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