Mapping Customary Right; for Forests and Land management in Baliem Valley

Timber is the main valuable resource for the community in Baliem Valley, beside for housing and public construction it is also needed for wall in the farm land and fuel-wood for daily livelihood needs. High extraction by the community which mostly illegal even though in their customary territories has implicates to the high degradation in the valley, scarcity of commercial woods and social conflict because of forestry law enforcement. So making the timber would sustainably available for the community and development needs under clear rights protection and legal management scheme, the collaboration of Forestry Department of Jayawijaya District, Yayasan Bina Adat Walesi/YBAW (Local NGO Based in Wamena), Lorentz National Park Management Body and Lembaga Study Pembangunan Kampung/LSPK (local NGO based in Jayapura) are facilitating customary community rights recognition, institutional strengthening and land uses planning. The worked was started in 2010 and now has mapped the boundary of 19 customary community groups and 3 which are now having the land uses and forests development plan.

 Small plots of timber in covers coffee plots in Baliem Valley. Photo: Yunus Yumte

The project was designed to bridge the gaps in the government and the communities about the expected sustainable management of Baliem Valley. For the forestry department and Lorenz National Park Management Units a key problem was the fundamental difference in the way that the national Forestry Department and communities view forest governance: for the forestry department nationally, the lack of proof that communities can manage forests sustainably is reason not to acknowledge customary ownership, whilst for the communities, the question of forest ownership is non-negotiable and is separate from the objectives of quality of the management of forest resources. YBAW also analyzed that the problems of timber management is strongly relates to the economic and social position of the traditional communities of the Baliem. They believe that communities are increasingly marginalized within the economic and political life of the valley, and that the key to asserting influence over the development process is recognition of their land and resource rights and, by association, the traditional leadership and decision making institutions.

Livelihood and landscape assessment conducted by IUCN, Samdhana and Partners in 2008 – 2010 identified the steps forward to dealing with the landscape degradation, community rights and economic development problems. Customary boundary mapping, customary community land uses and forests management plan and legal recognition of rights and its management scheme are the sets of activities been recommended and implementing until now. YBAW with their social expertise been working on social customary boundary mapping, while LSPK then continue it with in-depth social-land-forests data collection until institutional development. Both are backed up with the technical and legal supports from Forestry Department. As a pilot in Witawaya (1 customary group has mapped) a reforestation program been initiated to test the effective implementation of modified customary community groups institution in managing the land forests resources.

Sketching the customary boundary in Social Mapping. Photo: Yunus Yumte

19 customary boundary maps produced. They cover 192,000 ha of forests, land and water body in Belliem Valley or about 65% of total districts areas. The maps had stimulated the discussion at government level to revise the administrative boundary that currently full of conflict. For forestry they helps to appropriately recognize the owner and keys stakeholder they will involving in the forestry program. LSPK with their works in 3 groups of 19 has produced a full sets of basic social-land uses and forests data bases. They have also helps these 3 community in establishing a modified customary institution for effectively manage their resources and socio-communal relation. The recently started reforestation program in Witawaya has plant 5000 seeds of casuarina and will be spread to each community member. A legal draft and academic script of customary right protection and recognition were developed and now ready for further discussion and improvement before it goes for final approval by the parliament.

Government particularly forestry department of Jayawijaya district believes that current collaboration among government, CSO/NGO in Baliem Valley and customary community groups are a great foundation and momentum to move forward with their legal plan on timber plantation. The new established FMU in Baliem will then found easy ways to develop a plan and partnership arrangement with the community. Timber scarcity will then easily to be solved with the customary community reforestation.

Understanding the right, culture, tradition of community and their interaction to natural resource is the best start to create low conflict, legal and sustainable approaches on natural resources management. Because illegal logging is beyond cutting the tree without legal permission. During the projects implementation in Baliem valley we learned that: 

• Community are mostly needs suitable friends to escape from their social-economic and environment problem. With limited capacity and minimum access to any positive information that could inspire them, a friend they expected should able to fill the gaps they had. Having someone or organization that understand local context with enough capacity to works with community was the project main attention when started. But then we found that most of the partner are also need to develop their capacity to handle all the technical-social and environmental issues they will working with community. So building a training of trainer program are one keys recommendation we should take in the next steps of projects

• Government are mostly don’t brave enough to take a deeply action to solve the community problem but they do have an intent to do that and would provide a financial support when they see the impacts of the issues been pushing at community. So investing resources and human capacity in several pilot sites should be a priority to build field based evidence in which clarification of customary rights, legal recognition, complete land uses plan and strong customary institution will lead to the legal, benefit and sustainable management of natural resources – include timber

• Holistic livelihood and landscape development approaches should be applied to bridge the gaps between community and government in the Balliem valley. The ongoing partnership among government-CSO/NGO and community that the project has successfully built should be maintained to the further works. But it is necessary for them to seat and talk about a long term target they will achieve in Baliem Valley though this collaboration.

Technical mapping preparation; develop gps tracking plan for boundary mapping. Photo: Martin Hardiono