The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve REDD Project

G1.8.6. Areas Critical for Traditional Cultural IdentityAreas that are critical for the traditional cultural identity ofcommunities (e.g., areas of cultural, ecological, economic or religioussignificance identified in collaboration with the communities).HCV 6 draws attention to areas that are important formaintaining local cultural identity, such as burial sites, sacredsites, or locations where forest products are obtained for ritual orceremonial purposes. Management of HCV 6 aims to maintain orenhance the function of these areas by implementing amanagement plan developed in collaboration with localcommunities. At a minimum, this requires delineating andprotecting such areas from damage.areas east of the Seruyan, outside the Project Area but inside theProject Zone. If such forests also hold cultural importance tocommunities, then such areas might be considered HCV 6.HCV6 is considered unlikely to present in most communities ofthe Project Area, but this will require more intensive interview-­baseddata collection.Key questions in assessing the presence of HCV 6 in the ProjectArea include:Are there areas of cultural significance to communities?How are these areas used (e.g., worship, sacred place) and atwhat frequency?Where are these areas located?In the Project Area, most of the communities are Dayak ethnicity,but converted from animism or Christianity to Islam in recentpast. Unlike Dayak communities elsewhere in Kalimantan, whogenerally follow Christianity, communities in the Project Areawere considered unlikely to have religious rituals dependent onforests, as this is prohibited by Islamic teachings. Preliminaryfield surveys confirmed this, as no communities reported thepresence of sacred forest locations for worship or other culturalceremonies. As mentioned above, some communities do,however, assert customary rights over nearby communal forest78