Communities sustain Sumba's forests

25-09-2003

A two-year study by the Forest People’s Project of the impact of National Parks in Africa found that the designation of a protected area can be disastrous for local people. Under the 'classic' model of conservation, in which human presence is deemed incompatible with wildlife, local communities have been forcibly removed from conservation areas. This has resulted in loss of self-respect, culture and access to vital resources, and in social and economic marginalisation as well as impoverishment and destruction of age-old mechanisms for managing natural resources.

It needn't be like that, as BirdLife International's work on the Indonesian island of Sumba demonstrates. Here, further evidence is provided that protecting biodiversity need not mean the loss of traditional rights and livelihoods.

Sumba is home to eight endemic bird species including the vulnerable Sumba Hornbill Rhyticeros everetti and Sumba Buttonquail Turnix everetti, as well as 21 endemic sub-species - most notably the subspecies citrinocristata of the endangered Yellow-crested cockatoo Cacatua sulphurea.

"We think that 100 years ago, Sumba was probably between 30 and 50 percent forested. From satellite imagery done in 2002, we know the forest has been reduced to seven percent." —Pete Wood, BirdLife Indonesia Conservation Program

"Sumba first emerged as a priority after BirdLife did some surveys on the endemic species, and it became clear that there had been fairly significant forest loss," explains Pete Wood of the BirdLife Indonesia Conservation Programme team. "We think that 100 years ago, Sumba was probably between 30 and 50 percent forested. From satellite imagery done in 2002, we know the forest has been reduced to seven percent."

Two National Parks were gazetted on Sumba in 1998. To some extent the process followed the old pattern. BirdLife carried out biodiversity surveys, identified key areas, then sought support from other international conservation NGOs and the higher tiers of local government to lobby the central Indonesian Government. However the National Parks were created by combining old forest reserves, and in doing so they inherited boundary conflicts resulting from the expansion of the forest estate in the 1980s.

"The process of creating a forest reserve has many, many steps," explains Wood. "Legally there should have been consultation with communities and reconciliation of disputes over the line of the boundary. The law is actually very good, but under Suharto this apparently wasn't done, and so there are many forest reserves and some National Parks in Indonesia where boundaries cut across people's land."

Chris Rose/Rare Bird Club

The Sumba Buttonquail lives only in native grassland habitat on the island of Sumba, Indonesia.
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"Although the figures for forest loss sound quite dramatic, it has taken place over a long period. But it is obviously of great concern, because what is left is a very small area."

Following the fall of Suharto in 1998, power began to be decentralised from Jakarta to local and regional governments. In 2002, BirdLife International's externally managed Indonesia Programme was transformed into BirdLife Indonesia, a national NGO. On Sumba, the entire BirdLife team is Sumbanese, between them speaking most of the island's many languages.

There is no industrial scale logging on Sumba, of the kind that threatens to destroy the entire lowland forest of Sumatra within the next few years. Forest loss is caused by farmers opening up small areas of forest for agriculture, by wild fire and fires set for hunting, and by the extraction of timber. "Although the figures for forest loss sound quite dramatic, it has taken place over a long period," says Pete Wood. "But it is obviously of great concern, because what is left is a very small area. "

Sumba has a very dry climate. The forest is only found on some of the western slopes, which get the rain bearing winds from the sea. "A lot of communities face tremendous difficulties getting water for drinking and rice irrigation, especially in the dry season. In the last two years, we have done surveys of 26 villages which border directly on the two main forest areas of Sumba, and found many examples of communities protecting forests with traditional taboos and laws to protect springs and water sources. They also have rules about management of a kind of wild yam which grows in the forest. If there's a bad harvest, they traditionally fall back on these wild foods. So culturally there is a strong association with the forest, and it is fair to say that people are very receptive to the conservation message."

"Through discussion with communities, we want to set up a series of zones within the parks. We imagine that there will be a core zone where everyone agrees there will be no disturbance."

Once the communities have agreed to forest conservation measures, their traditional social structures provide a mechanism for monitoring and regulating them. BirdLife has now worked with four villages to produce village forest conservation agreements. The process begins with discussions with sub-villages, and even individual families. "We talk about how they use natural resources, and in particular where they have land, especially land inside the area which has been designated as a National Park. But also about where they go hunting, and where they take timber and other forest products. Ultimately there is a village meeting, where they agree a vision of how they would like to see forest resources being managed. We then go with the community to the local government, and to the central authority which manages the National Parks, and help with the negotiations until there is agreement between everybody on what management is going to be implemented."

The villagers have agreed not to burn, graze or farm certain areas of the forest. In return, the National Park authority has agreed that it makes sense to allow people to return to farmland within the boundary. This is a major step forward for the communities in terms of their livelihood security. Because of this flexibility, the communities are much more receptive to acknowledging the boundary, and the rules on burning inside the National Park, or grazing cattle there.

Legally all the land in Indonesia is divided into villages, but that does not mean there is no room for conservation of forest areas. "By no means all of the land in the National Parks has been used by people. The areas that the villages are interested in getting back to farming are really just around the fringe of the National Park, close to the settlements," says Wood. "Through discussion with communities, we want to set up a series of zones within the parks. We imagine that there will be a core zone where everyone agrees there will be no disturbance. A lot of those core zones will overlap with areas which are traditionally protected by the communities for water sources. In Indonesian law you can have something called a sustainable use zone, so we hope to agree zones like that, where local villagers will be able to collect yams and fruits, and rattan and other forest products."

The one issue where there has been no agreement yet is the taking of timber. "The communities' position is that they absolutely need timber for building their traditional houses. They accept that timber is not going to be available forever, and in many villages they have started planting timber trees in their own farms, with the project's help. So in 10 or 20 years they will have a cultivated supply from their farms."

BirdLife Indonesia

The small forest patches remaining on Sumba, Indonesia, are vital for the conservation of the island's unique biodiversity
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"I think there is a good chance that a lot of the actual protection work will be done by the communities themselves."

National Park authority has found this difficult to accept. They are worried that if they authorise taking two or three trees in a year, what will actually happen is unauthorised logging. But that of course fails to recognise that what is going on at the moment is unregulated logging. We are still working on that, and hope that we can get some agreement."

There remains the problem of illegal logging by outsiders, who take timber - or pay the villagers to cut timber - for building work in towns elsewhere on Sumba, or even off the island altogether. "Villages are very keen on stopping that, because they recognise it is an immediate threat to their own resources and to their water supplies. BirdLife has encouraged the formation of village forest protection groups, and we already have several examples of these groups seizing timber and chainsaws, or stopping people coming through their villages into the forest."

Everybody, from the communities to local and central government and the park authorities, takes a positive view of the new model for agreeing boundaries and rules for local use of National Parks. "Our aim for next year is to apply that model in all the villages which have land bordering a National Park, so that bit by bit we put the whole boundary together with a series of village agreements. Once that is done, there will be the final legal declaration from the Minister of Forestry, which is the last part of the process of establishing a park."

"Central government has been very clear that at the moment, and in the foreseeable future, they do not have a budget to manage this National Park. But from what we have seen of these community forest protection groups, I think there is a good chance that a lot of the actual protection work will be done by the communities themselves."

Credits: Nick Langley