307 Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 34 (2), pp 307-327 June 2003. Printed in the United Kingdom. DOI: S0022463403000274 © 2003 The National University of Singapore
New Beginnings in East Timorese Forest Management Andrew McWilliam
Among the array of pressing development requirements facing East Timor is the need to create a new strategic national management approach for forest resources. This article explores the historical and environmental factors that have contributed to the contemporary pattern of forest lands and discusses policy options to support the development of a sustainable forestry future.
East Timor’s remarkable emergence as a new democratic nation-state following twenty-four years of military repression under Indonesian rule brings with it a whole new set of challenges for the small and impoverished island territory. Following twoand-a-half years of governance under the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) which mainly focused on emergency relief and reconstruction, attention is now turning to longer-term needs and priorities for sustained economic development. Among the array of pressing development requirements facing the fledgling nation is the need to create a new strategic national management approach for forest resources. Historically, forestry issues and forest policy in East Timor have tended to be accorded a low priority by successive governments seeking to generate development production and revenues. This is perhaps understandable given the comparatively modest contribution that the sector has made towards regional Gross Domestic Product. Official Indonesian government figures for 1990, for example, illustrate that within the agricultural farm sector, forestry production accounted for just under 1 per cent of GDP for the province of East Timor.1 The figure is indicative of the limited extent of available commercial timber and non-timber forest products across the new nation. However, this rather narrowly defined economic measure of benefit arguably and significantly undervalues the importance of forestry and forested land in East Timor. With upwards of 80 per cent of the population heavily reliant on smallholder agriculture and the pursuit of semi-subsistence rainfed cropping regimes, land resources – particularly forested land – remain a key component of longer-term sustainability and prosperity. Hundreds of upland farming communities are deeply reliant on the forests and woodlands for their livelihood. Among other resources, forest land provides timber for building materials and firewood, as well as a whole range of non-timber forest Andrew McWilliam is a Research Fellow in Anthropology at the Australian National University (
[email protected]). This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the Second International Conference on Asian Studies, Berlin 2001. I am grateful to anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions and criticism. 1 Kantor Statistik, Timor Timur dalam angka (Dili: Propinsi Timor Timur, 1992).
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products for use in traditional medicines, textile dyes, supplementary foods and fibres for an assortment of baskets and implements. Widespread hunting of faunal species including birds, fish, feral pigs, deer and a range of marsupials contributes to rural diets and small-scale marketing opportunities.2 More generally, however, the need to retain forested watersheds in an island environment already prone to high rates of natural erosion is a vital associated value. The legacy of twenty-four years of Indonesian administration and of the long period of Portuguese colonial government before it is one of neglect and depletion of the forest reserves and woodlands. Previous regimes denied, or at least failed to encourage, a constructive role for local communities in the management and conservation of this resource. Restoring the integrity of the forests in the context of balancing national interests and local claims on forested lands is therefore the central challenge for forestry policy in East Timor. This paper explores some of the forestry options and strategies currently under development, especially the prospects for recognising and supporting local indigenous rights over land and promoting community-based collaboration in resource management and conservation. The study is preliminary, given the absence of information on forest inventory and the current state of bio-physical resources. It begins with an analysis of key environmental and historical factors that have contributed to the existing pattern of forest cover and continue to inform and constrain contemporary forestry practice across the country. At this juncture in the history of East Timor, there is an unprecedented opportunity to learn from the lessons of the past and set the policy framework for a sustainable future. Perspectives on forest ecology in East Timor
East Timor is a comparatively small but mountainous territory, extending roughly 300 km in length and 100 km at its widest point. Estimates of the extent of forest cover over East Timor are notoriously variable. One respected study using LandSat imagery established a figure of 41 per cent for the eastern half of the island, with just 29 per cent as closed forest; this figure was adopted by the Indonesian government, which recorded forest cover as 40.6 per cent.3 These totals cover a wide range of forest types, including predominantly open and mixed savanna along the drier northern coast and hinterland, extensive eucalyptus and moist upland forests in the central highlands and semideciduous monsoon and tropical lowland forest blocks along the southern coast and hinterland (see Map 1). 2 Quantitative and systematic measures of current resource utilisation and human reliance on forest products have yet to be undertaken. However, one recent survey reported that some 78 per cent of the population collected firewood from adjacent forest areas; Sanyu Consultants, The study on integrated agricultural development of East Timor: Progress report (Dili: Japan International Cooperation Agency [JICA], East Timor Transitional Administration [ETTA], UNTAET, 2001), pp. 3-35. There is also significant demand for firewood and construction timber in growing urban centres such as Dili and Baucau. 3 Kantor Statistik, Timor Timur dalam angka. The LandSat-based study is RePPProt: Review of Phase 1 results: Maluku and Nusa Tenggara, Volume 1: Main report (Jakarta: Ministry of Transmigration, Directorate General of Settlement Preparation and Land Resources Department, ODNRI and ODA, 1989). On the variability of earlier estimates, see Kathryn A. Monk et al., The ecology of Nusa Tenggara and Maluku (Hong Kong: Periplus Publications, 1997), p. 202.
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Map 1: Categories of Land Cover in East Timor
Source:
Modified version of map produced by the GIS Unit, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Dili, East Timor 2001.
A non-volcanic island, Timor is subject to geological forces of sedimentary uplift and folding which have produced a complex geomorphology and topography composed of highly calcarious soils overlaying marine sediments and scaly cracking clays. The landscape features numerous steeply incised valleys with dynamic flood-prone rivers cutting through highly erodible soils and carrying heavy sediment loads to the sea. Climate and seasonal variation also have a strong environmental impact across the island. East Timor, like the neighbouring islands of eastern Indonesia, experiences the effects of a double monsoon. Moist winds carried by the northwest monsoon bring a short, intense wet season during December to March, while from May to October dry winds from the southeast, blowing out of the Australian continent, result in extended periods of drought. These drying effects, however, are not felt uniformly across the territory. The mountainous interior and areas on the southern plains experience extended periods of rainfall while the northern littoral zone and hinterland face long stretches of seasonal drought. The topography of Timor and the influence of micro-climatic factors contribute to high local variability in the pattern of rainfall and annual precipitation rates, as well as the intensity and timing of the onset of rains. The natural vegetation map of East Timor reflects this complex diversity of environmental factors in equal measure. If the environmental factors have created complex natural patterns of forest cover and species distribution in East Timor, human intervention has had the most significant impact. This impact has been increasingly felt since the twentieth century as rising rural population densities and associated swidden cultivation regimes have led to the widespread and systematic conversion of forest areas. The diminished state of forest reserves in East Timor is reflected in the following table based on comparative satellite imaging between 1972 and 1999. The figures highlight a reduction of around 30 per cent in forest cover over the period.
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TABLE 1 Comparative forest cover 1972-99 Forest type
Area (ha) (1972)
Percentage
Area (ha) (1999)
Percentage
Dense forest
321,542
25
207,654
16
Sparse forest
324,558
26
246,196
19
No forest
624,546
49
816,796
65
Total area
1,270,646
100
1,270,646
100
Source: O. T. Sandlund et al., ‘Assessing environmental needs and priorities in East Timor: Final report’ (Dili and Trondheim: UNDP and Norwegian Institute for Nature Research, 2001)
The factors that have contributed to this increased clearing are not well documented, but the primary candidates are likely to include smallholder expansion of cropping land, logging and timber extraction, forest conversion for road and new settlement development based around Indonesian government transmigration projects and local population relocation associated with internal security arrangements. Population and settlement patterns
Population levels for Timor prior to the twentieth century are difficult to determine with any accuracy. Historically, the population is likely to have been comparatively small and stable. Population growth was constrained for centuries in no small degree by the combined effects of low-production agriculture, endemic warfare, diseases (such as smallpox and gonorrhoea) and slave trading, which continued well into the nineteenth century.4 A. de Castro, a Portuguese Governor of East Timor in the mid-1800s, estimated the population for the whole island at around 300,000.5 Demographic pressure on land and especially forest resources was therefore likely to have been sustainably low. The twentieth century, however, witnessed a major change in population and a correspondingly dramatic increase in population densities, particularly in the western districts of East Timor. Recent estimates in 2000, based on the UNTAET voter registration process, arrived at a figure of 737,811, highlighting the significant increase in population density over the last hundred years. A projected population of some 850,000 people by 2010 would not be unexpected if growth rates are maintained at the historical average of between 1.5–1.8 per cent.6 Given that the great majority of the population resides in the rural hinterland and 4 F. J. Ormeling, The Timor problem: A geographical interpretation of an underdeveloped island (Groningen, Jakarta: J. B. Wolters, 1956), p. 180. 5 A. de Castro, ‘Résumé historique de l’établissement portugais à Timor, des us et coûtumes de ses habitants’, Tijdschrift voor Indische Taalkunde, 11 (1862): 460. Writing in 1831, another source independently arrived at a figure of 347,000; E. A. Francis, ‘Timor in 1831’, Tijdschrift voor Nederlands Indië, 1, 1 (1838): 353-69, 374-400; 1, 2 (1838): 25-53. On the basis of these and other sources, Glover has argued that the average population of East Timor during the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries may therefore have been in the order of 11-12 people per km2 or approximately 220,000; Ian Glover, Archaeology in Eastern Timor, 1966-67 (Canberra: Australian National University Department of Prehistory, 1986), p. 202. 6 Alan Gray et al., ‘Population growth’, in People, land and sea: Development challenges in eastern Indonesia, ed. Gavin Jones and Yulfita Rahardjo (Canberra: Australian National University, 1995), p. 51.
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mountains and continues to pursue varieties of low-input extensive swidden cultivation, it is clear that the demand for forest products and forest land will inevitably continue to put pressure on available reserves. Some insight into the impact of human intervention on the landscape can be seen in Joachim Metzner’s study of the Baucau/Viqueque region. He notes that ‘a very high proportion – probably as much as 90 per cent – of the vegetation of the area has been modified by man. As a consequence of repeated cutting, burning, cultivation and grazing it is hard to recognise the distribution of natural vegetation today.’7 With limited exceptions this description can be extended to the whole of East Timor. Much of the existing natural forested land tends to be limited to remnant ‘lulic’ (sacred) forest blocks and pockets of forest around springs, in isolated areas of low population and along ridgelines and steep gullies where agriculture and fires have not reached.8 Anthropogenic factors, in short, are important in the contemporary mosaic of forest cover across the country and are likely to represent the key challenge to management. Historically, settlement patterns among the rural populations have tended towards a high degree of dispersal. Environmental factors have played a significant role in this development as Timorese communities have adapted to conditions of climatic uncertainty and low soil fertility. Swidden cultivation involving sustained clearing and burning of wooded hillsides has constituted the principal technique of agriculture. In addition, the persistence of inter-domain feuding and warfare across the interior of the island until well into the twentieth century encouraged widespread settlement of small populations in strategic defensive locations on barricaded hilltops. Contemporary patterns of settlement also reflect the attempts of Portuguese and successive Indonesian administrations to encourage rural populations – whether by inducement or coercion – to form more concentrated settlements on lower slopes and along access roads. Resettlement of isolated communities, a national policy under the Suharto government, was strongly promoted in East Timor, where internal security issues dominated government programming. These policies probably had reduced impact on the more remote forest regions, but tended to increase pressure on local resources where concentrated settlement was encouraged. Portuguese rule and colonial management
For at least the last 500 years, the history of East Timor has evolved in the context of shifting colonial trading interests and the negotiation of self-interested economic arrangements between local indigenous political domains and strategically placed colonial traders with imperial ambitions, especially the Portuguese. At least until the early twentieth century, to the extent that the Portuguese colonial government took any interest in forestry within the territory over the centuries of its rule, this interest was manifested through its enduring involvement in the lucrative and extractive trade in high-quality white sandalwood (Santalum album) for which the island was justly renowned. 7 Joachim Metzner, Man and environment in Eastern Timor: A geo-ecological analysis of the BaucauViqueque area as a possible basis for regional planning (Canberra: Australian National University, 1977), p. 52. 8 Andrew McWilliam, ‘Prospects for the sacred grove: Valuing lulic forests on Timor’, in ‘Re-sourcing communities: Natural resource management and the role of community’, ed. Andrew Walker, special issue of The Australian Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 2, 2 (2001): 89-113.
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From the boom times of the early 1600s until well into the eighteenth century, the Portuguese Crown was embroiled in hegemonic struggles against a complex array of trading interests for control of this trade. Competition came from the Dutch, who maintained a precarious foothold in West Timor throughout the period; Chinese and Makassarese (Sulawesi) traders who had long been active in the region; and a renegade community of part-Portuguese freelance traders known as the Topasses or ‘black Portuguese’. The latter maintained what Geoffrey Gunn has described as a ‘testy loyalty’ to the Crown, often amounting to economic independence.9 Dili, the capital of East Timor, was established in 1769 but until well into the nineteenth century the administration maintained only a thin veneer of control over an often rebellious interior. The continuing threat of revolt and the ‘theft’ of revenue by adventurers and freebooters working the long unguarded coast severely constrained attempts to establish anything resembling a colonial economy and administration.10 The great bounty that was sandalwood, however, was gradually depleted. F. J. Ormeling, referring to western Timor where the effects were similar, noted that ‘the reserves were exploited as though inexhaustible. Sandalwood was cut in the plains, on the hills and extended into the mountains. Old trees, rich in heartwood, and younger specimens alike were felled.’11 Subsequently, as Gunn has observed, ‘[s]andal which had over the centuries served as a milch cow for Timorese and foreign traders alike, eventually went into steady decline, not so much because of vulnerability to foreign competition or world market conditions … but because of overcutting’.12 Sandalwood continued to figure in revenues from the Portuguese colony and was sold in declining quantities into contemporary times. However, the reputed great forests of sandalwood disappeared long ago, and with them a major source of revenue for both the colonial government and local Timorese communities alike. Sandalwood never accounted for more than 10 per cent of the colony’s exports after 1920 and in 1926, the colonial forestry service officially prohibited the cutting of the tree.13 Limited exploitation after the Second World War was strictly controlled under the state monopoly on marketing. By the late nineteenth century and especially following the Portuguese ‘pacification’ campaigns against a rebellious Timor hinterland through 1912, the colonial government turned its attention increasingly to plantation agriculture as a source of revenue. Coffee, which had been successfully introduced into Timor by the Chinese and later expanded under the Portuguese, became a very significant export commodity. Grown extensively under a canopy of tall Albizia Molucana and Casuarina Junghuhniana shade trees, it was well adapted to highland areas of East Timor. Districts such as Ermera, Ainaro and highland Liquica were converted to shade trees and coffee production on a large scale. After 1912, forest conversion to coffee production was also significantly promoted 9 Geoffrey C. Gunn, Timor Loro Sae: 500 years (Macau: Livros do Oriente, 1999), pp. 94 (quotation), 118; see also Charles R. Boxer, The Topasses of Timor (Amsterdam: Koninklijke Vereeniging Indisch Instituut, 1947). 10 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae, p. 86. 11 Ormeling, Timor problem, p. 171. 12 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae, p. 86. 13 Ibid., p. 198; Andrew McWilliam, Haumeni, not many: Renewed plunder and mismanagement in the Timorese sandalwood industry (Canberra: Australian National University Resource Management in the Asia Pacific Working Paper, 2001).
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following legislation requiring all smallholder families to plant 600 coffee bushes. This encouraged further coffee expansion into areas such as Bobonaro and Covalima in the west, as well as southern Manatuto and Viqueque.14 In due course a network of large plantation estates was established and attempts made to monopolise control over the industry, but the bulk of coffee production continued to be generated by peasant farmers utilising a low-quality, low-production system of extensive cropping. Coffee – and to a lesser extent copra – accounted for over 80 per cent of exports from East Timor into the final decades of Portuguese rule.15 Benefits to local producers, though, tended to be low and highly fluctuating, reflecting the variability in international coffee prices and the semi-subsistence nature of their agriculture. Although coffee was a significant export for the colony, annual production levels only averaged around 1,000 tonnes over the period 1860-1953.16 Under successive Portuguese administrations the sustainable management and development of forest resources were always accorded a low priority in the face of more pressing immediate financial and political objectives. Forestry management for the most part was limited to controlling the much-reduced extraction of remaining sandalwood stocks, promoting limited areas of timber plantations in the southern hinterland of the island and pursuing a series of wholly futile policies to curb and prohibit cultural burning by Timorese farmers.17 In the absence of direct interference or assistance by the administration in the swidden cultivation practices of these farmers other than to extract taxes and obligatory labour services, little was done to limit or reverse the continuing conversion of forest areas. In a telling comment about the state of forest cover in the central highlands of Timor, one report noted that ‘[s]hifting cultivation … does relatively less harm in Timor than in other East Indian islands as practically no deforestation has to be carried out’.18 In 1950 the Portuguese administrator Ruy Cinatti, in a public address, identified the urgent necessity to ‘organise the Colonial Forestry Service with sufficient autonomy to carry out … the great work of renovation and conservation of the forests [of East Timor]. Only thus could both the home and export necessities be provided for and conditions for an efficient colonisation be obtained.’19 However, his pleas appear to have fallen on deaf ears. No significant improvement in the regeneration or protection of forestry resources and land management practices was achieved. Nearly thirty years later, Metzner blamed the shortage of agricultural extension officers in the latter years of Portuguese rule for ‘greatly impeding’ the improvement of agricultural methods for cash cropping and subsistence agriculture alike.20 14 Monk et al., Ecology of Nusa Tenggara and Maluku, p. 744; see the map in Helio A. Esteves Felgas, Timor Português (Lisbon: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1956). 15 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae, p. 249. Aditjondro mentions 9,000 ha of coffee plantations controlled by the state-owned SAPT company, mostly in the Ermera District; George Aditjondro, In the shadow of Mount Ramelau: The impact of the occupation of East Timor (The Hague: Gegevens Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 1994), p. 25. 16 Felgas, Timor Português, p. 460; coffee exports accounted for as much as 91 per cent of the colony’s exports in 1968 (Gunn, Timor Loro Sae, p. 249). 17 Metzner, Man and environment, p. 254. 18 Allied Mining Corporation, ‘Exploration of Portuguese Timor’ (unpublished report, 1937), pp. 63-4. 19 Ruy Cinatti (vaz Monteiro Gomes), ‘Esboço histórico do sândalo no Timor Português’, paper presented at the Coloquio Realizado na Junta de Investigações Colonais, 10 February 1950. 20 Metzner, Man and environment, p. 281.
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Indonesian forestry policies
The ‘integration’ of East Timor as the twenty-seventh province of Indonesia in 1976 resulted in the transplantation of most nationally-based government programmes; these were staffed primarily by non-Timorese, especially in the higher echelons of management. The policies of successive administrations were directed towards increasing economic activity and development across the territory but rarely in a way that contributed to increased prosperity for local people or opportunities for selfdetermination. The basis for Indonesian forestry planning was formalised in 1982 under the so-called ‘Consensus on Forest Land Use’ (Tata guna hutan kesepakatan, TGHK) which divided state forestry land into five functional classes: conservation, protection, restricted production, unrestricted production and conversion. In the 1990s these maps were revised to reflect improved mapping and changed conditions on the ground under the regional spatial planning programmes (Rencana struktur tata ruang), throughout Indonesia including East Timor. In practice, however the boundaries remained much the same. One of the curious aspects of forestry planning in Indonesia is that categories of protection, production and conversion forests are defined according to three principal criteria – slope, soil erodibility and rainfall intensity – and only notionally by any direct measure of extant forest cover. Thus, all lands which are 45 per cent or more in slope are automatically classed as protected forest (hutan lindung). This also applies to highly erodible lands with slopes above 15 per cent. Given the highly mountainous and steeply incised nature of topography in East Timor, with large areas of unstable soils, substantial areas of the territory were automatically incorporated into the forest reserve under the management jurisdiction of the Ministry of Forestry. Table 2 illustrates the extent of forest categories designated under the Indonesian system of classification. It also highlights the important recommended modifications based on the more accurate 1989 RePPProt (Regional Physical Planning Programme for Transmigration) national studies but which, however, were never fully incorporated into TGHK mapping. TABLE 2 Forest classification for East Timor
Conservation
Protection
(Cagar alam)
(Lindung)
Restricted Production
‘Normal’ Production
Conversion (Konversi)
(Produksi terbatas) (Produksi tetap) (a)
389
3,900
1,738
391
87
(b)
1,354
10,344
0
0
3,177
(a) = Recommended modifications based on revised assessments under RePPProt (b) (in km2) Source: Monk, Ecology of Nusa Tenggara and Maluku, p. 604
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Under the revised RePPProt study, fully 11,698 km2 are recommended as protection forest areas subject to conservationist policies. This represents some 83 per cent of the land mass and highlights both the lack of opportunities for production forestry and the critical nature of East Timor’s natural environment. The fact is that a significant majority of the Timorese population pursues dryland agriculture in areas where this form of land use is not recommended for cultivation. It is for this reason that an area of up to 3,177 km2 (22.5 per cent) was recommended for classification as conversion forest. In other words, this land had already been converted to other agricultural usage but remained officially forestry land and therefore legally the property of the state. In the process, many upland Timorese farming communities officially lost their rights to ancestral common property within the forest reserve (kawasan hutan), and remained vulnerable to ‘relocation and resettlement’ in the interests of ‘development’. The resulting ambiguity over ownership was unconducive to the constructive development of forestry management.21 In terms of development strategies in East Timor, the Indonesian government tended to direct agricultural sector investment towards irrigated rice production and tree crop commodity promotion, including hybrid coconuts, cashews, vanilla and cacao.22 Forestry and related watershed management activities, especially upland farming, tended to attract lower levels of funding and interest. However, as elsewhere in Indonesia, reforestation and ‘regreening’ activities represented a mainstream programme managed through the Department of Forestry. Like many of these programmes throughout eastern Indonesia during the latter years of the New Order government, the exercises were generally abject failures in terms of producing timbered hillsides. Poor planning and implementation, combined with chronic corruption, little public consultation and subsequent vandalism of perceived government projects, as well as a general institutional disinterest in project achievements, contributed to the ineffectiveness of these programmes.23 The nearly 30 per cent decline in forest cover during the period of Indonesian administration of lands in East Timor, is a stark commentary on the effectiveness of forest ‘management’ during this period. Forestry and insurgency
If forestry policy in East Timor under the Indonesian government broadly mirrored initiatives and practices undertaken nationally and particularly in the neighbouring province of Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT), it did so under special circumstances. Throughout the twenty-four years of Indonesian administration, the forest reserves and mountains of the territory provided cover and sanctuary for the clandestine armed resistance to the administration from Fretilin (Frente Revolutionaria de Timor-Leste Independente) and FALINTIL (Forças Armadas da Libertação Nacional de Timor Leste). The active number of insurgent soldiers was never high over this period, particularly 21 By way of comparison, see Philip Hirsch, ‘Forest, forest reserve and forest land in Thailand’, The Geographical Journal, 156 (1990): 166-74. 22 Regional Investment Coordinating Board of East Timor, East Timor: Potentials profile in 1993 (Dili: 1993), p. 47. 23 The obsessive attention to measuring and accounting for investment inputs rather than substantive outputs was characteristic of Indonesian government development programming and meant that there was little or no accountability for failed or poorly implemented projects.
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following the successful and brutal campaigns undertaken by the Indonesian military during 1977-81. However, the permanent presence of the insurgents and the significantly higher number of Indonesian soldiers who regularly patrolled the hinterland – as many as 21,625 active troops in the territory by late 1998, according to one estimate – had quite a deleterious impact on the forest resources.24 Apart from continuing security issues that constrained forestry work by government staff in isolated areas, many of the tactics of military counterinsurgency were directly contrary to forest conservation. This included regular burning of forest areas to flush out the opposition and to reduce protective cover and concomitant opportunities for ambush. The military also pursued periods of aerial bombing of regions loyal to independence supporters, especially in the Matebian ranges of Baucau District during 1978, and later under subsequent military campaigns to quell Fretilin resistance during 1983-4. This forced local populations to flee for protection into the hills and forested areas where they struggled to survive and drew heavily on existing forest resources. Chemical warfare through the use of crop spraying and bombing was also reportedly employed, inflicting direct and systemic damage to forested lands.25 In this extended context of cat-and-mouse insurgency, forested areas and the rugged mountain hinterland became the active battleground between the Indonesian army (Tentara Nasional Indonesia – TNI) and the East Timorese military opposition. For much of the period of Indonesian administration, this meant that forestry policy always took second importance to security issues and consequently the management (or lack thereof) of much of the forest reserve was abandoned to army control. During the latter years of Indonesian government, the Department of Forestry actively collaborated with the army to extract much of the remaining commercial stands of valuable sandalwood. The limited sandalwood-rich areas of Covalima and Bobonaro in western East Timor were especially targeted for extraction, leaving the areas depleted of mature stocks. Few of the economic benefits of this plunder accrued to local communities who had nurtured the trees. George Aditjondro has noted in this regard that during Indonesian times, army interests controlled the bulk of benefits gained from the East Timor economy through their PT Batara Indra Group holding company. Their substantial interests extended to monopolies over coffee exports, sandalwood oil production and export, and marble mining.26 UNTAET and an emergent forestry management framework
With the establishment of the interim UNTAET administration in East Timor in 1999 following the truculent withdrawal of the Indonesian government, early operations were concerned with establishing a legal basis for facilitating the provision of emergency assistance and rehabilitation to traumatised Timorese communities. Two initial measures were adopted to establish an interim basis for strategic directions in natural environmental management. The first of these initiatives (Regulation 17/2000) decreed 24 John G. Taylor, Indonesia’s forgotten war: The hidden histories of East Timor (London and Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Zed Books, 1991). The 1998 figure is from Harold Crouch, ‘The TNI and East Timor policy’, in Out of the ashes: Destruction and reconstruction of East Timor, ed. James J. Fox and Dionisio Babo Soares (Adelaide: Crawford House, 2000), p. 161. 25 Taylor, Indonesia’s forgotten war, pp. 85-88, 150-2. 26 Aditjondro, In the shadow, p. 58; McWilliam, Haumeni, not many gives an overview of these activities.
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a ban on commercial logging of extant timber stocks and larger-scale commercial exploitation of other resources such as fisheries and non-timber forest products, especially sandalwood. The second initiative (Regulation 19/2000) related to the question of land tenure within East Timor. The whole issue of land titles and the legal alienation of land is a particularly complex one across the territory. The existence of both Indonesian and older, pre-1975 Portuguese titles along with the persistence of uncodified traditional indigenous claims on land make any determination of land ownership an especially challenging and politically sensitive issue. UNTAET took the position that unless specifically modified through special regulations or temporary leases (so-called Temporary Use Agreements), Indonesian land law would generally stand. That is to say, pre-existing Indonesian-based tenurial regulations would form the operating template for managing land ownership questions in the first instance. This approach has also been adopted in relation to the demarcation of the East Timor forestry estate. Over time it is likely that a series of modifications and revisions to this approach will emerge as a better understanding and inventory of the natural and biodiversity resources within the country are achieved. However, as of this writing the new East Timor government has yet to issue legal regulations governing the administration of lands in the country.27 Regulation 19/2000 sought to establish a regulatory framework for the protection of designated areas of natural significance within East Timor; it established fifteen areas of land as protected wild places within the country. These sites are based on areas which were formerly proposed for protection under Indonesian law but, with few exceptions, were never formally established. Of the fifteen designated sites, nine are located in major mountains along the central highlands of the territory. Typically the designation refers to the mountain itself, the surrounding elevations above 2,000m and the adjacent forest. In many cases, however, the high mountains are devoid of forest, being more typically vegetated with grasses and various heath species. Other areas designated for protection comprise bio-diversity rich lowland forest such as the reserves of Clere River (Manufahi District), Tutuala/Lore (Lautem District) in the eastern extremity of the island and Tilomar in Covalima District. Supporting the regulatory protection measures are a series of proscriptions against destructive activities. A differential scale of penalties for committing offences against the regulations is also defined, allowing for penalties of up to US$500,000 against business entities found to have committed offences against the regulations. These fines, in practice, have proved impractical and unenforceable. It is, of course, one thing to legally define natural areas for protection, demarcate zones of conservation however imperfectly on maps of the country,28 and set penalties for offences. It is entirely another matter to police and manage the defined areas with a system of sustainable conservation. There is as yet no system of forest guards or any fieldbased government organisation to develop appropriate management systems. In this respect the regulation provides a working framework but can give no assurance at this stage about the effectiveness or acceptance of the regulation and the policy direction that underlies it among the local East Timorese population. Given that current prospects for 27 See Daniel Fitzpatrick, Land claims in East Timor (Canberra: Asia Pacific Press, 2002). 28 Officially surveyed boundaries of these regions and sites have yet to be finalised.
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funding an effective national forestry service are poor, there being significant competing demands on limited funds in the foreseeable future, there is clearly a need to integrate East Timorese communities into the management of forest reserves and remaining resources. Regulation 19 does make allowances for a variety of extractive activities within the zones of protection where they are conducted in accordance with local law and tradition of local communities living in or adjacent to these areas. There are six categories of activity detailed: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v)
harvesting of non-forest products selective grazing of animals use of non-endangered animals and plants for religious and cultural ceremonies traditional hunting of non-endangered species traditional cutting of trees at elevations below 2000m provided the extraction is conducted in a sustainable manner and without the use of machinery (vi) any traditional purpose consistent with the intent of the regulation.
Precisely what these conditional activities mean in practice is by no means clear. The term ‘traditional’ is not explicitly defined, for example, and there is evidently considerable leeway and uncertainty over the matter of defining customary access and permitted extraction rates. Nevertheless, the existence of the provision is tacit recognition of both the importance of indigenous rights and claims to land within these areas and the potential – indeed, the necessity – for involving local communities in forest land management, although this is not explicitly articulated within the regulation. The recognition of community participation in managing or co-managing local resources has found significant support both within the UNTAET administration and subsequently within the East Timor national government and local organisations as well. In part, this is based on a reaction to the Indonesian experience whereby the state sought to exclude communities from designated resource reserves, and benefits to the communities from the exploitation of local traditional resources were minimal or not evident. It also reflects international (predominantly Western) environmental agendas regarding the importance of sustainability and the protection of watersheds and biodiversity. Whether these values will be accorded the same priority in practice by the new government remains to be seen. At this stage there are good indications that the conservationist policy directions implied in Regulation 19/2000 do have a high degree of indigenous political support, but mainly among the elite. In fact, there can hardly be any other conclusion given that the new Timorese administration faces serious budgetary constraints in the provision of field-based services. Under the planned streamlined approach to formal governance in East Timor, for example, budget realities have dramatically reduced the number of civil servants and technical staff appointed to government agencies. The present Forestry Directorate within the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry has a core staffing of just 21, compared to the 153 it employed under Indonesian rule. Under this scenario, the number of forestry staff in each of the thirteen existing districts of East Timor amounts to no more than one individual – hardly the basis for an effective and sustained field extension programme of any substance.
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Similarly, in the proposed international funding for development in East Timor during 2000-2, US$24.4m of the total US$307.2m is planned for allocation to agricultural development. This represents just 7.9 per cent of the allocated funds, and only a small proportion is likely to be earmarked for forestry management. As James Fox has noted in relation to agricultural development planning, ‘to devote so little to its development (with no capital expenditure in 2000-2001) is a policy that will have serious implications for the future’.29 The fact that just US$113,000 has been allocated for development activities within the forestry sector for the period 2002-3 highlights the very significant difficulties involved in providing effective support services in this area.30 It suggests that in the foreseeable future any development of the forestry sector will depend upon continuing and substantial foreign assistance and innovative cost-effective approaches. Balancing farming and forestry objectives
Any future national forestry policy in East Timor will only succeed with the full cooperation and involvement of the majority of rural communities who derive their subsistence and domestic needs from local resources. This is the lesson to be drawn from the failed policies of the Indonesian government and the Portuguese before them. By and large, UNTAET’s interim measures also neglected effective community consultation on this issue in favour of establishing transitional regulatory frameworks. The central problem facing planners and rural populations alike is how to promote development strategies and conservationist forestry policies that preserve and expand available forest resources while at the same time providing for the continuing needs of local communities. Local demand for firewood, building materials, expanded agricultural and grazing land and the multiple non-timber resources that impoverished local communities derive from their forests is likely to increase.31 Attempts to prohibit or restrict local access and exploitation of the forest reserve are also likely to be counterproductive, and the prospects of meeting timber demand through imports prohibitively expensive. In this politically charged context, the practical available options for government and communities alike for developing sustainable forestry resources would appear to be limited to three principal strategies for optimising forest resource development. The discussion here does not include the potential opportunities for developing forest carbon sequestration and possible carbon credit trading, which could offer lucrative external funding for supporting afforestation and reforestation and directly relieve pressures on existing timber resources through compensatory mechanisms. This possibility arises with the development of the so-called, Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under the Kyoto Protocol (2001), whereby industrialised countries may be able to meet part of their carbon emission reduction by supporting specified forestry activities in developing 29 James J. Fox, ‘East Timor: The task of creating a new nation’, in The maritime dimensions of an independent East Timor, ed. Donald R. Rothwell and Martin Tsamenyi (Wollongong: University of Wollongong Centre for Maritime Policy, 2000), p. 47. Figures are taken from João Mariana Saldanha, ‘Fiscal issues for a small, war-torn Timor Loro Sae’, in the same volume, p. 274. 30 Forestry Directorate, personal communication, 2002. 31 The recent JICA study highlighted the significant shortfall between local demand and available sustainable production for forest products; Sanyu Consultants, Study on integrated agricultural development, pp. 3-35.
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countries.32 However, if and when these mechanisms can be formally developed, they will still require a commitment by East Timorese government and society to the following policy areas: (a) the promotion of more sustainable agriculture through agro-forestry and the integration of timber resources within the Timorese seasonal dryland farming systems; (b) the creation of co-management systems between the national government and local custodial communities for the control and management of designated forest blocks and protected areas; (c) the promotion of forest plantation systems which combine technical and commercial cooperative arrangements between government or private commercial agencies and local farmers. For each of these strategic initiatives to be successful, there needs to be a systematic development of support services and applied research programmes on a variety of fronts. Watershed management planning, field trials of appropriate species, forest nursery development, regulatory and marketing support frameworks, surveys and demarcation of forest boundaries, as well as management training, resource inventory mapping and the availability of rural credit – all of these form components of an integrated and constructive approach to sustainable forest management. Having said this, none of these technical activities look like being implemented effectively anytime soon; nevertheless, they represent important longer-term objectives for sustainable forest management. Even more important, however, is a pressing need to identify and recognise the extent and character of existing indigenous local rights and claims to land. Without a clear and nuanced understanding and recognition of local perspectives, particular histories and inherited claims to land in forested areas, any measure to revitalise and develop the forestry sector is unlikely to be successful. Moreover, in the absence of security of land tenure, prospects for promoting longer-term agro-silviculture among highland Timorese farmers are likely to be poor. Indigenous land tenure systems are not well understood or recognised beyond the general understanding that they operate through informal, memory-based systems of inheritance and boundary maintenance. Previous administrations have tended to avoid cadastral identification and codification of customary land (ignoring or denying it’s existence for reasons of cost as much as political strategy), relying instead on simplified land tax collection and land appropriation for public purposes, usually without compensation.33 Attempts to reinstate this approach in the contemporary context – and to ignore or subsume indigenous knowledge and customary claims to forested or critical lands – may well alienate the very constituency that the government needs to involve if it is to promote participatory management. Official recognition and protection of customary rights in land therefore represent 32 Joyotee Smith and Sara J. Scherr, Forest carbon and local livelihoods: Assessment of opportunities and policy recommendations (Bogor: Centre for International Forestry Research [CIFOR] Occasional Paper No. 37, 2002), pp. 2-4; for prospective direction see also Mark Poffenberger et al., Communities and climate change: The clean development mechanism and village based forest reforestation in central India: A case study from Harda forest division, Madhya Pradesh, India (Santa Barbara, CA: Community Forestry Inc. and the Indian Institute of Forest Management, 2001). 33 See Fitzpatrick, Land claims in East Timor.
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a vital component in forestry development and management, but one which requires a significant investment of time and limited funds by government in what are inherently dynamic and often contested tenurial systems.34 At this stage, a legal framework for land administration policy has yet to be promulgated. However, in the interests of afforestation and reforestation, there is a clear and pressing need to extend forms of legal certainty to smallholder farmers, giving them the confidence and incentive to start cultivating trees. Forest land management options Agro-forestry
The whole question of agro-forestry and its related concepts of multipurpose tree species (MPTS) and their incorporation into traditional slash-and-burn farming systems has been the subject of much research, debate and support. To varying extents, the approach has developed out of concerns over unsustainable cultivation practices and land degradation with population increases. Much work has also been undertaken on identifying and trialling appropriate exotic and native tree species which are both economically useful and support – or at least do not inhibit – production of staple and commercial crop yields. The experience to date, particularly across Southeast Asia, has highlighted the importance of strong linkages between local farmers and programme organisations in terms of appropriate technologies, species selection and propagation, as well as training and the creation of supportive land-tenure and land-use policy environments.35 In East Timor the impact of agro-forestry programmes and extension services has historically been weak, especially in relation to upland farming communities. Indonesian agricultural priorities, like those of the Portuguese who preceded them, were heavily oriented towards plantation agriculture and irrigated rice cultivation. Irrigation of highyielding rice varieties and the introduction of transmigrants – particularly from Bali – to facilitate the transfer of rice-growing technology were promoted on both the north and south coasts of East Timor from 1977 onward.36 Upland farming, in contrast, tended to be viewed in terms of a marginal, intractable region and was accorded a lower priority, largely because of the Indonesian state’s general ideological disinclination to support what is typically regarded as an ‘irrational, destructive and uncontrollable’ form of agriculture. James Scott’s characterisation of the ‘illegible and potentially seditious spaces’ of rotational bush fallow systems speaks to the Indonesian government’s unfavourable institutional view of the ‘disorderly’ nature of extensive upland farming 34 Protracted land disputes in a number of areas (e.g., Viqueque and Ainaro) represent one of the lasting legacies of the Indonesian government, which relocated numerous upland populations into more secure lowland locations, usually in the absence of any genuine agreement among customary landholders. 35 ‘Working group reports’, in Domestication of agroforestry trees in Southeast Asia: Proceedings of a regional workshop in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, November 4-7 1997, ed. James Roshetko and Dale O. Evans (Taibei: Taiwan Forestry Research Institute and Council of Agriculture; Morrilton, AR: Winrock International; and Nairobi: ICRAF, 1999), p. 229; Smith and Scherr, Forest carbon and local livelihoods, pp. 8-9. For general discussions see, for example, P. J. Wood and J. Burley, A tree for all reasons: The introduction and evaluation of multipurpose trees for agroforestry (Nairobi: ICRAF, 1991); Transforming the Indonesian uplands: Marginality, power and production, ed. Tania Murray Li (Amsterdam & Singapore: Harwood Academic Publications, 1999); and Agroforestry in sustainable agriculture systems, ed. Louise E. Buck et al. (New York: CRC Press/ Lewis Publishers, 1999). 36 Fox, ‘East Timor: The task of creating a new nation’, p. 24, and Taylor, Indonesia’s forgotten war.
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systems, especially in East Timor.37 The dryland agricultural extension that was promulgated during this period suffered from a lack of appropriate and proven technologies to assist farming communities and from the use of inexperienced extension staff with minimal training. In terms of forestry policy, state departments tended to exclude local farmers and focus on larger-scale industrial plantations and state-controlled timber. Where forestry-based programmes were directed to local communities, they mostly failed due to a combination of endemic corrupt practices and the promotion of inappropriate or unhelpful tree species. Little attention was paid to integrating indigenous practical knowledge of agro-silvicultural experience and promoting native species.38 Consequently, contemporary Timorese farmers rarely incorporate tree planting within their rotational fallow systems of food crop gardens. Prospects of assistance to local small-holder farmers are unlikely to improve in the near future unless substantial funding is directed to the development of dry-land farming systems. No commitment to improve dry-land farming systems was evident in UNTAET planning and funding, and the present national government appointment of just one dedicated position in the Ministry of the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to cover agro-forestry issues is not encouraging. Whatever initiatives emerge within this sector will need to promote farming practices that integrate silviculture and agroforestry techniques over wide areas of the country. The diverse conditions of East Timor indicate the need for a variety of solutions. Prospective areas can be found as close as the mountain hinterland of the capital city Dili, where dryland farming has encroached into the upper watershed. (Dili derives as much as 20 per cent of its urban water supply from the Comorro catchment, which is subject to upland agricultural incursion and forest depletion.) In addition, there are extensive areas of Ailieu, Ainaro and Bobonaro Districts where widespread deforestation and land degradation from increased population pressure have occurred on arable lands in the highlands. Upland sections of Baucau District in the drier eastern hills and mountains have also long been subject to unsustainable land clearing and cropping practices.39 A key element in the management and development of forestry and agro-forestry is the requirement for an integrated or multi-use landscape approach that addresses both the diverse and often short-term agro-ecological needs of farming communities and the broader relationship between silviculture and alternate competing agro-economic practices. In particular, there is a need to address the issue of widespread extensive cattle and buffalo grazing systems which have contributed to environmental degradation and, indirectly, to the loss of forest cover. Attempts to promote afforestation, reforestation and agro-forestry may be undermined without complementary initiatives to improve 37 James C. Scott, Seeing like a state: How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), p. 288; see also the articles in Li, ed., Transforming the Indonesian uplands and Michael R. Dove, ‘The ideology of agricultural development in Indonesia’,. in Central government and local development in Indonesia, ed. Colin MacAndrews (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 221-47. 38 Although useful research was undertaken it was rarely adopted in extension services; see, for example, A. P. Y. Djogo, ‘Domestication of indigenous and naturalized species for reforestation and agroforestry: issues and experiences in Nusa Tenggara Timur, Indonesia’, in Roshetko and Evans, ed., Domestication of agroforestry trees, pp. 117-28. 39 Metzner, Man and environment.
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rangeland management, animal husbandry and cultural burning regimes. Combinations of timber, fodder and marketable fruit trees such as coffee, candelnut, cocoa and cashew nut represent prospective agro-forestry species. Sandalwood as a long-term component of farm forestry is another potential complementary commodity.40 Comanagement and conservation
It is worth reiterating that forest resources – and indeed all natural resources – are embedded in a shared social space of complex and unequal social relations.41 In East Timor, although this has evidently been the case, the policies and programmes implemented under the Indonesian administration did little to support social justice in terms of resource ownership and participatory development. Indeed, it often happened that communities living in close proximity to forest resources were especially targeted for military attention, resettlement and rejection of any traditional claims on these resources. In addressing these issues I have argued elsewhere that local management systems which promote conservation of forest resources need to be supported. The continuing existence of so-called lulic (sacred) forests are a case in point.42 The concept of lulic is a Tetum-language expression associated with traditional religious practice and beliefs which, while greatly transformed over the last 100 years, remains an important orientation and value among numerous communities across the island. In many areas, the existence of lulic forests or groves and their equivalents (i.e., other areas which may be conserved under cultural proscriptions against damage or interference, such as certain coastal areas, natural springs and watercourses) continues to be recognised and preserved. They provide useful starting points for discussing reforestation programmes especially to meet future fuelwood and building material requirements, as well as for the rehabilitation of degraded lands or strategic augmentation in local areas of jurisdiction. While the international experience of developing comanagement or joint forest management has been encouraging in terms of reducing rates of deforestation and improving forest ecology in defined areas, the process is not a simple one.43 Significant investment in management structures and processes and close attention to socio-cultural contexts are required in order to achieve levels of operational efficiency. Past experience also highlights the central importance of developing effective local institutions as representative partner organisations and mechanisms for conflict management over forest resources. Unless these approaches and locally specific solutions are pursued, the emergence of competing interests and claims within and between local groups, and between local communities and wider government interests, will have a corrosive and 40 McWilliam, Haumeni, not many. 41 Daniel Buckles and Gerett Rusnak, ‘Conflict and collaboration in natural resource management’, in Cultivating peace: Conflict and collaboration in natural resource management, ed. Daniel Buckles (Ottawa and Washington, DC: International Development Research Centre and World Bank Institute, 2000), p. 3. 42 McWilliam, ‘Prospects for the sacred grove’, pp. 89-113; see also Metzner, Man and environment and Margaret King, Eden to paradise (London: Travel Book Club, 1963). 43 See, for example, Amy Poteete and Elinor Ostrom, ‘An institutional approach to the study of forest resources’, in Human impacts on tropical forest biodiversity and genetic resources, ed. John Poulsen (New York: CABI Publishing, 2002); Village voices, forest choices: Joint forest management in India, ed. Mark Poffenberger and Betsy McGean (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996); Shashi Kant and Roshan Cooke, ‘Jabalpur District, Madhya Pradesh, India: Minimizing conflict in joint forest management’, in Buckles, ed., Cultivating peace, pp. 81-97.
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destructive effect on joint management objectives.44 For conservation programmes to be effective in the longer term, and in the absence of a well-funded government forest protection system, addressing these and related issues would appear to be the only practical option. Industrial plantation forestry
Policies of colonial governments in East Timor, both Portuguese and Indonesian, have focused much of their subsidised development on plantation economies based around export-based monocultures.45 While the majority of these strategies have been oriented towards commodity production, especially coffee and copra, timber plantations have also become a focus for investment. By and large, however, all of these schemes have denied a directly beneficial role for local Timorese farming communities. Consequently, their success frequently has been seriously undermined by a reluctant and resentful local population who perceived such plans – correctly in most cases – as being against their better economic interests. The consequences of colonial plantation forestry, however, have not been wholly negative. Extensive plantations of teak (Tectona grandis) and Cassia siamea (johar), rosewood or Kayu merah (pterocarpus indicus) and mahogany (Sweitenia meli) among others, remain largely intact in the southwestern region, particularly in the districts of Covalima and Manufahi. The Indonesian government built on earlier Portuguese programmes to maintain and increase these areas under timber; by 1999 some 1,175 ha of plantation forest were under management in Covalima District.46 However, while stands of teak and other timber species remain substantially intact and represent an important economic resource which is yet to be realised, questions of tree tenure and ownership rights persist as unresolved legacies of prior administrations. In the context of an independent East Timor and the broad aspirations for social justice and economic self-determination, there remain prospects for re-evaluating timber plantation forestry. Key areas include species selection and, perhaps more importantly, the commercial arrangements surrounding the use of land and therefore the ownership of trees. In recent years the Indonesian government belatedly recognised the financial and social difficulty of promoting so-called ‘pure’ industrial timber plantations (HTI murni) in the neighbouring Lesser Sunda Islands and has now moved towards timber industries with local farmers (hutan kemasyarakatan) based more on commercial partnerships. In East Timor the future prospects for successful plantation forestry are also likely to be based on collaborative relationships rather than purely private enterprise. In a paper exploring the wider prospects for industrial timber plantations in Southeast Asia, Peter Kanowski has remarked on the shift from ‘simple’ (monoculture) plantations to what he terms ‘complex’ plantations. This recognises the often intractable management issues which arise when extensive land area is effectively taken out of local production and replaced with timber monocultures.47 44 Lucius Botes and Dingie van Rensberg, ‘Community participation in development: nine plagues and twelve commandments’, Community Development Journal, 35, 1 (2000): 41-58. See also Dustin C. Becker and Elinor Ostrom, ‘Human ecology and resource sustainability: The importance of institutional diversity’, Annual Review of Ecological Systems, 26 (1995): 113-33. 45 Gunn, Timor Loro Sae, p. 206. 46 East Timor Agricultural, Veterinary, Forestry and Fisheries Association data, 2000. 47 Peter J. Kanowski, Afforestation and plantation forestry (Australian National University Resource
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Given that there is unlikely to be any free or unclaimed land available in East Timor from an indigenous perspective, and given the pressure on land resources for dryland agriculture, any plantation forestry initiatives need to provide a range of economic opportunities for participant local communities. In the process, local farmers also become the de facto managers of the plantations; a combination of wage employment and local shareholder ownership arrangements is indicated. This approach is consistent with Kanowski’s conclusion that the sustainability of plantation forestry will be enhanced, and the benefits of investment most fully realised, where plantation purpose and practice are embedded within the broader social and economic contexts.48 While making good sense in the East Timorese context, ‘complex’ multi-species plantations have tended to add significantly to management demands and to reduce investment returns on capital. However, recent experimental approaches in mixed species forests have produced encouraging results, especially for state- and community-managed forests.49 These trends highlight the need for appropriate applied research and development as part of an integrated silviculture management approach directed towards empowering local autonomy in decision-making. The constraints facing plantation initiatives suggest that a range of strategic developments should be considered. Planning and programme strategies need to combine appropriate technology with feasible land use and land tenure arrangements. Species selection and improved silvicultural technologies for application across East Timor through research and adaptive trialling can be developed through the agency of bilateral or multilateral technical assistance programmes. Indigenous knowledge of species, growth patterns and distribution also needs to be incorporated into programme development. Additionally, as P. D. Hardcastle has noted, ‘plantations established without proper consideration of the end use and marketing may be spectacularly unsuccessful’.50 The approach is best suited to the economical production of industrial wood of consistent specification rather than a widely diverse range of products. This criterion is also closely tied to the funding arrangements surrounding plantation activities and the need to secure investment capital. For the cash-strapped national government of East Timor, the problem of attracting foreign investment to an undoubtedly risky environment is a major challenge. On the question of land use, successful strategies will require effective consultation and partnership arrangements with local farming communities. One possibility is the creation of villages (suco) or hamlets (aldeia) based plantation woodlots and reforestation of degraded areas to meet domestic demand and limited commercial opportunities. As noted above, past Indonesian attempts to promote similar programmes – hutan desa (village forest), reboisasi (reforestation) and penghijauan (regreening) – suffered from a range of technical and design problems which greatly reduced their success rate and impact. Nevertheless, smaller-scale forest blocks under direct or joint ownership and management by close-knit communities provide better Management in the Asia Pacific Working Paper, 1997); see also Scott, Seeing like a state. 48 Kanowski, Afforestation and plantation forestry, p. 6. 49 P. D. Hardcastle, ‘Plantations: Potentials and limitations’ (draft paper, World Bank Sustainable Forest Management Working Group, 1999), pp. 37-8. 50 Ibid., p. 18; for examples of locally prospective tree species see Djogo, ‘Domestication of indigenous and naturalised species’.
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assurance for long-term success. Plantation-based approaches in this regard, however, need to be selective in terms of location and species choice. Concluding remarks
Nationalism under the guise of clandestine resistance and guerrilla warfare has transformed the small territory of East Timor from a remote and impoverished provincial backwater of Indonesia into a remote and impoverished new nation-state with all the uncertainties that entails. It is somewhat ironic that this achievement of independence has occurred at a time of wide-ranging decentralisation across Indonesia, where regional autonomy and administrative devolution have placed significant political responsibility in the hands of constituent regions. This has included far-reaching decentralisation of forest management, a process that offers useful comparative lessons for East Timor. While the impact of decentralisation is complex and highly dynamic, two points are worth highlighting in relation to the forestry sector. Firstly, the process of devolving decision-making to regional levels holds out the prospect of improved forest management through a better understanding of local biophysical, cultural and institutional conditions and constraints. Increased accountability and transparency in regulatory practice by local legislators might also be thought to contribute to better management approaches. The reality so far, however, presents a contrary view. Under the devolved block grant funding model implemented through the regional autonomy laws (UU22 and UU25/1999), most regional governments across Indonesia face significant shortfalls in revenues to finance services and development activities. This has led, perhaps inevitably, to barely restrained increases in local resource exploitation, including widespread forest extraction and conversion of natural forest areas to oil palm and other commodity-based agriculture.51 Local legitimisation of illegal logging practices and opportunities for corruption, combined with poor skills and staffing levels within district governments (kabupaten), and prevailing attitudes of shortterm opportunism now threaten the future of forest management across Indonesia. At the same time, the perceived fragmentation of the former strong centralist state of Indonesia has given rise to vocal and assertive cultural identity politics. Traditional claims over forest reserves and other natural resources represent an aspirational arena for the expression of demands for beneficial ownership and rights. In this dynamic context many local communities have taken it upon themselves to exploit former protected forestry reserves and extract immediate financial benefits in the absence of strong sanctions.52 These kinds of pressures in forest management, expressed in a myriad of ways under Indonesian regional autonomy, are all too evident in East Timor as the nation struggles to utilise scarce budgetary resources for a whole range of important development 51 See, for example, Lesley Potter and Simon Badcock, The effects of Indonesia’s decentralisation on forests and estate crops in Riau province: Case studies of the original districts of Kamapr and Indragiri Hulu (Bogor: CIFOR, 2001). 52 Leslie Potter and Simon Badcock, ‘Reformasi and Riau’s forests: A weak government struggles with “people power”, poverty and pulp companies’, Inside Indonesia, 65 (2001): 16-17; Greg Acciaioli, ‘Reempowering the “art of the elders”: The revitalisation of adat among the To Lindu people of central Sulawesi and throughout contemporary Indonesia’, in Beyond Jakarta, ed. Minako Sakai (Adelaide: Crawford House Publishing, 2002), pp. 217-44; and Jonathan Friedman, ‘Indigenous struggles and the discrete charm of the bourgeoisie’, Australian Journal of Anthropology, 10, 1 (1999): 1-14.
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requirements. Whether it can avoid the path of destructive plunder that reflects contemporary Indonesian forest practice remains to be seen. The incremental strategies described here are designed to create the conditions for a sustainable forestry future, but implementation requires effective national leadership, community engagement and a continuing supportive commitment on the part of international donor agencies.
