Sacred Forests

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in traditional cultural and economic values may threaten their existence (Appell, ...... Indian. Forester 126: 1309-1318. Beckerman, S., and Valentine, P. (1996).
Sacred Forest, Hunting, and Conservation in West Kalimantan, Indonesia Reed L. Wadley * Department of Anthropology University of Missouri-Columbia Columbia MO 65201 USA Email: [email protected] Carol J. Pierce Colfer Center for International Forestry Research P.O. Box 6596 JKPWB, Jakarta 10065 Indonesia Email: [email protected] * Corresponding author

Sacred Forest, Hunting, and Conservation in West Kalimantan, Indonesia Abstract In a number of places, sacred forest sites play an important role in conservation and local livelihoods. Here we examine how Iban hunters and animals alike use sacred forest in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. To determine the relative importance of different sites in hunting, we compare hunting effort, animal species and their numbers encountered by hunters, and encounters and captures in a variety of forest sites including sacred groves. We relate the results to the role of such sites in the overall Iban agroforestry system and in the conservation of forest habitat that professional conservationists deem precious. Such land use practices, while having social and religious origins, may be important for local economic purposes, but they may also be valuable in promoting and enhancing the more global goals of biodiversity conservation. Keywords: conservation, agroforestry, sacred forest, hunting

1 INTRODUCTION Some scholars have made a close link between “the sacred” and biodiversity conservation, contending that religious values and practices attached to the environment may be critical for successful conservation (Berkes, 1999; Byers et al., 2001; Colding and Folke, 2001; Ramakrishnan et al., 1998; Sponsel et al., 2001). Indeed, religious values are one type of aesthetic and ethical argument made for conservation, in contrast to scientific and economic reasons (Jepson and Canney, 2003), though this distinction is not necessarily one that local peoples themselves make. Sacred forest sites throughout the world are important for the preservation of plant and animal species useful to local peoples. For example, sacred groves become refuges for plants, birds, mammals, and other forest-dwelling animals (Basu, 2000; Chandran and Hughes, 2000; Sinha, 1995), and local peoples depend on them for various products used in everyday life (Burman, 2003; Chandrashekara and Sankar, 1998). Sacred groves may thus serve both local resource needs and international conservation goals (Decher, 1997; Dorm-Adzobu and Ampadu-Agyei, 1995; Lebbie and Guries, 1995; McWilliam, 2001; Swamy et al., 2003). In addition to pressure put on them from daily use, these forest patch habitats are fragile, and changes in traditional cultural and economic values may threaten their existence (Appell, n.d.; Byers et al., 2001). Patches of ritually interdicted forest form regular features of the complex agroforestry system practiced among the Iban of northwestern Borneo (Appell et al., 2001; Sather, 1990), with swidden rice cultivation, forest management, and hunting being integral parts. Within the limits of their physical environment (e.g., soils and rainfall), the Iban’s long fallow cultivation appears to be an appropriate and generally sustainable system given adequate ratios of people and land (Colfer

2 et al., 1997; Warner, 1991), enhanced by supplementary cash cropping (Cramb, 1993). In addition to various categories of forest fallow, they recognize two categories of specially preserved forest – old longhouse sites (tembawai) and tree reserves (pulau). The former are prohibited from being farmed because of the valuable, long-lived fruit trees that people planted while they lived there. The latter covers a number of categories, including sacred sites (below) which are defined by their association with graves, sites of human death, and claims of spirit habitation. Other preserved sites include groves of trees particular families preserved from felling in order to maintain sites for rattan collection or to preserve timber trees for later cutting, and corridors of trees preserved along the courses of the major streams (Sather, 1990). In addition, there are numerous smallholdings (kebun) of rubber and other tree crops such as cacao, often interspersed with fruit trees and sometimes overlapping with old longhouse sites. Such sacred and non-sacred sites mark important historical and mythical events, providing the Iban with meaningful connections to the local landscape. They also provide important forest products such as fruit crops and rattan, and may function as sources of forest regeneration for the swidden farming system (Wadley, 2004). Hunting in preserved forest has also been a regular feature of the subsistence economy, with forest game consisting of both large and small mammals and birds. It supplies periodic but important proteins to the diet (Colfer et al., 2000). In light of the importance of sacred sites in other parts of the world, we examine the role sacred forest played in Iban hunting and test the hypotheses that (1) sacred forest patches were important for wildlife and, as a result, were important sources of game, and that (2) hunters targeted sacred sites because of the food resources there that attracted animals to them. 1 In order to determine the relative importance of different forest sites in hunting, we compare hunting effort,

3 and encounters and captures in a variety of sites including sacred forest. We relate the results to the role of sacred forest in the Iban agroforestry system and in the conservation of forest habitat that professional conservationists have deemed precious. We argue that land use practices involving sacred sites have fundamental social and religious origins, but they secondarily became places for local resource extraction. While it is unlikely, in the Iban case, that such forest patches were intentionally conservative, they may be valuable in promoting and enhancing larger conservation goals (McWilliam, 2001; Smith and Wishnie, 2000). STUDY SITE Danau Sentarum National Park (DSNP) is located in a remote area of West Kalimantan, Indonesia (Figure 1); it is situated close to the Malaysian border of Sarawak and approximately 700 km inland from the provincial capital, Pontianak. DSNP is an area of interconnected seasonal lakes and seasonally flooded tropical forests with the water catchment consisting of lowland tropical forest in the hills and flooded forest in the low lying areas. A patchwork of various forest developmental stages characterizes the former and is a result of commercial logging, swidden cultivation, and smallholdings of cash crops. The altitude within the park is approximately 30-35 m above sea level, while the surrounding hills rise as high as 760 m. Daytime temperatures are consistently 26-30 degrees Celsius, and annual rainfall ranges between 3000 and 4000 mm. The driest months are usually July, August, and September. [Figure 1 here] The area gained reserve status in 1982, and additional legislation in 1985 established the Danau Sentarum Wildlife Reserve (Giesen, 1987). In 1994 Danau Sentarum became Indonesia’s second Ramsar Wetland of International Importance, and in 1999 it was upgraded to a National

4 Park (Giesen and Aglionby, 2000), though it remains very much a “paper” park with the only effective management being that of local indigenous communities (Colfer and Wadley, 2001). The main part of the park comprises some 800 km2, and in 1995 the conservation area expanded to the east by an additional 450 km2 (Aglionby and Whiteman, 1996). As the boundaries of the park still remain unclear, the study area reported on here (located in the hills northeast of the reserve core) may eventually be considered a transition zone, a buffer zone, or even part of the park core. The permanent park population in 1995 (the most recent census) was 6,575 people, and the population density fluctuated seasonally between 5.3 and 6.4 persons per km 2 (Aglionby and Whiteman, 1996). Around 80% of the population were Muslim Malay fisherfolk. The remainder, and those occupying the park periphery and surrounding hills, were largely Christian Dayaks,0 the majority of whom were Iban. In the Batang Lupar District, part of which overlaps with the northeast portion of the park, the population density was 3.3 persons per km 2 in 1995 (Kecamatan Batang Lupar, 1995). Our study focused on the Iban longhouse community of Sungai Sedik 3 located about 6 km from the district administrative center and market town. The longhouse was a 14-household community containing about 98 residents during the period of fieldwork, with an average household size of 6 people. The surrounding territory claimed by the longhouse encompasses approximately 24 km2 and was a patchwork of forest succession, agricultural plots, rubber smallholdings, and specially preserved forest. The Sungai Sedik territory (with a density of 4.1 persons per km2) was occasionally hunted by members of at least five other longhouses and residents of the market town. The estimated population density of the area around and including Sungai Sedik (about 322 km2) was 5.1 persons per km2.

5 SACRED FOREST Within the Sungai Sedik territory, there were 34 named old longhouse sites, the oldest of which dated to the 1860-70s (Figure 2); more than 45 large and small (non-sacred) tree reserves, many of which were named, often after the predominant trees they contain; and about 15 named tree reserves classified as sacred. To distinguish between non-sacred tree reserves and sacred forest patches, we refer to them as “tree reserves” and “sacred forest” respectively. [Figure 2 here] Iban sacred forest itself comprises a variety of sites (Appell et al., 2001; Sather, 1990) and can be generally distinguished between the sites of human death or burial and the sites claimed to be inhabited by non-human spirits. Grave sites (pendam) are usually forest cemeteries where longhouse ancestors are buried, their graves marked with ceramic jars. The largest forest cemetery in the Sungai Sedik territory was over 100 years old and covered 15-20 ha. The last burials there took place in 1974, before the longhouse converted en masse to Christianity.4 Thereafter the dead were buried in a specially designated area, kubur baru or kubur kristen. In contrast to past practice when the dead were interred in an area of ritually interdicted forest, the new cemetery was kept cleared of trees and undergrowth. (This is a potentially important separation of sacred locations from the forest.) One large interment site was a unique network of caves created from a jumble of enormous boulders. Six prominent warriors were interred deep inside the caves, the home of numerous species of bats (below). Other sites, known generally as pulau antu, were claimed to be inhabited by various spirits, usually not those of the dead; the strangler fig (Ficus spp.) figured prominently in many (Sather, 1990). Some sites were associated with deep pools in streams and with mountain tops regarded as

6 the haunt of spirits. One peak was tabooed from being farmed because people claimed a spirit that protects forest pigs lived there. Hunters said that if dogs pursued a pig during a hunt, and the pig entered that forest, the dogs would lose the scent. As a result, the forest there contained numerous wallowing holes for pigs. The religious importance of these forest sites can be seen in people’s ritual treatment of them, and in the consequences people claimed to result if anyone transgressed on the sites in any way. For example, anyone wanting to fell trees within such a site had to perform proper ritual offerings, but tree felling could be only for lumber for longhouse use. (Tree felling within sacred forest may have been a recent post-conversion to Christianity innovation as there is no evidence that it was permitted in the past.) Farming on or even near such land was said to result in illness (menawa’ antu) for the family doing so. Many people in private attributed one woman’s chronic weakness and ill health to her household having farmed near and possibly on forest cemetery land. The gradual erosion of these traditions in younger generations and changes in the practical valuation of land (e.g., rises in pepper prices resulting in planting of pepper gardens) may lead to greater pressure on such forest patches. During the 1990s, there were a number of instances in which the objectives of national development collided with local tradition, particularly when either government or logging roads passed through or near sacred sites. Local Iban leaders negotiated with the developers or loggers so that the company paid a ritual fine and performed a ritual of expiation, allowing roads to pass through or on the very edge of sacred forest. Local Iban considered that such development was necessary and desirable, particularly the building of government roads, but they were unwilling to forego what they view as their rights in their own land and risk the threat of supernaturally

7 “heating” the territory by ignoring tradition (Colfer and Wadley, 2001; Colfer et al., 2001; see Barrett and Lucas, 1993 on supernatural heat and health). HUNTING AND FOREST TYPE Methods Data on hunting were collected by Wadley in 1993-94 using an interview schedule developed by Wadley, Colfer, and Ian Hood. It was administered immediately after every hunting trip for six one-month sampling periods distributed evenly over a year. Interviews were conducted in the Iban language, and animal identification was made through the use of wildlife field guides for Borneo (i.e., Francis, 1984; Payne et al., 1985; Smythies, 1981).0 Although data were collected on all aspects of hunting, the data presented here concern only adult (male) hunting. No women participated in hunting. Hunting done by boys (generally devoted to small game) is not considered here (see Wadley, 2002). Hunting reported here was largely for subsistence. Iban preferred large-bodied mammalian prey (bearded pig and deer), but were opportunistic about what animals they actually capture on hunts (see Wadley et al., 1997). Although some game (particularly bearded pig) were occasionally taken to the market town and sold, there was only one case of this during the study period (Wadley et al., 1997). The capture of live animals also occasionally occurred in the area, such as when hunters shoot female orangutans or gibbons in order to capture their young which are sold. No instances of this occurred at Sungai Sedik, although there were cases elsewhere. We defined an encounter as any sighting of an animal or group of animals during a hunting trip. This included shootings and captures. The numbers of animals hunters saw during encounters were usually estimates and may not accurately reflect numbers of animals in the area. 0 Hunters

8 reported (sometimes estimated) the numbers of animals seen at any one encounter, which might range from a solitary gibbon or hornbill to a troop of langurs or a horde of bulbuls. These numbers do not represent extant population sizes because particular animals might have been encountered more than once and therefore counted numerous times. They do, however, give some impression of the relative abundance of each species. We used indigenous categories to classify forest growth in which hunting occurred (Wadley, 2002). Results There were a total of 130 hunts recorded during the study period, with 110 hunts focused on large game (with pig or deer as the desired game) while the remaining 20 were focused on small game such as squirrel, birds, and bats. The implement taken was the easiest way to distinguish such hunts, or rather the aim of such hunts. Men used 12-gauge shotguns if hunting large game, and pellet guns for most small game. These implements have largely replaced traditional implements such as the spear and blowgun. There were only a couple of instances where hunters took both guns, and those hunts were classified as focused on large game since that was the primary purpose of the hunt. Of the total number of hunts, only 23 (18%) occurred at night; this is a much higher percentage than apparently took place before the initial use of battery-powered flashlights a few decades ago. Hunting effort. We measured hunting effort in three ways – time spent, number of trips, and number of hunters in particular types of forest (Table 1). Tested against the relative area for each forest type, these data show that hunting effort – however defined – was statistically independent of forest area. (We estimated area through a combination of interviews, site visits, and averaging across sites.) Hunters focused on two types – tree reserves and sacred forest, despite

9 the latter representing only 2% of the total area hunted. Interviews indicate that the presence of fruit trees that attract animals was the primary reason for this focus, though paradoxically this criterion should have led to increased effort on old longhouse sites. Fruiting cycles during the study period may be a factor in these differences. [Table 1 here] In order to test whether the relative distance of these sites to the longhouse was a factor in hunting effort, we compared approximate travel times to the sites actually visited during hunts (Table 2). Travel times were determined by a combination of interviews and site visits and were measured in minutes from the longhouse, as if hunters took the shortest possible route to these sites. (This latter assumption was generally violated during long hunts as men typically traversed several sites, but it provides the simplest way to compare travel time.) There are significant differences in travel times among the sites, and an application of Dunn’s distribution-free multiple comparison test (Hollander and Wolfe, 1973:124-125) reveals eight pairs that are significantly different from each other – garden/field, garden/tree reserve, garden/old fallow, sacred forest/tree reserve, old longhouse/tree reserve, old longhouse/old fallow, young fallow/tree reserve, and young fallow/old fallow. If hunting effort was entirely a function of travel time, we would expect that both sacred forest and tree reserves would be the more accessible sites. These results indicate that travel time was not a very important factor in deciding where to hunt (below). 7 [Table 2 here] Encounters. Hunters encountered a variety of animal species – 40 species of mammals from 16 families and 74 species of birds from 23 families (Tables 3 and 4). Encounter rates for both birds and mammals positively correlate with hunting effort (measured in hours spent; Table

10 1). Higher numbers of encounters occurred in tree reserves and sacred forest. Across forest types, encounters with squirrels were the most numerous (30%), followed by monkeys (mainly macaques, 17.5%), pigs (15%), deer (mainly barking deer, 11%), civets (9%), and gibbons (6%). Among avifauna, encounters were most numerous with bulbuls (21%), flowerpeckers (13%), leafbirds (10%), hornbills (9%), and barbets (7%). That such small animals as squirrels and bulbuls were reported encountered more often than other, more preferred species (i.e., pig and deer) suggests that hunters were not biasing their reports toward preferred game (Wadley et al., 1997). In addition, a comparison of encounter rates between preferred species and other mammals approaches statistical significance in distribution by forest type. However, the higher encounter rates of preferred game in young and old fallow disrupts the overall pattern, and is in contrast to hunting effort (below). [Table 3 here] [Table 4 here] Number sighted. The number of animals sighted mirrors hunting effort to some extent, with higher numbers of birds seen in tree reserves, sacred forest, and old longhouse sites. Mammals were seen in higher numbers in sacred forest and tree reserves. However, only the number of birds correlates significantly with hunting effort, given the much larger proportion of mammals sighted in sacred forest (Tables 5 and 6). Birds seen in the largest numbers were bulbuls (37% of total) and flowerpeckers (11% of total). The large numbers of mammals in sacred sites derives from the numerous bats sighted on two bat-hunting trips (49% of total, 81% of sacred sites). The number of bats estimated here may be on the low end given the abundance observed elsewhere with more systematic surveys (Francis, 1990). Monkeys (26% of total) and squirrels

11 (11% of total) were also sighted in large numbers. Additionally, the numbers of preferred game sighted compared to the numbers of other mammals sighted were positively correlated, though with some divergence coming from the equal proportion of preferred game numbers sighted in sacred forest and old fallow. [Table 5 here] [Table 6 here] Number captured. The number of birds captured does not correlate significantly with hunting effort, though the number of mammals does (Tables 7 and 8). A high proportion of birds and mammals were captured at sacred sites, the numerous bats captured during two trips again accounting for the latter. Among larger mammals, pigs, civets, monkeys, mousedeer, and barking deer were the more numerous overall. In comparison to mammals captured, the number of captured birds was very low (and dominated by flowerpeckers and bulbuls) largely because of the small number of hunting trips specifically aimed at birds. Additionally, the numbers of preferred game captured did not occur in statistically similar proportions as other game, with the highest percentage of preferred game being captured in tree reserves while equal proportions were captured in sacred forest, old longhouse sites, young fallow, and old fallow. It is this divergence between preferred game and other (generally smaller) mammals that appears to explain the strong correlation with hunting effort – tree reserves for preferred game and sacred forest for smaller mammals. [Table 7 here] [Table 8 here] Weight of prey. A better measure of contribution to diet than numbers captured, the weight

12 of captured prey (Table 9) indicates a significant, positive correlation with the area of forest types hunted, as well as a concomitant divergence from hunting effort. Here tree reserves, old longhouse sites, old fallow, and young fallow forest provided 85% of game by weight. This is more in keeping with the proportion of preferred game captured. [Table 9 here] Forest foods. Hunters were asked if they observed animals eating anything, and we found out the type of foods animals ate throughout the year (Table 10). In these data, tree reserves, sacred forest, and old longhouse sites figured prominently, and the proportion of observed foods correlate significantly with hunting effort. Hunters claimed to target areas where forest foods were available to potential game, and these data bear out that claim, though the observations themselves were biased by hunting effort. [Table 10 here] The most important fruit among mammals was Lithocarpus spp. whereas that among birds was Ficus spp. Both wild and domesticated rambutan (Nephelium spp.) and Castanopsis spp. were also important foods for mammals (e.g., Caldecott, 1988; Leighton and Leighton, 1983). Mammal species observed feeding on Lithocarpus fruit were five species of squirrel, pig, barking deer, macaque, langur, and mousedeer; one bird species (hairy backed bulbul) was seen feeding on the leavings of these other animals. Those animals feeding on Ficus fruit were four species of bulbul, four species of barbet, eight species of flowerpecker, and two species of leafbird as well as pigeons, ioras, orioles, rhinoceros hornbills, giant squirrels, and binturong. Pigs, gibbons, and macaques ate Nephelium fruit, while treeshrews, pigs, four species of squirrels, and one species of dove were seen feeding on Castanopsis nuts.8

13 Cultivated crops (i.e., cassava [Manihot spp.], rice [Oryza spp.], and Job’s tears [Coix lachryma jobii]) were occasional foods for large mammals, namely pig, barking deer, and pig-tailed macaque, but they do not figure prominently in these data. This is in contrast to the heavy crop predation reported elsewhere in Southeast Asia (e.g., Dove, 1981; Freeman, 1970; Peterson, 1981). The relative abundance of forest fruits during our study may have something to do with this. Iban claim that when fruits in the forest are scarce, animals will invariably prey on crops. In the farming year following this study, people claimed increased predation from animals (including flocks of munia [Lonchura spp.] which were not sighted during our study). This annual variation may partly explain the low hunting effort in field habitats (Wadley, 2002; Wadley et al., 1997). DISCUSSION The foregoing analyses present a mixed bag with respect to our hypotheses: Hunting effort was high in sacred forests (and tree reserves). The number of encounters with birds and mammals, numbers of animals seen, and numbers captured all reflect, to some extent, that hunting effort. Sacred forest appeared more important, however, for small game hunting than for preferred (large mammal) hunting. Sacred forest patches were thus important for some types of wildlife and were targeted because of the food resources available to animals, but they lost out compared to old longhouse sites, old fallow, and young fallow as sources of game (by weight). It is important to remember that sacred forests were only one type of forest that the Iban managed. Indeed, analyses here affirm the importance of other sites in hunting, particularly tree reserves, old longhouse sites, and fallowed forest (Wadley et al., 1997). Turning to wider issues, one obvious question is, did the Iban practice of preserving forest

14 sites, including sacred ones, constitute conservation? Any analysis of conservation turns on definition, and within anthropology, there have been competing notions of what constitutes conservation, particularly among small-scale societies. For example, following behavioral ecological perspectives, conservation consists of any action or practice that (1) prevents or mitigates resource depletion and (2) is designed to do so, either intentionally or through cultural selection (Smith and Wishnie, 2000:501); the concept of temporal discounting is critical here as conservation must entail a trade-off of short-term for long-term benefits (2000:503). Others argue that this strict approach unduly excludes examples of sustained resource use among indigenous peoples, which may be epiphenomena of other ecological or behavioral factors (e.g., Lyman 2003). Critics also claim that the behavioral ecology stance is a central feature of the current “preservationist” orthodoxy that finds little conservative in local resource practices and thereby threatens local resource access and control (Hunn et al., 2003). That the biological and political stakes can be high in such debates is testament to the importance that we have come to attach to biodiversity conservation, which is what most debates revolve around. Based on interviews, it is clear that the Iban perceived the ecological importance of these sites. For example, some men contended that they preserved forests on mountain peaks, whether sacred or not, so that there would always be trees for providing seed to reforest fallowed fields (e.g., Jordan, 1986:421). As one Iban man put it, the trees in old growth forest did not grow on their own (ngai tumboh dire’), but had to be brought by mammals or birds or the wind, and areas of preserved forest were necessary for that. (This suggests the Iban recognized the value of forest-animal interactions in the total agroforestry system [see Terborgh, 1995; Wadley, 2004], though whether this reflects a conservation ethic is another issue.) Iban also saw important

15 hydrological functions of preserved forest. Some referred to the forest as seput menoa -- the breath of the land. They said that if there was too much cutting of trees, the land would become hot (angat, an important spiritual condition connected to health) and the water in the streams would dry up. Preserved forest was also the source of important everyday products. For example, people used forest fruits for home consumption or occasional sale, bark for rice bins and fieldhut walls, fibers for weaving and construction, and wood for lumber (Colfer et al., 2000). In 1996 we recorded a partial list of 103 plants found in specially preserved forest (i.e., sacred forest, non-sacred tree reserves, and old longhouse sites) (Colfer et al., 2001). We know from previous research that there has been a much larger number of plants the Iban knew and used.9 Absent from our list, in particular, were food plants, generally collected by women, called bulu babas or the hair of the forest. They included ferns, mushrooms, and other plants (see Colfer et al., 1993). Of the plants listed, 41% occurred in sacred forest, 56% in tree reserves, and 56% in old longhouse sites. Iban recognized one other important effect of preserving forest – maintenance of the habitats that support game populations. It is unclear how much of this awareness the Iban had recently acquired, how much was older, and how much had been influenced by the presence of the national park and researchers asking conservation-related questions. Iban said that in the past their ancestors never thought of preserving things for the future because they lived in such an abundance of land and forest, although they did (and still do) experience occasional and severe scarcity in rice crops and important forest fruits (e.g., Dove and Kammen, 1997). Now, however, the local land base was shrinking, and there was nowhere to migrate, one common alternative in the past (Padoch, 1982).

16 They also had intimate, second-hand knowledge of land problems in areas such as Sarawak. People, they said, must now think of the natural resources that they will leave for their descendants. It may be, as Beckerman and Valentine (1996) suggest, that resource scarcity under conditions of local control is necessary for the development of a conservation ethic (King, 1996). The description above of the Iban agroforestry system is, of course, a snapshot of a particular place and time, and we must not assume things will stay the same in the coming years, particularly under rapidly changing conditions since data collection. The value that Iban placed on their forest resources will likely change over time given new economic opportunities offered by the expanding road network in the region and better access to Malaysian markets for cash crops (e.g., Lawrence et al., 1995; Salafsky, 1994). For example, rising pepper prices following the Asian economic crisis of 1997 saw a rapid expansion of pepper cultivation throughout the Iban area; at Sungai Sedik, people planted pepper gardens on newly fallowed fields, temporarily removing those plots from the swidden cycle. In addition, legal and illegal logging has boomed in the area since the fall of the Suharto government in 1998, some of it affecting the remaining old growth swamp forest in Sungai Sedik territory. With sacred forest patches specifically in mind, more profound changes may occur at the level of cultural practices and their impact on forest use. One point to underscore is that religious behavior is fundamentally a social-psychological phenomenon, and as such, may be subject to rapid change based on changes in social relations. National culture has tended to devalue traditional knowledge and religious beliefs (e.g., Rigg, 1993), and the younger generation has become more educated in national schools (mainly boarding schools) and decreasingly competent in traditional culture (Eilenberg, 2003). The value placed on sacred and other forest sites may thus

17 change such that these patches are no longer secure against conversion to more immediately profitable uses (see Byers et al., 2001). What is more, a wide perception of declining game availability may lead locals to reconsider the value of maintaining large forest patches. For example, in early 2000, people of Sungai Sedik reported that they rarely saw or heard gibbons in the forest (in contrast to their audible presence in the early 1990s), which they attributed to overhunting.10 In addition, by 2000, the tradition of distributing preferred game to each household had ended, and this was attributed to a combination of game scarcity and the growing number of households. Another potential factor may be the continuing status of the DSNP as a “paper park.” A co-management plan was drawn up in the late 1990s, and local people positioned themselves to benefit from the expected presence of an active management organization. Indeed, some of the information from interviews reported here may have been local attempts to negotiate beneficial relations with conservation personnel. (We do not, however, believe these were cynical manipulations or invented practices, but rather well-intentioned emphases on pre-existing practices and values.) Since the end of the initial conservation research project in 1997, nothing has materialized with respect to DSNP, at least for local communities, and the Iban may no longer see any practical reason for highlighting religious practices that have environmental ties. However, educated Iban and Malay locals have since established an environmental NGO, Yayasan Riak Bumi, whose aim is the preservation of both habitat and culture within the DSNP area. They recognize the importance of spiritual values in promoting environmental restoration and conservation (http://www.earthisland.org/borneo/danausentarum/dsnp/riakbumi/), something which may prove important in future efforts.

18 The fact that the Iban actively manage their forest resources is not in doubt (e.g., Cramb, 1989; Padoch, 1982; Sather, 1990; Wadley, 1997, 2002). They are part of the growing list of indigenous cultivators around the world who are known to do so (e.g., Colfer and Dudley, 1993; Colfer et al., 2001; Padoch and Peters, 1993; Posey, 1985). Additionally, and in contrast to what Balée (1994:138-141) claims for the Ka’apor of Brazil, the Iban are explicitly aware that their actions and practices have consequences for their descendants, and they actively pursue strategies of land use (e.g., prohibiting logging or farming in certain areas of forest, and planting fruit trees) with the future in mind (Colfer et al., 2001). But does this constitute conservation, either in the strict behavioral ecological sense or in terms of biodiversity? While these data originally were not collected with the intention of addressing this issue, they do suggest (but cannot confirm) the importance of temporal discounting through the preservation of certain forest sites. However, with respect to sacred forests specifically, there is no evidence that the Iban have preserved these various sites with future extraction in mind, though they have benefitted from their original interdiction. In addition, there is little indication that Iban hunting patterns are conservative: data published elsewhere (Wadley et al., 1997) show opportunism in hunting with regard to preferred game, and interviews revealed no concern to avoid capturing animals that might help conserve game populations or aid in forest regeneration (e.g., pregnant female pigs and seed-dispersing gibbons). This pattern is typical of hard-to-defend, mobile resources (Alvard, 1998). Unfortunately, the data from this study cannot be used to determine the diversity or distribution of animals throughout different forest types, given that hunting effort was not evenly focused on each type of forest, nor was hunter observation systematic enough. However, a comparison of wildlife diversity at Sungai Sedik, the DSNP core, and Gunung Palung National

19 Park (elsewhere in West Kalimantan) revealed that Sungai Sedik is generally less diverse overall than the other two sites (Wadley, 2002): Sungai Sedik held around 38% fewer species of mammals and 53% fewer species of birds than Gunung Palung, and 53% fewer bird species but 13% more mammal species than the DSNP core. Although the differences may have been due in part to study methods, some may have been environmental (i.e., Sungai Sedik’s forest-field mosaic compared to the old growth lowland forest of the other sites). Of course, wildlife would likely not have fared so well on Sungai Sedik land in the absence of preserved forest, of whatever kind, and hunters’ targeting of sacred and other forest implies their importance for a range of wildlife. The principal goal of Iban forest management, however, is to produce food and useful materials for their families, not to promote biodiversity as defined by Western conservationists. The traditional Iban forest management practices may nonetheless be valuable for wider conservation goals, and the sacredness of some forests may be utilized to preserve such sites in the future. Support of such indigenous systems by professional conservationists may not only promote the maintenance of the systems themselves, but may also serve in the conservation of forest habitat and the biodiversity therein (e.g., Western and Wright, 1994). The promotion and encouragement of practices that have preserved various types of older growth forest, shown to be important here, should benefit conservation and Iban alike. With this in mind, there are some general actions that intuitively appear to contribute to these goals and might be a central component of any future conservation management effort in the DSNP area (see also Wadley et al., 1997): • Support and strengthen existing management (indeed the only management in the area that appears to be in use [Colfer and Wadley, 2001]), helping local people to attend to the long term goal of sustainable use of wildlife and other natural resources under their

20 management. This might involve providing monetary compensation to communities as 11

incentive not to convert forest lands to agricultural production (Wadley et al., 2000). • Strengthen the capacity of local environmental NGOs in their efforts to work with local, indigenous communities to preserve and rehabilitate forest and fishery habitats; • Enforce existing forestry regulations on logging in the area, including reductions in allowable logging and monitoring of compliance with regulations (an increasingly difficult task under the current conditions of rampant illegal logging and ongoing power struggles between regional, provincial, and national governments); • Enhance existing programs to promote birth control, and cease large-scale spontaneous in-migration; • Establish and enforce locally relevant hunting regulations. There are several areas in which more study is needed to fully understand this system of land use, its effect on wildlife habitat, and the effect of hunting on wildlife populations. First, a systematic survey of preserved forest sites, including sacred forests, is crucial; this should include a survey of both plant and animal species within such sites. How much land specially preserved forest encompasses is important in answering questions about the role of such forest in preserving biodiversity. Second, a systematic survey of wildlife populations in all types of forest growth would help determine the impact of hunting on game populations and the effect of farming and forest preservation on all wildlife populations. Third, more study of Iban knowledge in botany, zoology, and silviculture should go hand in hand with the other work. This would include further study of Iban forest management relating to farming, forest preservation, and reforestation (Wadley, 2004). Fourth, we need to know more about the role these Iban areas might play as

21 formal buffer zones for DSNP, a function they may already serve. Finally, we urgently need to know about the extent and nature of culture change; namely the loss of traditional ecological knowledge among younger generations in the face of national education, longer exposure to Christianity, and consumerism. These changes can have a direct influence on the maintenance of the present system and on the preservation of sacred sites themselves.

22 Notes

23 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors served as consultants for the Danau Sentarum Wildlife Reserve Conservation Project under the auspices of Asian Wetland Bureau (now Wetlands International - Indonesia Programme), the Indonesian Directorate of Forest Protection and Nature Conservation (PHPA), and UK Overseas Development Administration (now Department for International Development). In addition, Wadley's field research (1992-94) was funded by the National Science Foundation (Grant No. BNS-9114652), Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Sigma Xi, and Arizona State University and was sponsored by the Balai Kajian Sejarah dan Nilai Tradisional Pontianak with permits from the Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia. Additional study was done by Colfer and Wadley in June-July 1995 during a project with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in cooperation with Wetlands International and PHPA, funded by USAID. Wadley carried out further field research in 2000, funded by the International Institute for Asian Studies (Netherlands) and sponsored by CIFOR. Thanks to Ian Hood for invaluable assistance in developing the study, Hanne Christensen for her help in identifying some of the plant species, and Lee Lyman and three anonymous reviewers for their comments.

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33

Figure 1. Borneo. Figure 2. Location of specially preserved forest in Sungai Sedik territory. Table 1. Hunting effort. Table 2. Travel time to forest sites from longhouse. Table 3. Number of encounters: Birds. Table 4. Number of encounters: Mammals. Table 5. Number sighted: Birds. Table 6. Number sighted: Mammals. Table 7. Number captured: Birds. Table 8. Number captured: Mammals. Table 9. Weight of captured game. Table 10. Forest foods consumed by animals (number of times observed).

34

Figure 1. Borneo.

35

Figure 2. Location of specially preserved forest in Sungai Sedik territory.

1. We deliberately couch the following descriptions and analyses in the past tense as the data were collected nearly a decade ago and cannot be presumed to reflect current conditions. 0.2. “Dayak” refers to the indigenous, non-Muslim inhabitants of Borneo; Dayaks who have converted to Islam generally become reclassified as Melayu or Malay. 3. In earlier publications, this community was presented under a pseudonym, Wong Garai, and has been changed in consultation with the Sungai Sedik community. 4. Although conversion took place over 20 years ago, many Iban still maintain traditional rituals and beliefs which the older people do not see, in any way, as contradictory to their officially proclaimed religion. There is, nonetheless, much erosion of traditional religious knowledge and interest among the young, given competition from the more pervasive national schooling (with its accompanying ideology of “progress” and the unfortunate necessity of boarding school), television, and Indonesian and Malaysian pop culture. 0.5. Hunters were asked a series of questions regarding such things as time of day, duration of hunt, weather during hunt, location of hunt, locations traversed during hunt, type of environment in which animals were encountered, and animals encountered, shot at, and captured. Identification of captured animals brought to the longhouse was done by Wadley in order to determine species, sex, relative age, and physical condition. When there was more than one hunter on a trip, the men were interviewed separately as a cross-check; locations were identified on maps and by inspection

36 during the course of fieldwork. 0.6. Data from this study cannot be used to determine the diversity or distribution of animals throughout different forest types, given that hunting effort was not evenly focused on each type of forest. A separate survey to estimate animal abundance would have been desirable, such as that done by Lahm (1993) in Gabon, but this was not possible given time constraints and lack of field personnel. 7. Travel time was not an irrelevant factor in hunts, however. While there was no linear relationship between distance from the longhouse and the frequency of traversing particular sites, hunters more frequently traveled to or through sites within 10-25 minutes journey from the longhouse. 8. These data allude to important plant-animal interactions, namely pollination and seed dispersal (Wadley, 2004). Hornbills, pigeons, and flowerpeckers are some of the frugivorous birds known to be seed dispersers (Snow, 1981; Susilo, 1992; Whitmore, 1986:45); flowerpeckers may also be involved in the pollination of some plants (Whitmore, 1986:42). Of mammals, bats, civets, squirrels, and langurs are known to be involved in seed dispersal (Emmons, 1992; Whitmore, 1986:44-45). 9. A more systematic investigation (e.g., Christensen, 2001; Colfer et al., 1997; Pearce et al., 1987) or an inventory survey (e.g. Bernstein et al., 1997; Lebbie and Guries, 1995) would probably yield even more known and useful plants. 10. The consequences of the potential loss of these seed-dispersing animals to the health of the

37 forest have yet to be studied. 11. The Adaptive Co-Management of Forests program, out of the Center for International Forestry Research, is one effort to improve the ability of forest-dependent people to adjust their management systems in the face of rapidly changing circumstances (see http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/acm).