Reconciling Nature and Culture in a Global Context? - Rainforest ...

Reconciling Nature and Culture in a Global Context?Lessons from the World Heritage Listof Verheijen’s research the village of Modo (aka Komodo village) was comprised of 69houses, the nearby settlement of Nggaro had seven houses and a further four houses wereestablished at Liang (also known as ‘Kampung Kechil’ in Auffenberg’s study), later tobecome the official site of the National Park’s ranger station and tourist facilities. Auffenbergindicates that, in the period 1969-1971, there were also settlements at Lawi and Sabita(Kampung Lawi and Kampung Sabita, aka Bitaq in Wana Modo) (1981: 7) 20 . While notmentioned by Verheijen in his study of Komodo Island, two villages, Rinca and Kerora, arelocated on the island of Rinca, and another village, Papagaran, is situated on the island ofthe same name (PHKA and TNC 2000, Vol. 1: 13) 21 . According to Ellis, Kampung Rinca was“established after Kampung Komodo, but still well before the gazetting of the [P]ark” (1998:78). Ellis states that in 1930, 250 people lived in Kampung Rinca, while in the late 1990sthere were about 700 residents (loc. cit.).Of the eighty-five families comprising the population of the three settlements identified byVerheijen on Komodo, forty were originally from villages in the Manggarai region of westernFlores, twenty-five were from Bima and Sapé in eastern Sumbawa, six were from Sumbaand the remaining fourteen families originated from other places within eastern Indonesia(Needham 1986: 54-55). Of these eighty-five families, eight ‘family heads’ had immigrated toKomodo Island since the end of the Second World War (loc. cit.). While Verheijen’sdiscussion of ‘immigrant families’ may give the impression that there were no Ata Modopeople living in the village of Komodo in 1977, Needham indicates that some of these‘immigrants’ married local Komodo people or have Ata Modo relatives. In interviews Iconducted in October 2005, some of the residents of Kampung Komodo identifiedthemselves as the descendants of the original union between an Ata Modo woman and thefirst Sumbanese man to arrive on the island. A 1987 report by the Indonesian anthropologistI Gusti Ngurah Bagus identifies 18.4% of people living within Komodo National Park as‘Indigenous’, with Bajo and Bugis people respectively comprising 33.3% and 27.6% of thetotal population (Bagus 1987: 175). As discussed in the next sections, the issue ofindigeneity lies at the heart of management perceptions of people and culture within thePark.Verheijen himself speaks of a ‘Komodo clan’ and distinguishes this group from the “foundingclans from Sumba”, Wélaq (western Flores), Ambong (Ambon) and Kapu (western Flores)(1982: 4). According to Ellis, one of the other founding clans on the island is comprised ofpeople from Sapé. These people were not granted rights in land by the Ata Modo butinstead “received the rights to the gebang palm trees, from which a food staple similar tosago is made” (1998: 73-74). As indicated on a detailed map of Komodo appended toVerheijen’s monograph (Map 2), each of these five clans is associated with a circumscribedterritory. The territory of the Komodo clan is the most extensive and occupies the westernhalf of the island, while the lands of the four other clans are located in the south-eastern(Sumba clan), north-eastern (Ambong and Kapu clans) and central eastern (Wélaq clan)sections of the island. Interestingly, the village of Komodo is located in the territory identifiedas that of the Wélaq clan, which claims the smallest territory of all the clan groups on theisland.20 In interviews I conducted in October 2005, residents of Kampung Komodo also stated thatpreviously there was also a small settlement and gardens at Gunung Ara (in the Komodo languageNtodoh Puah) and Tanjung Kuning (Ntodoh Dato).21 The Nature Conservancy ‘Natural History Guide to Komodo National Park’ states that the village ofKerora was established in 1955 by “immigrants from [nearby] Warloka village” in western Flores,while Papagaran is said to previously have been a “temporary settlement for fishermen” (Erdmann2004: 13). Prior to 1998, when the borders of the national park were extended, the village ofPapagaran was situated outside of the park (PHKA and TNC 2000, Vol. 2: 55).25