities”.

The court also ruled that the government had to recognize indigenous
communities’ ownership of customary forests. “Indigenous peoples
have the right to own and exploit their customary forests to meet
their daily needs,” Justice Muhammad Alim said on Thursday as quoted
by Antara.

The annulment determined two types of forest status: state forests and
public forests, with the latter also divided into two categories:
customary forests and individual forests.

“As there is now a division between state forests and public
forests, it will no longer be possible for public forests to be
located within state forests or vice versa,” he said.

Forestry Ministry secretary-general Hadi Daryanto said the ministry
had launched a program in 2010 to allocate 2.5 million hectares of
forest areas as village forests, as a substitute for customary forests
for indigenous people. The program is slated to be completed in 2014.

“With the annulment by the Constitutional Court, we will redefine
the designated areas of village forests that are not located in state
forests or private forests,” he said.

Hadi added that customary forest areas could not be regulated by the
central government as, according to Article 67 of the Forestry Law,
customary forests were to be regulated under bylaws.

“Article 67 of Law No. 41/1999 on forestry was not annulled by the
MK [Constitutional Court] and currently, no regional administration
has issued a bylaw on customary forests,” Hadi told The Jakarta
Post.

He said it was the ministry’s task to draft a government regulation
to force local administrations to acknowledge customary forests in
bylaws; something that has long been requested by several parties.

In March 2010, the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples (AMAN) filed a
judicial review with the Constitutional Court, accusing the government
of frequently violating the rights of indigenous peoples by taking
over customary forests and turning them into state-controlled areas.

The state, according to AMAN, repeatedly granted concessions to
businesspeople to establish plantations or construct mines while
ignoring the rights of indigenous people.

Ade Cholik Mutaqin of the Participative Mapping Working Network (JKPP)
said the government’s challenge following the annulment would be in
completing the map delineating borders between state forests, private
forests and customary forests.

He added that the JKPP had drawn up a map, with assistance from
indigenous people across the country, showing customary forest
borders, which had been sent to the Environment Ministry. “Our map
shows that there are 2.6 million hectares of customary forest in
Indonesia, with the largest area, 700,000 hectares, located in West
Kalimantan and around 50,000 hectares in Papua,” Ade said.

He added, however, that the map did not yet include all areas in every
province due to geographical challenges.

ENDS

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