The Dayaks live

Our river, our life: Residents cross the Mendalam River in West Kalimantan on a motorized wood raft. Members of several local Dayak communities that live along the river said that deforestation has led to regular flooding and murky waters. JP/Evi Mariani Our river, our life: Residents cross the Mendalam River in West Kalimantan on a motorized wood raft. Members of several local Dayak communities that live along the river said that deforestation has led to regular flooding and murky waters. JP/Evi Mariani

For members of the Dayak Iban community, the kampung where the clear water flows into the river, the plenitude of trees grow and the fertile fields yield rice is Sungai Utik, their home for centuries.

One day in October 2007, a representative of companies that claimed to have permit from the forestry ministry came to Sungai Utik said the kampung was part of a 88,000-hectare area called “Unit 1”, where the company could log.

Two months previously, former forestry minister Malam Sambat Kaban came to Sungai Utik and gave the community an eco-label certificate for preserving their natural forest.

The contradiction puzzled the residents of Sungai Utik.

“It was as if the minister’s visit earlier meant nothing. On the map, there are no signs that they recognize that there are human beings here,” said Raymondus Remang, the head of Rantau Prapat village, which administers Sungai Utik.

Raymondus said the company’s permit was issued by the Forestry Ministry.

“To them, there are monkeys and birds here — not human beings. Maybe to them we’re monkeys,” said Apai Janggut, a respected figure in Sungai Utik.

“Once, they came here to log the trees. We told them about disasters and diseases that come from destroyed forests. They did not understand. In the end, they are the monkeys.”

For generations, people in Sungai Utik have cleared some forest land to grow rice for themselves.

Residents keep half the kampung, which is comprised of 3,667 hectares of natural forest, as a protected area and reserve the other half as their customary forest, where they hunt boars and clear some forest for their personal needs. “The customary law says a family cannot log more than 30 trees a year. In reality, however, a family cuts no more than five trees on average. Some haven’t cut any trees for years,” Raymondus said.

Forest living: Residents of Benua Tengah village sit in a traditional long house made from wood taken from a forest reserve established and maintained by the community. The house has been renovated several times, but its supporting beams, which were made from dozens of tall trees, were built by their ancestors almost a century ago. JP/Evi Mariani Forest living: Residents of Benua Tengah village sit in a traditional long house made from wood taken from a forest reserve established and maintained by the community. The house has been renovated several times, but its supporting beams, which were made from dozens of tall trees, were built by their ancestors almost a century ago. JP/Evi Mariani

In a participatory mapping made in the late 1990s, the residents decided to set aside more than 2,000 hectares for government’s production forest. However, they prefer to keep all the forests in a good shape.

Apai Janggut, 96, had an experience working in logging companies throughout Kalimantan during his younger years, which gave him knowledge about what a forest destruction could bring to communities like Sungai Utik.

“When they cut the woods, they logged earnestly, leaving nothing but bare forest,” he said. “That forest-destructing diseases, there’s no cure, no doctor for those who want instant wealth. We have to prevent ourselves from getting the diseases.”

Apai said he experienced enough not to want such destruction happened to Sungai Utik.

From stories of other kampung whose forests have been damaged, Sungai Utik residents knew they had to preserve the forests. Dayak Kayaan residents of villages along Mendalam River, however, knew the disasters first hand.

For 30 years, since the 1970s, a logging company has cut the forests on both sides of the river. When the company came, they promised welfare from the employment and economic boost from the activity. What the Kayaan Mendalam residents got instead were meager salary plus new environmental, social and health problems.

“I once worked for them. But locals here could only get to peel off the outer part of the wood. No one could climb the career to be a supervisor,” Gregorius Ding said. His wage back then was Rp 3,500 (40 US cents) per day, not enough to support a decent life, he said. Obviously, such amount of money would not be enough to pay for the environmental damages in the villages.

The residents said from January to June this year alone, the Datah Diaan village had experienced nine floods. “It rains for an hour and the river rises so fast,” Agustinus Haang said. When it rains, water of Mendalam River gets murky with soil it brings from the upstream. “But today, even during the dry season, the water is not as clear anymore.”

They also have to hunt for boars farther and need motor boat for fishing. “Then, our grandfathers and fathers only had to paddle to fish,” Haang went on.

After the forests were cut clear, the number of malaria cases in the villages increased.

Another problem is the higher number of single mothers with fatherless children who have to survive after their husbands, mostly are outsiders who work for the company, abandoned them after the woods had all been gone.

Wonderful, dark and deep: The Sungai Utik’s backyard is a forested area. To reach the kampung’s primary forest of 3,700 hectares, people must pass through the Dayak Iban’s indigenous reserve forest and walk for three days deep in the woods. JP/Evi MarianiWonderful, dark and deep: The Sungai Utik’s backyard is a forested area. To reach the kampung’s primary forest of 3,700 hectares, people must pass through the Dayak Iban’s indigenous reserve forest and walk for three days deep in the woods. JP/Evi Mariani

When a new company came to the Kayaan community, the situation got heated and emotional. The residents pulled all the stops to block companies that want to take away what is left from Mendalam forests. “Legal or illegal, it doesn’t matter, we don’t want them,” they said.

Since 2006, the villagers have traveled as far as to Jakarta to assert their will: They want the remaining forests to be preserved. But they have been ping-ponged from the regency office to the Forestry Ministry office. They have also met with the Kapuas Hulu Council. So far, no one has given any significant support.

“Every election, we voted. National legislative body, local council, president, governor, regent, we always voted [for them]. Those who we had voted for, always the ones winning. But nothing changed. Now we have been exhausted, we don’t want to deal with the government anymore,” Ding said.

When the residents met with the local district heads recently in June, they no longer expected for a sincere support from them. What they wanted was to make it clear to the district heads that all Kayaan Mendalam residents reject any companies that wanted to clear the remaining forests.

One of the district heads, Alfiansyah, told the visiting residents that the government acted based on regulations. “The government does not see borders. What the government knows is that Mendalam is a production forest. That’s the regulation,” he said, while with his right hand gesturing a movement of “the government” seeing a land from above. “I’m here to help enforce the regulations, that’s what a district leader should do,” Alfiansyah said.

But regulations are not always right, Dayak Kayaan indigenous leader Ignatius Sebastianus Faranli replied. The residents were witnesses of floods, diseases, climate change and scarcity of fish, he said.

“As a district leader, you don’t take sides. We understand. But as a human being, deep inside your heart, you should know what is right.”

“If you don’t stand on the veins of the tree you cut, you don’t know anything. But we, who live under the thickness of the leaves, know what’s right. Our environment is something we must protect,” he concluded.