Reconciling economic development with conservation in Indonesia

The rainforests of Malinau, in Indonesia, have global conservation value. The government and conservation organisations have supported sustainable development, to varying extents, to preserve the area’s rich biodiversity. Success will depend on finding a balance between protected areas, forests managed at industrial and community scales, and land conversion.

Malinauis the largest and most forested district in Kalimantan, Indonesia, covering anarea of 42,000 square kilometres. Research from the Center for International Forestry Research, in Indonesia, reviews the extent to whicheconomic and social developments in Malinau are linked with, or are consistentwith, natural resource conservation. The authors also explore ways in whichthese links might be made more effective.

Historically,a sparse population of different ethnic groups’ ­­­– collectively referred toas Dayaks – has practiced low-impact slash-and-burnagriculture and collected non-timber forest products in Malinau. Developmentpressures began in the early 1970s, and logging and coal mining businesses arenow large. With migration, the population of the Malinau area has grown rapidlyto 37,500 people, half of whom live in the frontier capital.

Relationsbetween logging companies and Dayaks have beendifficult and many people in the international community feel that the Dayaks are missing out on potential benefits. Despite theproblems, local people have generally welcomed development as they havebenefited from improved access to other areas and employment. Malinau haslargely escaped the environmental destruction and social tensions seen in manyother parts of Indonesia.

Threedistinct approaches to conservation have been attempted:

• spatialplanning to attribute land to different uses, particularly to identify anddesignate protected areas such as the Kayan Mentarang National Park
• abalance between conservation and development by controlling logging, promotingbiodiversity preservation in logged forests, ecotourism, and allowing limitedhunting and gathering
• decentralised, community-based management thathas delivered more income to the local government from natural resourceextraction and control over logging concessions.

Potentialinitiatives to enhance conservation include indigenous reserves for resourceextraction; payments for environmental services such as forest carbon storage;and protection of forest sites for cultural reasons. But time will tell whetherMalinau can withstand the pressures of development.

Severalkey issues remain:

• Conservationmight have been better through a different approach to protected areas, with alarger number of smaller reserves rather than a single large national park.
• Large-scaleecotourism in Kayan Mentarangis unlikely, because of its remoteness and the lack of easily observablewildlife.
• Localcommunity rights to manage logging have led some people to sell concessions tounscrupulous outsiders for short-term benefits.
• Decentralisationhas led to better infrastructure, but there is little evidence of local peoplebeing able to regulate logging in newly-opened remote areas.
• Informationon the biodiversity and value of different forest areas is limited; valuableareas may be lost before they are surveyed.

A debateon the future of the area is necessary, bringing together supporters ofconservation and development.