Table of Contents
Shifting cultivators and logging companies have traditionally been considered to be in conflict with each other as they are using the same resources for different purposes. Shifting cultivation is usually a subsistence-oriented agricultural system clearing forested areas for fields with annual crops and leaving these areas fallow for varying periods. Logging is mostly a purely commercial activity using the largest valuable trees, while the logged-over areas are either left for regrowth and re-logged after a number of years or else clear-cut for development of forest plantations or industrial crops such as oil palm or rubber.
Criticism of both systems has come from different sides. Shifting cultivation has mostly been accused of being wasteful of natural resources, having low productivity and maintaining people in a vicious circle of poverty (FAO Staff 1957; Lau 1979; Watson 1989; Rasul and Thapa 2003), and negative views of this farming system persist in many government circles in countries where shifting cultivation still occupies relatively large areas (Fox 2000). Conversely, logging activities have been under severe criticism by green organisations as well as from various academic writers — a criticism not focused exclusively on the impacts on the physical and biological environment, but also on the jeopardised livelihoods and land rights of communities in areas affected by logging (Hong 1987; Colchester 1993; Jomo 1994).
Colchester (1993), for example, argues that the system of Native Customary Rights Land in Sarawak leaves the natives without clear rights to what they perceive as their land, and their rights are not adequately acknowledged when concessions are given.[2] This has led to land use conflicts, and as individual communities often lack the power to influence decisions made on land use issues, partial alienation of land has been the result. Moreover, Colchester (1993) argues that Iban community leaders have been working more for their own benefit than for their community as such, and therefore have not adequately assisted local populations in land disputes. Local resistance towards logging has mostly been reduced to blockades of logging roads, which have been rapidly reopened by the police. Colchester shows how disputes over land date back to pre-colonial patterns of state control over forest resources, and how difficult it can be for local people to resist development plans involving their land.
The other extreme is represented by Lau (1979), who declared that shifting cultivators pose a threat to state interests as they cause ‘wanton destruction’ of valuable timber resources and are responsible for soil erosion, pollution and siltation of waterways, pollution of the air, river flooding, and the loss of valuable genetic resources and habitats for wildlife. His main concern was related to the rapid destruction of primary forest, but the calculations behind the data have been questioned by Hurst (1990), who sees them as overestimates, and by Hong (1987), who states that the calculations ignore the fact that shifting cultivators frequently prefer secondary forest for cultivation. However, the negative attitudes towards shifting cultivation within the governmental structures of Sarawak are not surprising, given the large revenues from the export of timber and the number of people employed in the forestry sector. Moreover, politics and logging have always been inextricably linked to each other (King 1993; Ross 2001) and, as stated by King (1993: 242):
The arrangements with Chinese entrepreneurs are an important means to cement cross-party alliances between Bumiputra and Chinese political leaders; these alliances are essential in the context of Sarawak’s political system.
Other authors, such as Dauvergne (1997), widened the frame of explanation to include international perspectives in the analysis of forest exploitation in Southeast Asia. Dauvergne claimed that large Japanese conglomerates control the logging operators in Sabah and Sarawak through favourable credit arrangements and thereby increase their logging rates without promoting sustainable forest management.
The opposing views on shifting cultivation and logging still persist in rather uncompromising forms, although a number of studies have tried to soften the conflict by a more balanced analysis of the systems (King 1993; Potter 1993). However, the question of whether peaceful coexistence between these two land use systems can be achieved seems to have been neglected. The objective of this chapter is to investigate interactions between natural resource managers in an area in Sarawak where Iban shifting cultivators live side by side with a large logging concession. We analyse the socio-economic and perceived ecological impact of the logging operation on the Iban communities as well as the effects of Iban shifting cultivation on logging. The potential for improved coexistence between these systems is discussed on the assumption that both shifting cultivation and logging are likely to continue in the future, and it is therefore counterproductive to focus only on the negative effects and interactions rather than on the opportunities for harmonising the two systems.