Indonesia’s One Map crucial for conflict-free development

Indra Pelani was an energetic and inquisitive young farmer who spent his free time volunteering for Indonesian environmental non-governmental organisation (NGO) Walhi Jambi. After planting the fields, he often roamed the village with his camera to record life in Tebo, a district in the resource-rich Indonesian province of Jambi on the east coast of central Sumatra.

Sometimes, he would capture clashes between the local farming community and a plantation company that has acquired their customary land in 2004. He had only a few years of education but had learned how to use GPS to do mapping for Walhi Jambi.

But Indra became a victim of his good work three months ago.

While on his way to a rice harvest festival held at a pulpwood supplier to a plantation giant, he was stopped, taunted and attacked by seven plainclothes guards. The next day, Indra was found in a swamp; his body covered with bruises and cuts, his mouth stuffed, his hand and feet bound. He left behind his widowed mother and a younger sister. He was 21.

A mass prayer ceremony for Indra was held last Tuesday, but there remains no closure for his family and friends. Members of Walhi Jambi and the Tebo Farmers’ Union believe the assault had to do with an incriminating picture in Indra’s camera — one that shows a local officer’s alleged involvement in land grab. The guards have turned themselves in and investigations are still ongoing.

Indra is not a lone victim of such violence. Last year, at least 116 environmental and land defenders were killed worldwide, based on a tally by international NGO Global Witness. Many more were intimidated and some deaths might have gone unreported. Nearly all killings were triggered by disputes over the ownership, control and use of land.

WHO OWNS WHAT?

In Indonesia, land conflict is a longstanding and growing problem, along with deforestation and haze pollution. These are often by-products of rapid agricultural, forestry and mining expansion, driven by the ever-soaring demand for commodities.

The uncertainty over who owns what is mainly due to the absence of a comprehensive and up-to-date reference map that could accurately account for all land use in the vast archipelago. Up until late last year, different ministries and government agencies had been referring to their own base maps when making decisions on land use. Information on permit allocation is hardly shared across agencies, making it possible for multiple permits to be legally issued for the same area, creating multiple legal concession holders, upsetting local inhabitants and fuelling conflicts that could at times turn deadly.

There is a lack of coordination between the central government and district governments, which have enjoyed considerable autonomy in natural resource management since the days of authoritarian rule under Suharto gave way to a decentralised power structure in the late ’90s.

Some have been granting permits quite liberally, giving little regard to the central government’s blueprint. The ambiguity creates a convenient excuse for companies to blame one another or the local communities for any environmental violations. Consequently, people who live in the most resource-rich provinces often bear the brunt of haze and land conflicts.

Recognising the need to tackle the land tenure mess, the Indonesian government is in the process of implementing the One Map initiative, first conceived under former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The initiative aims to produce an accurate and comprehensive record of the country’s geospatial and land use details. In late last year, Indonesia’s Geospatial Information Agency rolled out a standard land cover map after consolidating spatial data from 13 government agencies. This is a good start, but the country is still a long, long way from sorting out its many overlapping concession boundaries and competing land claims.

URGENT NEED FOR MAPPING

A practical step forward that the government can take is to deploy more resources to map the conflict-prone provinces first. For example, World Resources Institute’s Indonesia Country Director (WRI) Nirarta “Koni” Samadhi suggested that mapping should begin in Riau, a province long dogged by severe bouts of haze and a host of other issues including land conflicts.

At the recently held Singapore Dialogue on Sustainable World Resources, Mr Koni appealed to all major companies to release maps that show the boundaries of where they operate. Beyond that, the government must also send boots to the ground to drive the mapping of small- and mid-sized plantations as well as indigenous people and local community’s customary land. “This is how we can have a clear and accountable land ownership for every part of the country, and every party involved,” he said.

Following the 2013 haze crisis, Singapore tried rallying leaders of the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) to agree to the sharing of official land use and concession maps for the operationalisation of the joint Haze Monitoring System. There was initial resistance from countries including Indonesia and Malaysia, citing domestic laws that bar the disclosure of national assets such as forest resources.

ASEAN leaders eventually agreed to the sharing of official maps at the government-to-government level, on a case-by-case basis. But many have since realised the bigger question lies in whether the haze-prone countries have an accurate and comprehensive map to begin with.

One Map is a huge undertaking and is certainly labour-intensive and time-consuming. But the benefits of acting on it with a greater sense of urgency are also obvious.

One, accurate concession maps can be fed to fire and haze monitoring platforms such as the WRI’s Global Forest Watch-Fire and the SIIA’s Haze Tracker. This would make it harder for firms to deflect responsibilities when thermal hotspots are detected within their boundaries, giving more teeth to Indonesia’s domestic laws against environmental violations, as well as Singapore’s Transboundary Haze Pollution Act.

Second, One Map is also instrumental to the work of other government agencies, such as the National Agency for Disaster Management and the new Investment Coordinating Board, a one-stop licence service centre for foreign investors.

More importantly, only with One Map can the longstanding conflicts over land ownership between communities, smallholders and large concession holders be better managed, and tragedies such as Indra’s death be avoided in the future.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Cheong Poh Kwan and Lau Xin Yi are, respectively, Assistant Director and Executive (Sustainability) at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. Catch highlights from their field visit to Jambi and the Singapore Dialogue on Sustainable World Resources on Channel NewsAsia on 30 June at 8:30pm.