Riyad Dafhi Rizki, Rendy Tisna, Banjarmasin, Indonesia – A growing coalition of Indigenous communities, students and civil society organizations from Borneo is rallying against fast-moving plans to establish a new national park in the remote Meratus mountain range.
"The Meratus forest is our mother," said Anang Suriani, a spokesperson for the Dayak Indigenous community from Kambiayin, a village in South Kalimantan province that falls within the borders of the proposed Meratus Mountains National Park.
"It's a place where we live, farm, forage, practice tradition and obtain medicine," he added. "Making it a national park is tantamount to destroying us."
The government plans to zone Meratus Mountains National Park over 119,779 hectares (295,980 acres), an area twice the size of the city of Chicago, or more than 50% larger than the country of Singapore.
Since Indonesia's independence in 1945, successive governments have established 57 national parks across the country, the largest of which is Lorentz National Park in Papua, at around 2.5 million hectares (6.2 million acres), an area 30 times larger than Singapore. The smallest, Kelimutu National Park on Flores island, is slightly smaller than the city state.
South Kalimantan is one of only four of the 38 provinces across Indonesia that doesn't have a national park. However, in April this year, UNESCO, the United Nations' cultural office, designated the Meratus Mountains as a Global Geopark for its "fascinating geological record of complex tectonic evolution beginning in the Jurassic period, 201 to 145 million years ago."
Officials in Indonesia unveiled the national park draft in September last year, with plans for Meratus Mountains National Park to be established by the end of this year.
That represents an ambitious time frame, given it can take several years to create a new protected area, particularly when Indigenous land claims conflict with the state designation.
The government's draft national park boundary would absorb 23 villages across the five districts of Balangan, Banjar, Hulu Sungai Selatan, Hulu Sungai Tengah and Kotabaru. This has sparked opposition from communities on the ground who have expressed fears of formal change superseding their traditional claims to the land.
Population data compiled by Mongabay for this report from each subdistrict and district population office showed 20,328 people were recorded as living in the 23 villages in 2024.
Indigenous elders here say they worry the change in status elevates risks of displacement affecting more than 6,000 families in the Meratus range. The establishment of a national park boundary would restrict freedom of movement for local populations and criminalize activities such as fishing. Advocacy groups warn unique Dayak heritage could be lost if residents are forced out of their customary territory and into nearby population centers.
The Dayak Pitap tribe, for example, counts around 1,700 people across a customary area of 22,800 hectares (56,300 acres) in five villages, including Anang Suriani's village of Kambiayan.
Local sources said government efforts to move quickly to establish the national park had encountered resistance owing to a lack of consultation with affected communities.
"The Meratus Indigenous people have long inhabited and managed this area of forest, so they should be fully involved in every policy discussion in the process," said Netty Herawaty, a lecturer at Lambung Mangkurat University in Banjarmasin, the South Kalimantan provincial capital.
Parks and creation
Dayak farmers in the Meratus manage the land in blocs and stages, starting with huma and raba fields where they grow rice for subsistence needs. Beyond the farmland are hunting areas, then a forest protected as a spiritual space.
States have fenced off forests for commons and conservation value ever since Yellowstone in the U.S. became the world's first national park more than 150 years ago.
Successive international accords have made formal protection of high-conservation-value forest central to biodiversity and climate change commitments, including the Aichi biodiversity targets during the previous decade, and the 30 by 30 goal, both under the Convention on Biological Diversity.
According to Global Forest Watch, South Kalimantan province lost roughly 95,000 hectares (235,000 acres) of old-growth rainforest between 2002 and 2024, leaving its remaining primary forests 13% smaller than two decades ago.
Much of the Meratus's karst terrain remains uncharted, and policymakers say the hidden caves and unique ecosystems that lie within require the highest level of protection.
In 2022, for example, researchers in the Meratus cataloged two new bird species – a jungle-flycatcher (genus Cyornis) and a white-eye (genus Zosterops) – both newly identified in the karst mountain range.
However, fieldwork by sociologists has shown human societies within or on the verge of newly established national parks can face disruption that often escalates into conflict, community breakdown or displacement.
Conservation models in southern Borneo should be drawn up based on local context instead of deferring to a framework originating in the United States, which was "clearly different from places like Kalimantan in terms of social, cultural, and ecological characteristics," said Pinan, a community leader from Juhu village in Central Hulu Sungai district.
Achmad Rafieq, chair of the Indonesian Anthropologists Association, said if the government's goal was conservation in the Meratus, then the range's Indigenous peoples had demonstrated a long track record in meeting that objective, including the rejection of mining and logging actors.
"Through local wisdom they have preserved nature from generation to generation, long before the state was familiar with the concept," Achmad said.
Rubi, head of the South Kalimantan branch of the Indigenous Peoples' Alliance of the Archipelago, known as AMAN, Indonesia's largest Indigenous advocacy group, said zoning the national park would put customary communities in the Meratus at risk, given minimal recognition of Indigenous peoples in formal legal statutes in Indonesia.
"The government should recognize Indigenous peoples' conservation practices," Rubi told Mongabay Indonesia. "They have proven their ability to protect forests and the environment – therefore protecting Indigenous peoples is crucial."
A commonly cited example of Indigenous land management in Indonesia is that of the Dayak Iban Sungai Utik people of West Kalimantan province, who in 2019 won the Equator Prize awarded by the United Nations for protecting around 9,500 hectares (23,750 acres) of old-growth forest.
Stretch target
In 2022, countries agreed under the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), an international treaty, to protect 30% of the world's land and oceans by 2030. Better known as the 30 by 30 goal, it falls under the Kunming – Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework designed to arrest biodiversity loss.
Last year, the United Nations Environment Programme published its Protected Planet Report 2024, the first scorecard on international efforts to meet this goal.
The report noted that 17.6% of terrestrial and inland waters and 8.4% of marine and coastal areas were protected by 2024 after an additional 629,000 square kilometers (243,000 square miles) of land and freshwater areas, plus 1.77 million km2 (683,000 mi2) of oceans were protected since 2020.
Hitting 30% on both counts over the next five years requires a "substantial increase," the U.N. report noted; countries would have to set aside a further 16.7 million km2 (6.4 million mi2) of land and 78.3 million km2 (30.2 million mi2) of marine areas by 2030 to meet the target.
That outstanding land target alone is four times the size of the European Union.
"It is essential that protected and conserved areas reach the 30% target by 2030," U.N. Environment Programme executive director Inger Andersen said in a statement. "But equally important that these areas are effective and that they do not negatively impact the people who live in and around them, who are often their most valuable custodians."
South Kalimantan Governor Muhidin has emphasized the extent of extractive industry potential from coal and minerals under the karst, and said a national park classification is necessary to prevent industry from winning permits to begin quarrying forests in the Meratus.
"The Meratus are rich in natural resources – coal, nickel, iron ore, limestone, and even aluminum," Muhidin said in August. "Its status is only protected forest and it could change to production forest at any time – so it needs to be designated as a national park."
While government plans for Meratus Mountains National Park involve 119,779 hectares, the wider mountain range covers more than 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres), an area that includes scores of mining concessions.
Civil society researchers say it's unclear how the government will address concessions such as the PT Pelsart Tambang Kencana gold mine, which lies in a protected forest near Damardatar village in Kotabaru district, if that site is included within the proposed national park.
"There has been no official notification from the government so we cannot provide a statement," company spokesperson Septamto L. Inkiriwang wrote in a text message to Mongabay.
The concession lies in a protected forest area but is given special exemption under a 2004 presidential fiat, which allows mining contracts agreed before a 1999 Forestry Law that banned quarrying in protected areas, said Beni Raharjo, the planning lead at the South Kalimantan provincial forestry department.
"During Megawati's administration, Pelsart was excluded," Beni said, referring to the presidency of Megawati Soekarnoputri from 2001-2004. "But there's a possibility it will still be excluded from the national park."South Kalimantan Governor Muhidin addressing the protesters and promising that the national park would not displace Indigenous people.
In the zone
Affected Indigenous Dayak communities have responded to the proposed national park in the Meratus Mountains with a series of demonstrations.
A meeting of Indigenous representatives and civil society organizations in Banjarbaru on Aug. 13 ended with an agreed text calling on local and national authorities to withdraw the national park proposal in its entirety, and instead enforce a 2023 regulation on recognizing Indigenous communities.
On the same day, student protesters at Lambung Mangkurat University in Banjarmasin unfurled banners calling for the cancellation of the national park.
"We are aware of all the problems that occur in the Meratus Mountains," said Adi, a student at the demonstration.
Two days later, on Aug. 15, crowds of students and Indigenous Dayak faced off against riot police outside the provincial parliament in Banjarmasin.
"This is so that our friends in Banjarmasin, especially students, can learn more about the reasons why the Meratus community rejects the national park, and so we can all monitor it together," said Florentino, a student who attended the demonstration.
Later, Governor Muhidin addressed the crowd flanked by military and police commanders. He pledged to resign if any forcible displacement occurred following the creation of the national park.
"As long as I'm governor, no one will be evicted," Muhidin said. "If anyone is, I'll happily resign."
The governor singled out the experience of Suku Anak Dalam Indigenous societies in Jambi province, on the island of Sumatra, following the creation in 2000 of Bukit Duabelas National Park.
"The Suku Anak Dalam are helped by the government," Muhidin told the crowd.
However, Mongabay reporting over more than a decade and fieldwork by local nonprofit KKI Warsi on the Suku Anak Dalam have shown around half of the seminomadic community remains displaced by oil palm companies controlled by plantation company London Sumatra.
Many were unable to adjust to the depth of change to their lives, and have resorted to begging following the loss of their customary territory.
Muhidin refused calls to sign up to the text agreed by Indigenous representatives on Aug. 13, which demanded that the governor withdraw his support for the national park.
The governor instead invited community leaders to a meeting at his office. He left the demonstration after community leaders declined the invitation, only to reappear later to invite Dayak representatives to meet directly with the Ministry of Forestry in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital city.
"I felt like it was just a consolation move because he was under pressure – that's why he immediately invited me to Jakarta," said Fitrus Sartono, a member of the Loksado Indigenous community in South Hulu Sungai.
"But at most, we'll only meet with ministry staff, not the minister," Fitrus added. "We might be getting played again."
A handful of regional bylaws has enabled some degree of recognition for Indigenous societies, but a 2023 provincial regulation requiring comprehensive recognition of Indigenous communities has yet to be implemented.
Some districts, including Kotabaru and South Hulu Sungai, have formally acknowledged the existence of customary societies, but not the forests in which they live.
"The number is still very small compared to the total number of Indigenous communities in South Kalimantan," said AMAN's Rubi.
At the time of writing, none of the Indigenous communities within the proposed park boundary have been formally acknowledged under law.
However, the South Kalimantan governor, through a letter issued on Aug. 15, has instructed district governments in the province to expedite this recognition, commensurate with the 2023 South Kalimantan bylaw on protection and recognition of Indigenous communities.
The instruction applies to the heads of nine districts: Balangan, Banjar, Central Hulu Sungai, North Hulu Sungai, South Hulu Sungai, Tabalong, Tanah Bumbu, Tanah Laut, and Tapin.
"The district heads are expected to immediately conduct inventory, data collection, and the process of determining the recognition of customary law communities in their respective areas,' the governor's instruction stated.
Raden Rafiq Sepdian Fadel Wibisono, director of the South Kalimantan chapter of Walhi, Indonesia's biggest environmental NGO, attributed the community's reaction to a failure by the government to initiate appropriate consultation.
"In reality, he chose not to work with Indigenous communities," Raden said. "This decision is evidence that the local government is more inclined toward top-down conservation policies than grassroots voices."
Rudy Redhani at the Cakrawala Hijau Foundation said the governor's attempts to promote dialogue now were likely intended to end the demonstration and allow public opposition to subside.
"Indigenous communities don't fundamentally oppose conservation of the Meratus," Rudy said. "However, the model they prefer is different, based on traditions such as recognizing customary forests and the Dayak Meratus katuan system, which has long been part of their environmental governance."
South Kalimantan forestry department lead Beni Raharjo said anxieties over risks facing the Meratus Indigenous communities were overblown.
"The Meratus Mountains are our stronghold for the Meratus Dayak," Beni said. "And we will accommodate that."
Governor Muhidin has promised to join the demonstrators if any forcible displacement occurs due to the change. The provincial government says it hopes for a decision on Meratus Mountains National Park from the forestry ministry in Jakarta by year-end.
"We always have hope," Anang Suriani from Kambiayin village said. "But this country has never acknowledged our existence."
[This story is an adaptation of reporting published here, here, here and here in Indonesian by Mongabay's Riyad Dafhi Rizki and Rendy Tisna in August and September this year from South Kalimantan province.]