The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve REDD Project

categories: housing, office, agricultural use, plantation, fishery,public facilities, and graveyard.There are five farmer groups, each with 20-­‐50 members.G1.6. Current Land Use, Property Rights, and ConflictsA description of current land use and customary and legal propertyrights including community property in the project zone, identifying anyongoing or unresolved conflicts or disputes and identifying anddescribing any disputes over land tenure that were resolved during thelast ten years (see also G5).Land Use and Property RightsThe local system of land ownership is quite simple and clearamong locals, only engendering complications with the arrival ofoutside interests. Locally, villagers respect each other’s propertyand land rights. They know the location of boundaries withoutresorting to physical demarcation. Until recently, they did nothave an official, written form of documentation to verify landownership. Some villages and individuals have now started touse land ownership certificates (Surat Kepemilikan Tanah) issuedand signed by the village head.Most villages have a land use plan for land within their village(desa) boundaries. A typical village land classification schemecreates the following categories: housing, agriculture (used forplanting rubber (Hevea braziliensis, Dyera costulata, or otherspecies that contribute to their livelihoods), public facilities (suchas health clinics and schools), fisheries, and graveyards.Some communities have accepted the expansion of oil palmplantations into the area, while others have fought it. Onecommon complaint is that communities are not informed aboutthe existence of oil palm plantations in their vicinity, but they arewilling to try planting oil palm to see whether this species cancontribute significantly to their welfare.When asked what kinds of programs they would like to see intheir communities, most villagers stated that they were open toany program that would improve their welfare and capacity toface future challenges. They emphasized that they wished to beinformed early in the process, before the program commenced.ConflictsThe survey of communities in the Project Zone conducted byDaemeter Consulting suggests that very few conflicts overproperty rights existed in the area until the arrival of oil palmplantations. Since then, however, protracted social conflicts havebeen relatively common, particularly during the early phase ofplantation development. During this phase, oil palm companiesoften seize disputed land first and worry about the legal andeconomic consequences later, as compensation typically doesnot have to be paid until after the plantation has commencedoperations. Local communities, by contrast, must bear the socialand environmental costs from the earliest phase of plantationdevelopment. The following is a detailed chronological record ofa typical conflict, as yet unresolved, between Project Zonecommunity members and an oil palm company:1997. During the high season for logging, several members ofTanjung Hanau village dug a channel to be used fortransporting logs. The channel, called Tatah Pambakal, waslocated on farm land previously cleared by the village head,near Natai Pambakal. In addition to transporting logs, thechannel was also used for fishing and transportation.40