The Road to Renah Pemetik: When Getting There is Half the Fun

If you look at the map I've included to the left you can see Kerinci Seblat National Park.  The enclave in the middle there is the Kerinci Valley, where I live in the town of Sungai Penuh.  If you look closely you can see a small arm of land that stretches up to the northwest and then north out of the main Kerinci Valley that isn't covered by the park.  This is Renah Pemetik, and there are a few (maybe 5) villages with some rice fields and coffee, tobacco, and pepper fields up there.  The total population is probably somewhere between 3-5,000 people.  I went up to Renah Pemetik twice over the past week with my field assistant to look around and talk to folks because this is the site of one of the 33 or so proposed roads that would go through the park.  This particular road would link up Pelompek (where Gunung Tujuh in previous posts is) to Renah Pemetik and then continue over to Bungo, the next district to the east.  As I've mentioned previously, conservationists abhor the idea of roads through the park because of the ecological impacts, whereas local governments are adamantly in favor of the roads as a way to improve the economy.  The Renah Pemetik road is probably going to be a hot issue in the coming year because the current district headman, who is up for re-election next year, has said that he wants to make the Renah Pemetik area the "lumbung padi" (breadbasket) of the Kerinci region, and part of that plan is the road to Bungo, which he's declared several times he will build.  The problem is that any road through the park requires approval from the Ministry of Forestry, and they've already rejected this particular road once.  The headman's recent statements make no mention of the park or the legal obstacles; only his intention to build the road.  We had a pretty good time fooling around with our compasses and GPS units, and the local folks gave us all sorts of interesting information.

Over the Hills and Through the Trees

Like many places on Sumatra, getting to Renah Pemetik is something of an ordeal.  Although there is a new road directly over the hills from Kerinci Valley via Sungai Tutung, it has not yet been surfaced and so we took the old route through the villages of Hiang and the Pungut area.  Once you get passed Pungut Hilir village the road becomes a lot more difficult.  Though the regional government has recently widened and "improved" the road, this one also hasn't been surfaced and so there are some hairy spots, especially after it rains.  In the picture you can see my assistant pushing his motorcycle through one of the muddy spots.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, when the local government builds roads through the Bukit Barisan mountains they normally make really steep cuts through the hills.  If you've ever passed through the Appalachian mountains you've seen steep road cuts, but the difference is that those mountains are made of granite and other hard rock that doesn't collapse easily whereas the hills here are composed of a high percentage of soil and saprolite.  As a result landslides are a frequent occurrence here because the roads aren't engineered with slope stability in mind.  Have a look at the picture for an example.  This particular road will most certainly collapse at some point in the future.  In the picture below you can see another problem with roads through forests and mountains that doesn't normally make the common lists of ecological impacts: the debris from road cuts or landslides can block up streams creating an artificial marsh.  As you can see from the photo the water is really muddy and it is killing all the trees in the flooded area. 

 

The Rice has Already Become Porridge

The road to Renah Pemetik is supposed to thread the needle through that narrow neck of area that connects the valley to the larger Kerinci area.  I had heard some concerns that the new road goes through the park, but I'd also heard that it doesn't, so along the way I took UTM coordinates and compared them to my map.  As it turns out, the road does indeed go through the park (I've indicated the approved route and the true on the ground route in the picture below; the approved route is indicated by the black line whereas the actual route is shown by the red line.  The park boundaries are depicted by the green lines with circles which show the locations of border markers), so evidently the regional government disregarded the warnings of the Ministry of Forestry and decided to go ahead and construct an illegal road.  It's easy to see why the would do this; there isn't really much monitoring and there don't seem to be any consequences.  Who do you hold accountable?  Who do you arrest?  And by the time the road is constructed the damage is done and there isn't anything you can do about it. In the meantime, pioneering farmers move in and clear land to the left and the right of the road, which has happened in this case.  We saw a lot of new coffee plots on the edges of this road inside the park.

Illegal cultivation of coffee along the illegal road.  Note
the road cut, which will eventually collapse.

This is part of what I've termed the "nasi sudah menjadi bubur" strategy.  This is an Indonesian idiom that means "the rice has already become porridge", and is similar to the French-cum-English expression "fait accompli".  It means that something has already come to pass and that you can't turn back time.  Thus when a road is built, be it legal or illegal, it's really hard to do anything about it.  You can see this in the Renah Pemetik case.  In addition the regional government has obviously made a pretty significant, with drainage culverts along the side of the road as you can see in the picture.  The road is pretty wide as well, and though there are sections that are hard to pass, for the most part traffic can flow pretty freely.  The local government has built this road in anticipation of the construction of the aforementioned road to Muara Bungo.  What this seems to do though is to increase immigration into the area (1) and so the population of the area increases, as does the land under cultivation.  More people creates more demand for services like schools and electricity, but also it creates a stronger voice for further infrastructure improvement.  More farmers making more produce adds to the demand (and economic rationale) for increased connectivity.  So from one perspective the argument for the new road through the park gets stronger.  I'm not ready to definitive call this an intentional strategy on the part of the local government to undermine the park, but I'm leaning in that direction.  

Working it out

We use a technique called "triangulation" to get a rough estimate of the location of forest encroachment and cultivation that we are either unable or too lazy to get to.  Basically this involves making a big triangle with three points and then figuring out the angles and lengths of the sides.  To triangulate a position you have to have two known points and you have to know the distance between them.  If you have a good map with landmarks on it you can use those, or you can take coordinates with your GPS (if it's pretty accurate) and then use a mapping program or trigonometry to determine the distance between them.  My field assistant and I generally determine the distance with pace counts, which is less accurate but quicker.  We've pre-measured how many steps it takes us to traverse 10 meters and 20 meters, and so in the field we pace off the distance between our two known points.  If you are on a road and trying to determine the location of a place off the road, this works ok.

Next you use your lensatic compass to take an azimuth to the unknown point from each of your known points.  You also need to take an azimuth from one known point to the other (it's better if you do a back azimuth as well).  With these readings you can figure out two angles of your triangle, and since all the angles of every triangle add up to 180 degrees, you can figure out the third angle.  By this point you should have three angles on one side measured, and so you can use the Law of Sines to figure out the remaining two sides.  That gives you a rough estimate of how far away the unknown point is.  Obviously the more care you put into taking your measurements, the more accurate you're results will be.  You can see the technique illustrated in the diagram above this paragraph.

The people in the area are all in favor of the new roads from Pelompek and then on to Muara Bungo.  They all support the current district headman, who has visited the area 4 times over the past 2-3 years to mingle with the people.  It is also reported that he (along with other local leaders) has acquired a significant amount of land in the area.  Most of the folks that have moved into Renah Pemetik over the past few years are from the headman's home turf as well.  They also told us how the newly improved road south out of the area has improved their lives.  It is easier to get agricultural produce to market and the cost of goods and transport is cheaper, so they have more money to spend on their children's educations.  Most people in the area portray the park as an obstacle to local development, but then again many of them moved into the area knowing that land is limited and that cultivation within the park is illegal.  Moreover, there is often a tendency to portray the road issue as a trade off between local livelihoods and conservation.  But in this particular case it seems like the existing road could have been built without going through the park.  The mushrooming of illegal cultivation along the road strengthen the argument of conservationists that, if a new road were to be built, it would lead to a sharp increase in forest crimes and habitat destruction.  

Notes

(1)  I don't have numbers or stats to back this up; just information gleaned from interviews.  

From Illegal Logger to Forest Defender

Barlian and daughter Novi taking a break on the "road".
Note the Ipad.

This past weekend I took a trip down to a town called Sungai Ipuh in Mukomuko district, Bengkulu Province to see Barlian, the head of GenesisMukomuko, a small non-governmental organization (NGO) concerned with a number of conservation and social justice issues.  I'd communicated a good bit with Barlian via Facebook and I knew a bit about him and his NGOs activities, but we never met personally.  In addition to getting to know Barlian, I wanted to pick his brain about some of the proposed road projects that would cut through the national park.  In addition, Barlian was recently profiled in Kompas, Indonesia's newspaper of record, which is pretty cool.  We met in a cafe on the side of the road about 20km south of Tapan.  I found him sitting there fooling around with his new Ipad (which I would come to learn is an essential accessory for Barlian), and after a coffee we saddled up and rode a further 2 hours to his home in Mukomuko.

Barlian's Story

In 1998 what would come to be known as the Asian financial crisis swept like a wave across Southeast Asia, crippling the economies of most of the countries in the region along with that of South Korea.  Indonesia was among the hardest hit, and my friend Barlian, like many others, was seriously affected.  Previously Barlian had harvested non-timber forest products to be sold to cosmetics companies, but the market collapsed.  To feed his family, Barlian turned to illegal logging in the forests of Kerinci Seblat National Park, where I'm doing my PhD research.  Barlian worked as a kind of scout or surveyor for a cukong (1), entering the forest to locate valuable species, like Meranti and Damar Laut which would later be harvested and cut into logs by a chainsaw operator and hauled out by porters.  Barlian told me that a single Meranti tree could yield 15 cubic meters of wood, and that he and his crew could harvest around 50 cubic meters per week.  The pay was very good; in a week Barlian could make what others make in a month, and he suddenly found himself with more money that he knew what to do with.  He even ended up lending a significant amount to neighbors in need.

But then in the early 2000s something happened.  Barlian got involved in a grassroots campaign to prevent the district government from granting a large land concession to a giant plantation company.  The company planned to plant palm oil, which would put a lot of money in the pocket of the local government, but much of the land involved was already occupied by villagers, and so they would lose their land and source of livelihood.  Due to his involvement in the ultimately successful campaign, Barlian's eyes were opened not only to issues of land equity, but he also learned about all the ecosystem services that forests provide to the local people.  He decided to turn away from illegal logging and he eventually founded GenesisMukomuko, which has developed into a highly-regarded organization that carries out educational programs, forest monitoring, and lobbying activities.  GenesisMukomuko works with international organizations like Conservation International (CI) and Flora and Fauna International (FFI).

Barlian also has become an expert at using social media to spread the word about illegal activities or policies that might threaten the national park.  Though Barlian is quick to say he's lacking in formal education (he only finished middle school), he points to his background as an illegal logger (2) as an asset; as we sat surveying the site one of the 33 proposed roads that would cut through the park (Sungai Ipuh-Lempur) he told me that if a helicopter dropped him anywhere in the park's forest, he could find his way out without a compass or map.  Knowing how the illegal logging business works helps in identifying networks and getting the word out.  Barlian also travels extensively; he said he's already worn out 2 motorcycles exploring and visiting different parts of the 1.3 million hectare park.

The Sungai Ipuh-Lempur Road

As I've mentioned previously, the Sungai Ipuh-Lempur road is one of 33 road proposals currently being discussed by various agencies at different levels in the Indonesian governmental hierarchy.  This particular road would join two villages on different sides of the Bukit Barisan mountains, the first being in Mukomuko district (where Barlian lives), the second being in Kerinci district (where I live).  Currently it takes about 6-7 hours to go from Lempur to Sungai Ipuh, but a 40 kilometer shortcut through the park would turn it into a one-hour trip.  Proponents of the road say it would improve cultural ties between the historically linked villages and that it would improve the economy in both districts by increasing trade and access.  On the other hand the road would cut through sensitive ecosystems and the habitat of several endangered species, including the Sumatran tiger.  Opponents of the road also claim that it would make it easier for illegal loggers and poachers to enter the park, and that it would facilitate forest encroachment by pioneering farmers.

Another break on the "road".  Again, note the Ipad.

Barlian and I took a pretty extreme motorcycle tour of the area so I could get an idea of the location of the proposed road.  We had to pass through acres and acres of village palm oil patches using dirt and gravel roads and crossing streams.  Fortunately it hadn't rained in a few days, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to get anywhere.  One of the things that strikes you (literally and figuratively) in Sumatra is the general condition of the roads.  Opponents of roads through the park often make the point that if the district governments can't maintain the roads that they already have, why do they want to build new ones through the park?  As I struggled to guide my motorcycle through the mud this question occurred to me, since poor roads increase the cost of production for village farmers and make it difficult to get their goods to market.

Barlian told me that for the most part the people of Sungai Ipuh aren't very concerned about the road (3); conversations with other residents confirmed that most of them could go either way on the issue and that their main concern was indeed the condition of the existing roads.  There doesn't seem to be much substance to the economic development arguments because there aren't really any complimentary products or services between Mukomuko and Kerinci, and the trade that does exist wouldn't be affected one way or another by a new road.  Barlian told me that he can't figure out who is actually in favor of the road on the Mukomuko side, but the real backers are the folks in Lempur, who are relatively wealthy.  Barlian told me that the true motivation is that they want to be able to buy land in Mukomuko that can easily be accessed from Lempur.  This, he explained to me, would increase pressure on the park because the value of land would increase and people would be pushed to illegally cultivate fields in the park.  He predicted that if the road was opened, all the forests in the area would be cleared in 10 years.

Palm Oil: Another Concern

GenesisMukomuko also focuses on the palm oil industry in Mukomuko.  Palm oil comes from a palm tree and is used for all sorts of purposes ranging from cooking to powering vehicles.  It's one of the more valuable crops in terms of yields, and so over the past 20 years there has been a huge increase in palm oil cultivation in coastal areas of Sumatra.  Most palm oil is produced by large corporations, and many of these firms were granted vast estates by the government of President Suharto, who resigned amidst widespread protests in 1998.  During the Suharto years rights to exploit Indonesia's natural resources, especially those of Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Papua, were granted to friends and family of the corrupt regime.  A few people got very rich, but the people living around the mines and forest estates enjoyed none of the benefits.  When Suharto fell most of the concessions awarded during his reign remained, which has caused a lot controversy now that power has been decentralized to the provinces and districts.  Local people (and local governments) want to reap the rewards of resources they perceive to be, by right, theirs, but long-term leases and concessions with terms very favorable to the large corporations are still in effect.

This is particularly problematic in Mukomuko, where AgroMuko, a Belgian-owned firm, and other large corporations control approximately 130,000 of around 400,000 total hectares in the district.  Although the palm oil produced by these big firms is by far the largest industry in the district, most of the revenue goes to the national government, and many argue that the taxes and other contributions are far too low.  In addition, the laborers on the large estates are poorly paid, and so very few local people are willing to work there, which means that there are a lot of people from outside the district moving in.  Local people would rather own and grow their own palm oil patches, but the problem is that the best land has already been given to the big companies, and the government has so far neglected to provided the transportation infrastructure necessary to enable the local farmers to thrive.  They also complain that good seedlings are too expensive and so they are forced to use inferior varieties that often fail.

Palm oil and coastal erosion.  The wall and armoring to the
right of the photo were started a couple of years ago.  

On the way down to Sungai Ipuh Barlian and I stopped at the beach, which is just off the road.  I was amazed to see glassy conditions and set after set of perfect 3-7 foot waves coming in over a 2 kilometer stretch (I've already named one of the breaks).  I was shocked though when Barlian told me that just 10 years ago there was a large conservation area protecting coastal marshes where the beach is now.  He and others contend that the rapid coastal erosion that is such a big problem in Mukomuko and other districts on the western edge of Sumatra is caused by the big oil palm estates.  One tree sucks up 800 liters of water per day, and so the idea is that they lower the water table, altering the hydrology of the region which hastens coastal erosion.  Thus this is another way in which the local people are hurt by the big companies; though they suffer all of the environmental consequences they don't share in the profits.  According to people like Barlian, if more of the land was owned and managed by local people, they would use more sustainable methods.

I had a really good time staying at Barlian's place over the weekend and am happy to have made a new friend.  If you'd like to learn more about GenesisMukomuko, you can check out their website by clicking here, though most of it is in Indonesian.  If you have specific questions you can email me at geografikanusantara@gmail.com.

Road Construction and Kerinci Seblat National Park Part 1

Picture from Rapid Response Facility

In past posts I've focused on some of the threats to Kerinci Seblat National Park, including encroaching farmers and illegal logging.  Road construction is another major problem confronting the park's managers.  Currently there are no less than 32 proposed road projects that would cut through the park.  Over the next couple of posts I'll be talking about the proposed roads.  Each of these potential roads would have significant impacts on Kerinci Seblat National Park, ranging from direct impacts on flora, fauna, and ecosystems to more indirect and systemic impacts on the environmental services provided by the park.  These roads are emblematic of the preservation/development dichotomy inherent in national parks; you can have one or the other but not both.  Today's post focuses on one project in particular: the 40 kilometer road that would link Lempur village in Kerinci district (Jambi province) to Sungai Ipuh in Mukomuko district (Bengkulu province.  In the next post I'll discuss why roads are such a threat to conservation areas in general.

Roads for Development...

After the fall of President Suharto in 1998 significant power was devolved to district (kabupaten) governments.  At the same time, the districts were tasked with the responsibility of increasing locally generated revenue to pay for government programs.  For district governments the most popular way of increasing revenue is through infrastructure development.  The idea is that the more roads you have the more open and connected the district will be, and thus development will increase through trading and investment.  Roads and other infrastructural projects are also very visible projects; political leaders can refer to kilometers of roads built when they seek re-election.  The problem for the 15 districts and administrative municipalities around Kerinci Seblat National Park is that national law prevents them from building roads through the park.  This hasn't stopped road planning, though; currently at least eight of the 15 districts and municipalities have road proposals on the table. 

There are lots of justifications for roads ranging from opening up "isolated" villages to development of the tourism sector.  Though traditional pro-road arguments mainly focus on economic development, since the devastating earthquake that hit Padang in 2009 the most powerful and prevalent justification is that additional evacuation routes are needed.  On the surface the disaster argument is compelling; Kerinci district is hoe to Gunung Kerinci, a very active volcano.  However there are real questions as to the appropriateness of proposed routes in terms of disaster mitigation.  Given all of these justifications, the park is seen by many as an obstacle in the way of development.  All of this taken together means that roads are a very political issue here.  Support for roads comes from members of parliament and provincial governors on down to district headmen and the local people themselves.  The park is supported by a few local and international NGOs, but for the most part local people seem to be in favor of the roads (1).  It is easy to understand why if we look at the map of the park above (2).  The park is shown in red.  The enclave in the middle is Kerinci valley.  Roads are shown with dotted lines.  As you can see, there are only three routes into the valley.  You have to cross over the mountains to get anywhere, and it takes a long time to get to the closest big cities (about 7 hours to Padang, 250km, 11 hours to Jambi, 450km).  In addition, the physical shape of the park makes it difficult to go from one side of Sumatra to the other.

On the other hand, the park contains irreplaceable natural resources, protects endangered species, provides environmental services for millions, and sequesters an enormous amount of carbon, which helps to slow global warming.  Constructing roads through the park undermines its ability to do all of these things. 

Recently an "independent" team was dispatched by the Ministry of Forestry to study three of the proposed roads.  Members of the team were drawn from the national research bureau (LIPI), the Ministry of Environmental Health, two regional universities (University of Jambi and University of Bengkulu) and the Ministry of Forestry itself.  The team's first stop was in Lempur, where a proposed road linking Kerinci district to Mukomuko district has caused quite a controversy between the development and conservation camps.

A Visit to Lempur...

The end of "bikeable" road...

I wanted to check out the Lempur site first hand, so this morning I hopped on my honda and made a damp one-and-a-half hour trek down to the village.  My first stop was the forest path itself.  At the end of the bikeable road I met a farmer working in his chili field.  He guided me up the path through the forest for about a kilometer.  We passed a well-built bridge constructed approximately 7 years ago, which indicates that the road dispute has been simmering for a long time.  He told me that this area had been widened by heavy equipment several years ago and the "road" continued in this condition for about 5 km before giving way to a footpath which continues all the way to Sungai Ipuh in Mukomuko district.  Although all the forest in this area is secondary growth, I was amazed at how alive the forest was; I heard birds I'd never heard before.  The farmer told me the path is about 40 kilometers, and from time to time people make the trek to Mukomuko on foot.  He was in favor of the road project because it would improve "development".  He told me that his land is adat (3) land, and that customary adat law covers all the land between Lempur and Sungai Ipuh.  This is an important consideration as we'll see in the next post; TNKS officials and conservation advocates argue that a new road would be plagued by forest encroachment on either side.  Locals insist that adat custom would prevent encroachment. 

When I got back to Lempur village I started looking around for a couple of people that one of my collaborators suggested I talk to.  Some local folks directed me to an area behind the mosque, where I walked right into a ritual buffalo slaughter.  This event takes place once a year, and the gathering was an excellent opportunity to get some opinions about the proposed road. 

Everyone I talked to there supports the road.  It's easy to understand why; Lempur is situated at the end of a finger of valley that extends out of the main Kerinci valley, about 15 kilometers off the main road.  Most of the people in the area are farmers, for whom one of the most important considerations is access to markets.  The people of Lempur feel that if a road was opened up they could get their goods to Sungai Ipuh, which is on the other side of the Bukit Barisan mountains.  Currently it takes about a day to get to Sungai Ipuh (though to be fair there are a lot of alternative markets on the way); with a new road the time would be cut to an hour.  The people argue that they have historic cultural ties with the people in Sungai Ipuh; they say they speak the same language and have family connections there.  Moreover they feel that the park doesn't care about their livelihood needs.  One adat leader told me that before the park was created people were farming in the area; after the park was established those people lost their livelihoods with little or no compensation.  The locals claim that they are willing to compromise and cooperate with the park.  They also claim that if the road was opened there would be no need to worry about illegal logging or cultivation along the road.  Currently they feel they are at a "dead end" both literally and figuratively; they are at the very end of the road with no where to go while at the same time they say prospects for "development" are limited.

As you can see it's a tough situation.  Unfortunately the way we live our lives coupled with the constraints of geography forces us to pick winners and losers.  We have to choose between conservation and development.  In the next post I'll talk more about exactly what we lose when we build roads.  


Notes

(1)  This is due in no small part to local politicians portraying the park as an "enemy" to development; look for a future post on this very important topic.


(2)  Sorry about the crappy map; arcgis for some reason stopped working on my laptop, so this is the first time i've ever used globalmapper.


(3)  Adat refers to various local traditional codes governing, among other things, land use.