Can local wisdom be used in forest conservation around national park?. The case in Seram

Island, Central Moluccas, Indonesia

Nining Liswanti1, Yves Laumonier2, Marthina Tjoa3 and Thomas M. Silaya3

1CIFOR, 2CIRAD – CIFOR, 3University of Pattimura

IUFRO 2014 WORLD CONGRESSSalt Lake City, 7 October 2014

Forest for People: Value of Traditional Knowledge for Sustainable Forest Management

WHY SERAM? Highly strong in the cultural and customary – applied traditional

forest management practices for long time Traditional land ownership (village, clan, individual territory) Manusela National Park to protect an area of 1,890 km² (established

in 1997), High B/D richness (117 birds & 38 mammals) 4 Ecosystem types (coastal, swamp, lowland, mountain rainforest)

Current issues & threats Traditional LU for mixed gardens and

collection timber and NTFP is forbidden inside the park.

The village boundaries are in close proximity to the MNP, caused of conflict over land and resources

Lack of agricultural land & livelihood option, oil palm plantation, mining and logging concessions, population growth and migration – illegal logging and illegal wild bird trading (Salmon-crested Cockatoo) inside the park

To identify the forms of local wisdom for the communities adjacent Manusela National Park for

conservation and sustainable forest management of the park

Site Location

Population living inside and outside the park: 91.000 people

Social organization & governance

keluarga/family

Mata rumah/number of family

clan

soa/numberof clan

negeri/village

Customary law regulate the customary rights (hak ulayat)

Customary land tenure types Land owned by village (negeri), clan group (soa), and family (keluarga)

• Governance

• Additional social structure (groups of villages)• Patasiwa & Pataliwa (Sub-ethnic

Wemale & Alune)

• Pela/Gandong

• Social Organization village

Important forest and agriculture products Crops: cloves (Syzygium aromaticum), nutmeg (Myristica fragrans), coconut

(Cocos nucifera), cocoa (Theobroma cacao), banana (Musa sp.), sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas)

Fruits: durian (Durio zibethinus), kweni (Mangifera odorata), langsat (Lansium domesticum), manggo (Mangifera indica), mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana), rambutan (Nephelium lappaceum)

Timber: ironwood (Intsia bijuga), gofasa (Vitex cofassus), canary (Canarium spp), samar (Homalium foetidum), lenggua (Pterocarpus indicus), benuang (Octomeles sumatrana)

NTFP: rattan, sago (Metroxylon sagu), dammar resin (Agathis damara), bamboo, palm tree, honey

Animals: pig (Sus scrofa), deer (Cervus timorensis ), cuscus (Phalanger maculatus ), cockatoo (Cacatua moluccensis) , nuri bird (Alisterus amboinensis)

Local Wisdom Practices Forest is important for subsistent (food,

medicine, construction, firewood etc) and livelihoods (NTFP)

Applied in all traditional villages in Seram The forms of local wisdom: sasi, sacred

places (taboo), dusung, and krois,  salele, matakau, nanaku, kewang

1. SASIA management system used by the community for sustainable natural resources management where collection of certain forest product (economic or subsistence value) is prohibited.

The forms of Local Wisdom

Sasi Gereja (church) Sasi Adat

(customary)

Sasi Hutan (forest)

Prohibited to collect forest products for certain period at certain forest area (Seli kaihatu/ anapoha)

Animals (cus-cus, deer, wild pig), timbers (litsea, makila, lenggua, iron wood, ficus, diospyros), NTFP (Metroxylon sago).

A harvest prohibition on fruits that are unripe for certain crops before harvesting (3-6 months), e.g. coconut, cocoa, durian, nutmeg

King determines area for sasi (1-3 ha)

To obtain a maximum harvesting of certain commodities

Sasi tanaman (plantation crops)

2. Natural sacred sites or "taboos"

The community’s effort to protect the forests from internal and external user that caused of forest damage

Prohibited to collect forest products at certain forest areas that have supernatural agencies (ancestor spirits and natural spirits)

People believe that those spirits monitor human conduct and impose punishments on violators (bad luck or demon possessed)

3. Krois (a cross) A cross "X" made

from two pieces of bamboo or wood that placed surrounding the fruit trees garden to protect the fruits from a thief

People believe that using krois, their garden is filled up with sharp items (dodesu) and ignoring ‘Krois’ will make the thief feel hurt

4. Dusung

A knowledge for planting techniques by applying agroforestry system

Planting timber trees and various crops (seasonal and annual crops) e.g. lenggua, jabon, walnuts, Albizia sp, dammar resin, clove, nutmeg, sweet potatoes, banana, yam etc

Sasi is used before fruit harvesting

Durian (Durio zibethinus)

Damar resin (Agathis dammara)

Salawatu (Albizia sp)

Banana (Musa sp)

Pineapple (Ananas comosus)

Other forms of local wisdom

Matakau is an effort to protect natural resources by giving a red mark from fabric material on certain area. It is believe that ignoring Matakau will cause of bad luck or disaster.

Kewang, is a traditional village's institutions that used to monitor and to protect forest resources in the village territory

Nanaku

Nanaku is used to protect certain forest areas – put a sign inside the dusung or forest

Salele is applied to protect wild fruit trees from destruction or stolen before harvesting by wrapping the trunk tree with coconut or sago leaf

Salele

Kewang

Local wisdom for conservation Manusela National Park?

The forms of local wisdom have showed traditional forest management to protect the community’s forest and used in sustainable way – acknowledged by the park management

The park management could adopted and implemented this system by integrating this system in to park management such as sacred places and sasi forest - Involving the community for conservation of national park

This local wisdom give implication to the current regulation of national park for sustainable forest management without damaging the forest.

Some efforts… The park management proposed to revise the NP spatial planning to exclude all villages and agricultural land inside the park as enclave areas in the forms of traditional use (sasi forest) & cultural zoning (dusung) (2011)

Agreement between the park and community in Masihulan to protect the forest from illegal timber extraction (2012) - the community obtained legal permit to collect dammar resin inside the park

In 2012, local wisdom has been considered for forest conservation of Manusela national park, in order to respect indigenous peoples, to give an opportunity for local people to utilize their traditional land inside the park, to build collaboration partnerships with communities around the park, and to strengthening the capacity of local people

Promoting traditional forest management for ecotourism in Manusela national park

Thank you

http://www.cifor.cgiar.org

Village profileDescription Sawai Saleman Horale Roho Kanikeh Manusela Kaloa

Village establishment

1800s 1800s 1910 1953 1800s 1920

Land areas per HH (mean)

2.52 2.6 37 8.75 3.685 29.07

Religion Moslem, Christian

Moslem Christian Christian Christian Christian Christian

Total inhabitants (people)

4,517 527 368 232 1868 499

Total HH 653 116 85 61 372 124

Original (HH) 568 102 78 61 342 122

Migrant (HH) 85 14 7 0 30 2

∑ person per HH/mean

2-13 (6) 2-9 (5) 2-10 (5) 2-8 (4) 2-9 (4) 2-12 (5)