Table of Contents
After the onset of the Indonesian economic crisis in 1997, ‘illegal’[1]logging increased quite dramatically across the country. In West Kalimantan, these activities invariably involved the export of timber across the porous international border into Sarawak, Malaysia. (The same has held true for East Kalimantan, with timber going into Sabah.) The power vacuum left after the end of Suharto’s New Order regime resulted in a de facto regional autonomy, well prior to the implementation of formal otonomi daerah in 2001 which has continued to facilitate these logging and export activities.
In the borderland of the upper Kapuas River, local élites and Malaysian timber bosses have taken advantage of this situation and of the 1999 forestry law permitting community cooperatives to cut timber for sale, creating an economic mini-boom. Many communities have become part of registered cooperatives whose ostensible aim has been community development. In practice, the goal has been logging, with the wood being transported across the international border into Malaysia. (Sawmills have been built on the Indonesian side of the border, but the lumber cut there has ended up in Malaysia.) The communities have received commissions for the timber extracted from their lands, but this has generally amounted to less than one per cent of the export value of the wood.
Occasional news reports of ‘illegal’ logging and smuggling of cut timber have appeared in the national and regional press, but efforts to stop it have tended to be very meagre. Locals have been of the strong opinion that nothing would be done about it because of local-level corruption, with government officials, military and police being paid off by the timber bosses or their representatives. In addition, there has been a challenge to local communities’ territorial boundaries. Since this logging boom began there have been a number of instances of community disputes over forest. In at least one case, the dispute was over forest land that had never been part of any traditional community territory. Locals have seen this as a rush to make claims on timber resources so that the local profits from logging might go to them.
In this chapter, I consider the question of how local communities control or influence the practice of ‘illegal’ logging within and across community and state boundaries. Drawing on field research from the upper Kapuas borderland in the vicinity of Danau Sentarum National Park, I examine an overlooked but important factor in this logging — the establishment of the borderland and the concomitant development of a ‘borderlander’ identity among the Iban inhabitants. I then look at local community cooperatives, the practice of ‘illegal’ logging, and the influence of regional autonomy on these activities. I also examine local perceptions of the situation, their worries about future impoverishment, and the role that local empowerment can and does play in dealing with regional and foreign interest in their forests. In addition, I explore the potential of local, low-mechanised logging for sustainable forest management.