Paul Hasan Thung, Planet Indonesia
The social sciences are increasingly seen as essential for conservation success. However, the focus should not just be on generating knowledge about local communities; otherwise, there is a risk that the conservation social sciences will reproduce historical injustices. In Indonesia, residents of resource-rich areas are often socially and economically marginalized, in part because they have little power over natural resource governance. As the Social Science Advisor for Planet Indonesia, an NGO with a holistic approach to conservation, my main task is to leverage social science to support community leadership. To illustrate how this approach to social science is different and why it matters, this blog post discusses a village-history writing initiative in the Gunung Nyiut Nature Reserve in Indonesian Borneo. Let’s start with the history of the invisible village on Mount Asem:
A long time ago, four men from Mount Asem went on a hunting trip, found an uninhabited forest abundant with wild boar, and decided to settle there with their families. After five years, one of the families wanted to visit the mountain, but they couldn’t find their old village. Having searched for a long time, they lay down to rest. As they slept, the mother had a dream in which her family warned, “You have violated our customary rules and can no longer see us.” It turned out that, on a rainy day, someone had taken firewood from another family without permission. This act of theft tainted all four families, who were never able to reunite their relatives. Today, in what looks like an ancient forest, you can find signs of human habitation, such as fruit trees, the sound of roosters in the morning, and certain aromas, yet the people remain unseen.
Youth history teams
This was only one of many fascinating stories written down by the Youth History Teams of the villages of Bentiang and Tengon. As part of our community engagement, Planet Indonesia provided a full-day training on interview techniques and other documentation methods. Additionally, we contributed funding towards their time and expenses. Then, over the course of three months, the teams produced many more stories, drawings, and pictures than we had anticipated. They wrote down stories from village elders about successive migrations to escape disease, failed harvests, and attacks by rival groups. They described a hero who killed a giant snake, led the fight against Dutch forces, and kept a collection of enemy ears in a metal box. They also documented the direct experiences of their parents and grandparents, who had been forced to help the national army drive out rebel forces from a nearby mountain in the late 1960s, converted to Protestantism in the 1970s, and witnessed great cultural and economic changes since. After minimal editing for readability and adding a short introduction, we assembled everything in small booklets.
Strengthening cultural identities
How, then, might these stories enable community-led conservation? The conventional approach would be to see them as examples of local knowledge, that “library of information” which is specific to a certain place and people but has the potential for wider relevance. However, for community members, the most important function of these exercises was not to share their knowledge with outsiders but to preserve it for future generations. When we brought some copies back to the villages, the village head of Tengon explained: “The community has almost forgotten its history; it is a real shame if the people of a village don’t know their own history.” The village head of Bentiang added: “The benefit is not just now but, in the future, for our children so that they can read about their history.” While the booklets weren’t complete or final versions of history, they were thus seen as valuable tools for strengthening cultural identities.
Building relations between conservation organizations and local communities
Moreover, supporting such processes is an opportunity for conservation organizations and communities to build mutual trust and understanding, which are necessary for effective community-led conservation. People living in biodiverse areas in Indonesia and beyond often feel a bit like the invisible inhabitants of Mount Asem; as if the outside world only has eyes for the forest. In rural Indonesia and elsewhere, conservation programs are contentious because they can seem to (and often do) unfairly restrict local people’s options for a good life. In contrast, the importance of history is something that everybody can get behind.
Empowering local stewardship
However, even with strong cultural identities and relations to conservation organizations, it is hard for local communities to invest in long-term and sustainable natural resource management without secure land rights. Many people who live and/or farm within the boundaries of protected areas struggle to access basic services. They fear that one day, the authorities will prosecute them for trespassing on their own lands. Fortunately, the Indonesian government also recognizes these difficulties and aims to improve the recognition of local and Indigenous communities, such as through the Social Forestry policy. The histories written by the youth teams play a key role in accessing such national schemes, which require the collaboration of many different regional stakeholders. Last month, community leaders from Bentiang and Tengon made a first official visit to the regional conservation authorities to present these histories, voice their concerns about the future, and lay the foundation for a collaborative solution.
To conclude, the history-writing exercise has revealed that Mount Asem, which appears to outsiders as nature, is seen by the people of Bentiang as their ancestral village. Government agencies and conservation organizations should consider such evidence when making policy decisions. Nevertheless, I have argued that the documentation of oral history and the conservation social sciences more broadly also have other roles to play. These include strengthening cultural identities, building relations, and empowering local stewardship, and are just as essential for conservation success as the production of scientific knowledge.
