In the course of working with the villages, several unfortunate events illustrated the problem of too easily drawing a causal link between strengthening local claims and safeguarding natural resources. Initially, the advocacy strategy of defending local welfare and rights to resources proved surprisingly successful, albeit on a small scale. In mid-1999, community appeals to stop a logging contractor from logging an area of communal forest near the village of Long Mio garnered unprecedented media attention. The multi-agency taskforce appointed by the Forestry Department to seek a solution to this conflict (The Star, 9 May 1999; Daily Express, 10 May 1999) deemed that since the community objected to logging in this area, it would be left to them to negotiate terms with the contractor.

This was a tentative victory for the village: tentative because less than a year after the community had historically turned the contractor away, logging in this area resumed. Evidently, suitable terms for logging to resume had been negotiated by the headman without consulting with other community members. He argued that it was within his power to make the deal since the land involved was under his customary claim. Ironically, in 1997 the same individual had implored WWF-Malaysia to help prevent logging in this area. Now he was challenging us to make an attractive offer to conserve this forest ‘since we were so keen on it’.^[8] We had nothing to offer, except perhaps the wry reiteration that we had been assisting under the impression that it was the desire of the community to conserve this forest because it was of value to them, and not because of the prospect of inducements from us.

A similar event happened in Long Pasia shortly afterwards. We were told that the same logging contractor had mistakenly crossed over an area of privately owned land and logged part of a forested hill inside the catchment area of the village’s gravity-feed system.^[9] The logging company paid some compensation to the landowner and the village and was given permission to remove the felled logs. What made this incident suspicious was the swiftness with which compensation for this incursion was organised. It seemed as though this scenario had been devised to shield local counterparts from appearing complicit in an arrangement. The incident was not reported to the Forestry Department. It was qualified that: ‘If the Forestry Department comes, they only fine the contractor or the logs are confiscated. This way at least we get something.’

These two events suggest that the effectiveness of the community–conservation NGO partnership at raising awareness and sympathy for biodiversity conservation can be highly effective, but it can backfire quite easily. While it is possible for advocacy strategies to ‘protect’ local people’s interests from outside threats, it cannot easily protect local people from themselves. Indeed, such strategies may quite inadvertently raise the rates of compensation and enhance the temptation to cash in for short-term gains.

It has often been argued that communal management of natural resources engenders greater social justice and preservation of the environment. Communal management has been portrayed as contributing to the sustainable use of natural resources and providing for local needs by ensuring the equitable distribution of land and resources. Further to these requirements, a functioning communal management system should be supported by a strong community organisation to arbitrate norms and regulations involved in managing resources held in common. On close examination, I have found that none of these three elements can be said to be truly functioning in the Ulu Padas villages at this time. Some may argue that this situation has arisen because local authority over customary lands and resources has been undermined in recent decades. It is also possible that in the right policy environment, all three of these prerequisites for strong communal management could be revived. However, the present situation does not engender confidence in the capacity of local communities to assume ultimate management of these resources. A very significant factor in this observation is the degree to which village life has been impacted by the pervasive influence of modernity. This is most apparent from some of the specific changes affecting common resources shared by the village community.

In Ulu Padas, traditional guidelines exist to govern access to resources that are held in common. A civil contract allows community members to access resources for domestic use both from each other’s fallow fields and in the village’s wider ‘territory’ according to stipulated regulations. Today, many common property regulations are not being effectively enforced and are openly flouted by some. When outsiders come into an area, they are customarily expected to ask the village headman for permission to enter the forest to harvest plant resources, go hunting or fishing. However, today this is often ignored. Consequently, it has become increasingly difficult to control the unsustainable exploitation of resources. In the rivers and streams, forbidden poisons and electric current have been used. Recreational hunters from urban areas are now using logging roads to access hunting areas (reports of six or seven deer and wild boar taken in a night are common).

Although the ‘enemy’ is frequently characterised as the evil outsider, often entry is facilitated from within. It is common for local people to serve as paid guides on these fishing and hunting excursions, and some even use unsustainable fishing practices themselves. Logging camps in the uplands create a steady demand for wild meat and this is a prime source of income for village hunters. This commercialisation of wild game already represents a form of open access use as it is contrary to conventions that restrict use of the resource to domestic needs (Berkes et al. 1989). With money now an important motivation, detractors who have psychologically crossed out of the traditional paradigm are unconcerned by social sanctions against such practices. While the removal of local people’s authority to exclude outsiders is a consequence of state laws, it is inconclusive whether this is the sole cause of the erosion of local management systems.

Local response systems for ensuring the smooth working of commons management were also not actively functioning. In community consultations, the women’s and young people’s discussion groups complained that irresponsible cutting of timber in nearby amenity forests was reducing the supply of accessible firewood, thereby burdening them with the need to travel further to replenish the hearth. Indiscriminate clearing of land along upstream riverbanks was also silting up patches of wild vegetables that are collected for daily meals. Traditional systems were not actively addressing resource use conflicts or regulating the activities of fellow community members. In addition, there seemed to be no framework for women to raise their specific concerns (Vaz 1999: 5).

A further development has been the strong trend towards privatisation of all resources, despite there being a long tradition of community access to certain resources such as bamboo shoots, fruits and others. Although this is the cause of considerable ill feeling, such behaviour being seen as mean and not customary for the Lundayeh, it has not been openly objected to. Rather, it has led to other people following suit in cordoning off other resource areas (Hoare 2002: 35). Increasingly, there is also a trend towards asserting exclusive use of all land. In the past, fallowed swidden land would traditionally be loaned to kin or neighbours for farming if needed. There is a new emphasis on the need to use land commercially for permanent crops and to secure this land with heavy emphasis on the principle of inheritance based on descent. In this context social obligations are being downplayed. Commercial crops are being emphasised in order to generate cash incomes (ibid.: 172). This can also be said to reflect a strategy to to strengthen the perceived legitimacy of land claims with the investment of labour on developing permanent crops, which would be viewed as being ‘more progressive’ by government authorities.