In West Kalimantan too, indigenous people are struggling to defend their customary land against commercial interests.
Early in 1995 a company called PT Nityasa Idola started clearing land for a pulpwood plantation on a 120-hectare area belonging to Dayak families in Belimbing village, Sambas district. The land had been signed over by the government-approved Village Head and a few others the previous month.
This agreement stipulated that the company should respect the local customs, respect the local people's rights and efforts, prioritise local people for employment on the project and pay attention to village needs.
A ceremony, led by the Village Head, was then arranged in which ten villagers received Rp 500,000 (US $250). The traditional [adat] leader and other villagers were not involved. Soon after, the villagers were told rudely that they could no longer work on their fields as the land had been bought by PT Nityasa Idola. The Village Head threatened to send to jail villagers who trespassed.
Since then, repeated attempts by the villagers to resolve the dispute through official channels have failed. In November 1995, their anger reached flashpoint and they burnt down the company's seedling camp.
According to Lembaga Bela Banua Talino (LBBT), an NGO based in the West Kalimantan provincial capital, Pontianak, this was the third such attack against timber estate developers in the area in the past couple of years. More pulp projects
PT Adindo Hutani Lestari, a timber company partly owned by Suharto's daughter Siti Hediati Prabowo, is developing a timber estate and pulp plant with a total investment US $893 million in Bulungan, East Kalimantan, reports the Jakarta Post. Adindo, said a company statement has so far planted 550 hectares with such fast-growing tree species as acacia and eucalyptus. The company, started operations early 1995. (Jakarta Post 24/11/95)
The President's eldest daughter, Tutut, is involved in the huge Tanjung Enim Lestari Pulp & Paper project in South Sumatra along with timber baron Prayogo Pangestu and private and government Japanese investment. NGOs are fighting the project on environmental grounds and have accused the project of forcibly appropriating land from local communities (see DTE 27 for a full report).
In October the Ministry of Forestry licensed the establishment of a 150,000 hectare timber estate for the pulp industry in Sanggau, West Kalimantan. The $ 964.9 million project is be a joint venture between the Bumi Raya Group and state-owned PT Inhutani II. It is the first to be licensed since the government reopened the timber estate sector to investors. A decision to close the sector for 'environmental reasons' was reversed after paper prices soared, in a bid to boost pulp production and bring down prices. (Jakarta Post 19/10/95)