Jakarta – The Indonesian government plans to move nomadic forest tribes into reservations as part of its solution for "empowering" communities threatened by massive loss of forests in southern Sumatra.

An estimated 200,000 people from various tribes that the government collectively brands "Anak Dalam" will be affected by the plan, laid out in a regulation signed by President Joko Widodo last year and which Social Affairs Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa is only acting on now.

The minister has allocated Rp 126 billion ($9.28 million) for the so-called Social Empowerment for Indigenous Communities program, much of it to settle the largely nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes onto reservations.

"The tribes' nomadic tradition has been disrupted by forest fires," Khofifah said at her office in Jakarta on Wednesday. "The forests in which they live have been converted into oil palm plantations, pushing them away. The forest fires have made their situation even worse. We have to do something [about it]."

The action that the minister calls for does not include conserving the ostensibly protected forests in which the indigenous groups live. In fact, the presidential regulation makes no mention of trying to maintain the groups' generations-old way of life, stating instead that they should be "integrated into the wider society."

Forest fires in Sumatra, Kalimantan and other parts of Indonesia this year have triggered the daily release of more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than the entire economic activity of the United States. More than half of the fires occurred on peat land, which is supposed to be off-limits to loggers and plantation companies.

Source: http://jakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/government-empower-nomadic-tribes-grounding-reservations/