How Indonesia's indigenous tribes protect their lands

In 2020, five years after the designation of Indonesia's Simardangiang indigenous community's land as a protected forest area, a logging company attempted to extract wood from their customary forest. Tampan Sitompul, 50, along with other residents of Simardangiang Village, which consists of four hamlets, objected to the company’s plan.  

"Our ancestors have occupied this customary land for more than 200 years, our land is not protected forest so no one is allowed to log wood from here," Sitompul, the head of the village, told FairPlanet in Simardangiang Village in mid-January. "If [our traditional land is a forest], it means that all the time we have lived here we have been considered monkeys, not humans."

Sitompul belongs to the third generation of villagers of the Simardangiang traditional community, which occupies 6,567 hectares in the area. 

The previous Simardangiang leader, Raja Tinaruan, had led a nomadic lifestyle and eventually settled in an area that now includes three hamlets: Lumban Gonting, Sibio-bio and Simardangiang. Later on, Pasir was established as a fourth hamlet. Now a total of 193 families live in the area.

The settlement was one of the most densely populated villages. 

This is why when he learnt that their traditional land was claimed a ‘protected forest,’ Sitompul felt enraged. He and his community members rejected the claim, and continue to manage their customary forests with frankincense and various other forest plants.

"Our customary land was pioneered by our ancestors two hundred years ago, as evidenced by the fact that there are still ancestral graves in the middle of the customary forest, and until now we manage and protect our customary forest by planting incense; our ancestors have occupied this customary land even before Indonesian independence [in 1945]," he said.

They continue to guard their forests and extract economic value from the land.

Based on calculations by their traditional institutions, in an average year, indigenous communities, 95 per cent of whom are incense farmers, can sell around 10 tonnes of incense resin at approximately IDR 1 billion [USD 63,614] per year.

"Apart from protecting the forest, by planting incense we also get economic value from the incense sap that we tap," he said.

Why are indigenous communities still at risk of being evicted?

In Indonesia, specifically in North Sumatra, the customary lands of the Sihaporas, Pargamanan-Bintang Maria, Natumingka and Nattinggir indigenous communities were designated by the government as forest areas without their knowledge.

When their land is designated as a protected forest zone, the communities face the risk of eviction. Subsequently, the government issues concession permits for various activities like extractive industries, plantations, mining, tourism development, power plant construction and the government's food security programme – the 'food estate' – which involves clearing forest land for agricultural use.

Conflicts between communities and companies that own concessions often lead to arrests of members of indigenous communities.

This has been confirmed by Dana Tarigan, director of Green Justice Indonesia, who said that the government frequently exercises dominance in setting the status and boundaries of customary lands for indigenous peoples to live in.

"Because they understand their management rights better, the boundaries between customary areas have been mutually agreed upon by other customary land owners," he said.

Unfortunately, the resilience of indigenous communities in defending their land remains insufficient, primarily due to the challenges in gaining recognition of their existence and rights.

In 2012, Constitutional Court no. 35 was approved as an effort to recognise the rights of indigenous peoples, and the decision stated that customary land is not state land.

"But this has not been able to make indigenous communities sovereign over their customary land, nor has it been able to strengthen the position of indigenous communities against the interests of the government and investors," said Tarigan.

According to Abdon Nababan, a researcher and indigenous community activist from the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago, who was also one of the proponents of the Constitutional Court's decision, efforts have also been made to strengthen the rights of indigenous peoples through cross-ministerial coordination.

This resulted in the enactment of Minister of Home Affairs Regulation no. 5 of 2014, which stipulates that the recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples no longer requires processing through regional regulatory mechanisms at the district level.

Previously, recognition of indigenous peoples had to be mandated through a regional regulation mechanism, that involved the participation of regional heads and members of the regional people's representative councils (DPRD). It also included conducting comparative studies, academic research and consultations with indigenous communities and non-governmental organisations.

The costs of drafting these regulations are prohibitive. Nababan's calculations show that the country would need around IDR 135 trillion [USD 8,557,708,995] in funds to conduct them.

Therefore, the process of drafting regional regulations, according to Nababan, is political since the process of selecting regional heads and members of the DPRD are chosen through a voting process. In this process, there is often intervention from various parties, including investors. 

Another challenge lies in academic research, where university academics frequently lack sensitivity and insight into the issues facing indigenous peoples. Additionally, the perspectives of community activists from NGOs are often deemed unsubstantiated.

"With the existence of a ministerial regulation, the determination of indigenous communities no longer has to go through regional regulations, but can also be through a decree from the regional head, at regent level," he said.

However, this mechanism is also not free from challenges, because not all regional posses have the understanding and political will to support indigenous communities.

"If the regional head is more pro-corporation, usually their political will would be low to recognise the existence of indigenous peoples," said Nababan.

Local wisdom as a method of resilience 

Back in Simardangiang Village, Sitompul recalled that their customary land faced another threat in 2023, when a different company proposed to extract wood from their land. However, he once again stood firm and refused the offer.

"We have traditional institutions, where decisions cannot be made by me alone - they must be made by consensus," he said, referring to a process called "Tonggo Raja."

The Simardangiang indigenous community also upholds local wisdom to safeguard its forests and customary lands through 'Parpatihan.' This traditional practice includes rules for forest protection and the cultivation of thousands of incense trees.

To them, forests provide support both for their ecosystem as well as their economy; they constitute a buffer source of water for households and their rice fields in the lowlands. They also provide the perfect environment for incense trees to thrive and produce abundant latex for sale, since these plants flourish exclusively in forested areas.

"If our forest is damaged, then our source of life will also be damaged," Sitompul shared.

Each member of the traditional community manages their own plot of land, cultivating frankincense and various other plants such as durian, farmers, rubber and cocoa.

Every farmer is obligated to report all of the activities they undertake in the forest, including the proceeds from selling their incense, to the customary administrators. Land ownership rights are managed by individual families and the land cannot be sold. Members caught stealing incense face punishment.

"This Parpatihan is like a basic law, which is a reference for the order to protect forests and maintain the continuity of their lives," said Untung Sitompul, 54, a member of the Simardangiang indigenous community.

Their customary law also regulates limits on wood extraction from forests. They are only permitted to cut down wood in order to build houses, but even that is subject to conditions, namely two pieces of wood out of ten per area of the forest.

"Let alone from outside, indigenous peoples are not allowed to freely take wood from the forest, because for us the forest, without the forest we would not be able to tap incense resin," said Untung.

The local wisdom of Simardangiang formed the foundation for the North Tapanuli Regency's regional government to officially recognise the existence of the Simardangiang indigenous community in 2023, long with six other indigenous communities.

According to Dana Tarigan, local wisdom in the Simardangiang indigenous community should inspire other indigenous communities to build resilience and protect their land from outside intervention. 

"Actually, other indigenous communities also used to have local wisdom like this, but recently it has been lost, and they are vulnerable to being divided by corporate interests who want to control their traditional lands," he said.

By protecting their customary lands, indigenous peoples act as guardians of biodiversity, warding deforestation attempts, which pose a broader threat to the local environment.

"They are the guardians of the forest, and there should be no reason for the government to control their customary land, but instead should give them wider space to manage their customary land," he added.

Other indigenous communities in Indonesia have been trying for decades to reclaim their customary land by applying for the release of their land status from concession permits granted to investors. These battles are ongoing. 

Notably, the Simardangiang indigenous community has never faced such conflict.

Nababan argued that customary law and institutions are the most crucial criteria for verifying the existence of indigenous communities. Given the importance of these elements, he said, it should not be excessively difficult for the government to acknowledge their existence.

"The problem is whether the regional head has the political will. This is not easy, because political will is often interfered with by the interests of investors who want to expand their concession permits," he said.

Image by Tonggo Simangunsong