In the Batang Toru area of North Sumatra, people have live alongside orangutans for many centuries. Can this coexistence continue in the face of enhance conservation of biodiversity and the need to improve the livelihood condition of the local community There are multiple claims on land and complex negotiations to find new arrangements that will work for all stakeholders, human as well as flora and fauna. A Rapid Land Tenure Assessment (RATA) method has been developed by ICRAF and it’s partners since 2003. It has become one of the tools for gaining a better understanding of land and resource tenure claims by the different interest groups. The refined understanding on land and resource tenure is meant to be used together by other related bodies of knowledge to support the negotiation processes among the different interest groups, which may improve the quality of the negotiation for better management of the natural resources. The purpose of the RATA field test at Batang Toru Watershed aimed to seek policy options to protect the biodiversity and improvement of the livelihood of the local community in and surrounding the Batang Toru watershed, North Sumatera as well as to improve the tool to be more applicable for various land and resource tenure claims in other parts of Indonesia, The field test was conducted in January 2007 in three villages in Aek Nabara (South Tapanuli district), Huta Gurgur (Central Tapanuli district) and Sibulan-bulan (North Tapanuli district). These three villages are located in and surround the Batang Toru watershed where ICRAF-SEA and CI-Indonesia are working together with the support of USAID. The key findings are: 1.The boundaries of the designated forest areas are overlapping with the village’s productive forests and agriculture lands. The designated forest area (penunjukkan kawasan hutan) do not provide a legal basis to define private-public lands. The appropriate (legal) process should be followed by forest delineation (penataan batas kawasan hutan) and forest gazettement (penetapan kawasan hutan), as spec ified in the forest law. Once the forest gazettement is finished, then the area can be called state forest areas (kawasan hutan negara). However, the civil rights of the communities over the land and resources in those particular areas will be protected as well, if the legal process is followed. The protection of those rights is clearly regulated in the North Sumatera Provincial Spatial Plan (Perda Prop Sumut 7/2003 Article 9). The state action against the civil rights of the local communities over the land and natural resources could be considered as the violation over those rights. 2. The three village’s settlements are located outside the appointed forest areas (kawasan hutan yang ditunjuk) but some of the rubber agroforests and the village-forests are located in the areas designated as forest areas. Specifically in Aek Nabara: some of the rice fields and mixed farms as well as the village-forest are located in the state forest area (kawasan hutan negara). This area was delineated in 1920 as part of the Dolok Sibual-buali nature reserve. Until today the forest boundary in Aek Nabara remained in dispute.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5716/WP15225.PDFAltmetric score:
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Publication year
2007
Authors
Language
English
Keywords
environmental assessment, land use, tests, watersheds
Geographic
Indonesia
