Revenge of the Teak Forests

By Barrie | January 1st, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Can Mother Nature take revenge for the way humans have been treating her? Obviously not directly. The torrential rains of the last two weeks have claimed 65 lives in the regency of Karanganyar, on the slopes of Central Java’s Mount Lawu. The resulting floods and landslides have caused property damage and disrupted transportation in at least 35 regencies and municipalities in Central and East Java, as well as the Yogyakarta regencies of Bantul and Sleman.

Historically, what we see here is the result of four hundred years of careless exploitation of Java’s forests, especially its teak forests, as described eloquently by University of California professor Nancy Lee Peluso in her 1992 book Rich Forests, Poor People: Resource Control and Resistance in Java (University of California Press).

When the Dutch sailors and traders arrived here in the 17th century, they were amazed to see Java’s teak forests stretching from the northern to the southern coast and from Central to East Java, especially along the central mountain spine of the island.

The Dutch traders immediately saw rich resources to build wooden ships for the Dutch East Indies Company. Without these teak forests, wrote Dutch historian, E.H.B. Brascamp, “our colonial history would have been quite different.”

Yes, and Indonesia’s post-colonial history would also be “quite different”, today as well. When teak became the main Dutch interest here, the exploitation of Java’s forests created fortunes for the colonial masters and their indigenous proxies, while impoverishing the indigenous population living along the forest fringes.

The Dutch turned the indigenous teak forests into teak plantations. The Indonesian state has continued this exploitative system, further impoverishing villagers living on state land. To reduce so-called “illegal logging” of teak, various schemes have been developed to allow the forest villagers to eke out a meager living on the land, as well as to earn low wages in producing “non-wood” items, such as certain resins.

More than 60 years of Indonesian independence has not liberated Java’s forest dwellers from this exploitative system. In fact, since the land redistribution program of the 1960s was abruptly halted by the New Order, more and more villagers have been pushed into farming more and more forest land, thereby further reducing the forest cover of this densely populated island.

This push for farmland has been driven by the expansion of absentee landlords and agribusinesses into the rural areas along the slopes of the mountains, such as Mount Lawu in Central Java. There they grow vegetables as well as more lucrative crops, such as cloves and cacao. Since beggars can’t be choosers, the rural poor have no option but to farm the steepest and poorest soils on the mountain slopes, which should actually be conserved.

On the other hand, the Forestry Service and the forestry company they supervise, Perhutani, are not known as the cleanest civil servants in the country. In rural Java they are noted for their lucrative lifestyle due to their collusion with illegal teak loggers. The more limited the teak forest, the higher the price they can secure from furniture factories and developers, who are keeping up a high demand for teak wood.

What we have observed during these last weeks of 2007 are two major impacts of deforestation: landslides in the highlands, and floods in the lowlands. On one hand, ecologically speaking, we can see here a kind of revenge of Java’s diminishing teak forests. On the other hand, it could also be seen as a revenge of the forest dwellers.

Unfortunately, it was the forest dwellers themselves who fell victim to the landslides in the mountains, which have spread, domino-style, from one mountain village to the next.

Therefore, after emergency assistance has been rendered to the landslide and flood victims, more fundamental solutions are needed. Apart from enforcing the entire package of 1960 agrarian laws, Perhutani should be dissolved and replaced by forestry cooperatives owned and managed by forest dwellers themselves. Java’s forests should be returned to their historical owners.

The writer (George Junus Aditjondro) is a guest lecturer at the Sanata Dharma University post-graduate program in Religious and Cultural Studies in Yogyakarta. He can be reached at georgejunusaditjondro@gmail.com.