Human Territoriality and Indonesia's Kerinci Seblat National Park

Just over a quarter of a century ago an influential geographer by the name of Robert Sack wrote a book called Human Territoriality.  The basic idea behind quintessentially geographic book was to describe ways in which physical spaces are used to control people and resources.  Sack (and other scholars) refer to this as "territoriality"; he defines territoriality as "the attempt by an individual or group to affect, influence, or control people, phenomena, and relationships, by delimiting and asserting control over a geographic area" (19).  In this post I'm going to attempt to apply this concept of territoriality to Kerinci Seblat National Park on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia to see what it can tell us about the viability of various strategies to address the problems I've focused on in this blog and over the course of my research in Indonesia.  These problems include illegal logging, forest encroachment, and poaching.

The Concept of Territoriality

On the surface it seems pretty obvious: those in power, be they governments, the boss, or parents, create certain rules of use or access for different places.  You can probably think of a lot of examples here in Hawai'i, both in terms of the way we live our lives now and in how the Old Hawaiians organized their society.  Military bases are accessible only by certain populations.  There are some beaches where we can fish, others where we can't.  Certain behaviors are proscribed in certain places, like smoking.  These could all be considered territorial strategies.  But territoriality isn't new.  You are probably familiar with the Kapu system, much of which involved control over access to many spaces and the types of behaviors allowed in others.  The Kapu system is a good example of territoriality.  Another remarkable Old Hawaiian example of territoriality is the concept of pu'uhonua, which refers to places of sanctuary and refuge designated by the chiefs.  A person that had broken the kapu could find shelter in a pu'uhonua, where he or she would be protected from punishment and in some instance be given a clean slate upon leaving the pu'uhonua.

Sack's contribution to our common sense understanding was to identify a number of different types of territoriality and then dissect these strategies to understand the underlying assumptions upon which they are based.  Sack called these assumptions tendencies".  The ten tendencies he identified are combined in different ways to control people and resources.  Another important contribution of Sack's work is the understanding that territoriality is always "socially constructed"; this means that it is rooted in and derives its meaning from culture and society.  And because culture and society change over time, territoriality emerges in different ways at different points in history.

The list below describes Sack's 10 "tendencies".  See how many you recognize and how they are manifested in our society.

1.  Classification.  This involves making rules for things based on their location rather than by what they are.  When a youngster declares her room off-limits to her bratty brother she is classifying everything in the room based on location.  If it is in the room it's off limits.  If not, its not off limits.

2.  Communication.  This is manifested in terms of boundaries, signs, uniforms, and any other symbol that signals to people that specific rules are in place.  A "no parking" sign would be a good example.

3.  Enforcement.  This involves the use of power to enforce the rules of territoriality. Enforcement is always necessary because without it no one would pay attention to all the other tendencies.

4.  Reifying Power.  "Reify" means to make something visible or to treat an abstract thing as though it were concrete.  We can't always see power, and so this tendency makes power visible.  To me the Oval Office is a good example of reification.  It is off-limits to all but a very select few.

5.  Displacing.  In certain instances territoriality can distract your attention away from what is actually controlling your behavior.  For example, if you have ever thought to yourself (or castigated someone) by saying "you can't do that here!" then you are illustrating displacement; you are controlling your behavior not because a powerful entity has made a rule, but rather because you have made a connection in your head that certain behaviors are not appropriate in certain places.

6.  Impersonal.  Territoriality helps governance because it makes relationships impersonal.  One of the examples Sack uses is a prison guard who is responsible for a block of cells rather than people.  The guard's responsibility and duty is defined as a specific place.

7.  Neutrality.  This tendency means that the subjects (you and me and everyone else) take for granted the fact that there are different rules for different places, and so we don't really question it.

8.  Container/Mold.  This means that a certain place or area is assigned a particular function or role in society.  Sack uses the example of a city; its authority is delineated by borders, even though in reality the city may extend beyond the borders.

9.  Emptiability.  This allows us as a society to reassign roles to certain places.  Sack's example is an empty lot; you may think of a vacant building.  In reality these places are not "empty," but we see them that way and this enables the space to be assigned a different use or owner.

10.  Engendering more territoriality.  This basically refers to the way that we organize new things.  Using territorial strategies allows us to compartmentalize certain aspects of our society.

According to Sack, these 10 tendencies come together in different combinations to organize society in different ways.  For example, his combination of hierarchy and bureaucracy combines all ten of the tendencies to define pretty much every relationship and responsibility in society.  Magic representations are another combination, this time consisting of reification and displacement.  In the case of magic places, reification makes authority visible, but displacement means that people control their behavior based on what they consider to be the magical properties of the place, rather than because of rules established by some powerful authority.  Sack would say that our informal prohibition against taking sand from the beach here in Hawaii would be an example of this.

Hopefully you can get the idea.  He comes up with 14 different combinations, but these obviously aren't exhaustive.  And we have to remember that Sack invented the tendencies.  I think they are useful conceptual tools though and I will explain why in a moment.  But first I want to reiterate that territoriality changes over time; it is tied to particular epochs or moments in history, so a combination of territoriality that was in place 200 years ago might not still be effective today.  So changes in territoriality can be associated with changes in social conditions.

The Tendencies of National Parks

I like Sack's framework because I can see how it can be applied to national parks, which I study.  By now it should be clear to you that national parks are tools of territoriality; they have very clear rules of access and there are certain behaviors that are illegal there.  Moreover, many parks have zonation systems so that certain activities (camping, gathering non-timber forest products) may be okay in some areas but proscribed in others.  But I think we can come up with a unique combination of "tendencies" that are used in national parks (specifically Indonesia's national parks).  Some of these tendencies are obvious, others not so.  I also want to make the point this combination of tendencies is connected to a certain socio-political configuration; in this case, the authoritarian New Order regime of former president Suharto, who ruled Indonesia from 1966 to 1998.  I will elaborate on this point below.

1.  Classification.  This is pretty clear; it refers to systems of zonation in a park itself but would also refer to a park's place in a large national or global network of parks.  For example, Kerinci Seblat National Park is important because it protects very rare lowland dipterocarp forests as well as rare animals like the Sumatran tiger.  It has a role, a function within a larger network.  The role of a centralized government is important for coordination, which is essential for this type of classification.

2.  Communication.  This consists of uniforms for guards, signs, and border markers.  For a large park like KSNP, which covers a lot of local jurisdictions, central authority is important for coordinating this communication.

3.  Enforcement.  This consists of not only regulations and laws but also forest policemen to enforce the laws.  Again, central authority is important to give the guards legitimacy, or in more vernacular terms "to get their back".  There are also elements of standardization and coordination here.

4.  Reifying.  Some parks are visible reminders or symbols of the power of the state.  They are "national" properties, and symbols of the greatness of the realm or regime.  Thus obviously the nation or central government is key to this tendency.

5.  Displacement.  In US national parks we can say that "good citizens" control their behavior in parks because they respect the park.  But in reality they are following rules imposed by the federal government.  Indonesia (and many developing countries) are different because most people don't perceive the park in the same way as we do in this country.  But I am asserting here that parks have an important displacement function in Indonesia, but it is a different displacement function.  Suharto's rule was extraordinarily corrupt, and the dictator's family and supporters were generously rewarded for their loyalty.  Often this reward came in the form of exclusive access to natural resources like timber.  Thus protected areas (not just national parks) were established to reserve resources like trees for certain people and groups with close ties to the regime.  The displacement function in this case is such that non-privileged people are conditioned to believe that they can't use the resource not because of corruption, but because the resource is important for conservation or ecological reasons.  The role of a strong central government should be obvious here.

6.  Impersonal.  The forest guards, who were quite powerful at KSNP during the New Order, are responsible for protecting a certain territory, rather than for controlling people.  Central control is really important in this case because in many park the park's guards and administrators were brought in from other islands so they didn't have any connection with the people living in and around the park.

 7.  Container/Mold.  Indonesia started to gazette parks around 1980, a time when the global environmental movement was getting into full swing and when concerns about deforestation in tropical countries were gaining a lot of momentum.  Thus the parks exhibit the container/mold tendency because they are a designated place where conservation happen.  Moreover, beginning around the same time international conservation agencies, rich country donors, and multilateral organizations like the UN started making huge sums of money available for conservation projects.  Thus national parks fit the mold of a place where projects like that are implemented; they become a target for international donors.  Here the role of a strong central government is key because these types of agreements need to be negotiated and coordinated, and that is one of the things central governments do reasonably well.

Why is this Important?

This is important because it allows us to see the conditions under which Indonesia's national parks were established and what types of political circumstances enabled the parks to function.  It is very clear that the parks are a product of an authoritarian government.  However, in 1998 Suharto stepped down, and his government ended.  Immediately thereafter those that inherited the reigns of power in the country started to pass laws (which I have described in other posts) which dismantled the top-down centralized authoritarian regime.  Thus many of the conditions that allowed for the establishment of the parks have changed.

Over the past 15 years Kerinci Seblat National Park has experienced huge problems with encroachment as tens of thousands of farmers have moved (illegally) into the park.  While the park had problems before the fall of Suharto, it now faces some threats to its very existence coming from all sides.  And it's not only encroachers, district governments are antagonistic to the park as well because they are not able to legally access the resources within the park.  Thus the national park as a territorial strategy is being fundamentally challenged by many actors that have been empowered by the decentralization reforms.

This is a very important realization because if we understand this we can start to think about why certain strategies that are currently used to control poaching, encroachment, and other forest crimes might not be very effective.  We can also use this new understanding to try to come up with new strategies that might be more effective.  For example, an academic paper I recently read about Kerinci Seblat National Park makes some recommendations for the future.  According to this paper (whose author I have tremendous respect for), enforcement resources should be focused on several (four) key access points in the province of Bengkulu to control forest crimes.  However, this recommendation fails to take into consideration the socio-political changes that have taken place that render the enforcement strategy less than effective.  In other words, this strategy of increased enforcement would be based on the old conditions rather than what is the current reality.  It is fine to say "we should increase enforcement", but given the current circumstances that is much easier said than done.  Moreover the newly-empowered local interests that have been brought into power by the decentralization reforms are precisely the same interests that are coordinating, controlling, and benefiting from illegal activities within the park.

In conclusion, we have to understand the fundamental "tendencies" upon which the efficacy of a national park depends.  In the case of Kerinci Seblat National Park, the socio-political conditions upon which the park was established no longer exist, and so territoriality based on those conditions will no longer work.  The new task, then, is to create a new territorial strategy that is more compatible with the current socio-political realities.  Which tendencies reflect what is actually happening on the ground?  Only by addressing this question will we be able to ensure the long-term survival of the national parks of Indonesia, along with the natural treasures contained therein.

References

Sack, Robert David.  1986.  Human Territoriality: Its Theory and Practice.  Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.  256pp.

A Tale of Two Bupatis....

Coffee cultivation in Kerinci Seblat national park at Meragin

Today's post is a kind of continuation of a previous post about illegal cultivation at Kerinci Seblat National Park.  The post discusses how the structure of government has changed in Indonesia, and how these changes are complicating conservation at the park. 

The structure of formal power in Indonesia...

Part of my research here at Kerinci Seblat National Park focuses on how power and authority are exercised around the park, and how this affects the functioning of the park.  The general idea is that the politics and political systems around the park have an impact on conservation in the park.  The most powerful people in this new political landscape are the bupatis, or district headmen. 

Like the US, Indonesia has several levels of political organization.  In most states in the US, there are four main levels of government: town, county, state, nation.  Each of these levels has different rights and responsibilities.  Indonesia has 5 levels of government.  The most basic is the kelurahan, which varies in size from place to place but is generally several hundred people.  The next step up is the kecamatan, generally translated as "sub-district".  The kecamatan is led by a camat.  Above this we find the kabupaten level.  Kabupaten is usually translated as "district" or "regency".  The kabupaten is led by a bupati.  The next highest level is the "provinsi" or province, led by a gubernor or governor.  There are 43 of these currently and they are roughly analogous to counties in the US.  The top level is the central government in Jakarta. 

Until about 12 years ago each of these levels of government could be thought of as links in a chain of power linking Jakarta with the lowliest village in the remotest part of the archipelago (1).  The country was led from the late 60s to the late 90s by Suharto, an authoritarian ruler who used the five levels of government to control the country.  During the Orde Baru all the governors and bupatis were appointed by Suharto and his associates, so "power" radiated from the center of the country, like spokes on a wheel.  In 1998, however, Suharto was deposed, which created a power vacuum.  The people of Indonesia wanted to weaken the power of the central government because Suharto had gotten too powerful.  So they changed the constitution and made the regencies much more independent and the bupatis much more powerful.  A later amendment to the constitution made it so the bupatis would be directly elected.  The upshot of this is that the bupatis are now much more powerful than before, while at the same time being freed from the chain of authority radiating from Jakarta.

The new reality....

Kerinci Seblat National Park covers parts of 15 different districts.  We've already learned that encroachment and illegal cultivation are big problems at the park.  The park is responsible for policing its own borders, but it depends on the cooperation of the surrounding districts for support in terms of law enforcement and criminal proceedings.  As we've seen previously, one of the biggest problems facing Kerinci Seblat National Park is the tens of thousands of people farming illegally within the park's borders.  This issue came to a head in two regions late last year (2010).  In Kerinci and Merangin regions the bupatis agreed to cooperate with the park to evict encroaching farmers.  The way the story played out is an excellent example of how politics affects conservation.

Photo from infojambi.com. 

A Nalim, the bupati of Merangin Regency, has a reputation in his short tenure as headman for his willingness to tackle tough problems.  In early 2010 he reached an agreement with the park that something had to be done about the 12,000 or so people living and farming illegally inside the park.  People had been settling in the park since the mid 1990s, most of them coming from other parts of Sumatra.  At first there were a few hundred, but through time the new settlements reached into thousands and began to outnumber the local residents, who managed the land according to long-standing traditional regulations (2).  Pak Nalim ordered signs posted and notices circulated informing the farmers that they faced eviction in November if they didn't choose to leave voluntarily.  As you can imagine, this caused quite a bit of consternation in the encroaching communities; many of them had been established for a long time and had even built schools and mosques.  As the November deadline approached, farmers and their families slowly moved out of the park, giving up what they felt, by rights, was their land.  In November the bupati sent in a multi-agency taskforce to clear out any holdouts and to demolish houses and other structures.  This whole episode has stirred up questions about human rights, not to mention those concerning the fate of those evicted.  Regardless of the wisdom of the action, no one can accuse Pak Nalim of failing to support the park. 

Murasman, the bupati of Kerinci, also agreed to an eviction deadline for encroaching farmers in his region, but for different reasons (3).  In contrast to Pak Nalim, Pak Murasman has a different sort of reputation.  In his 2 years as bupati he's been quite antagonistic towards the park.  His argument is that the park covers 52% of Kerinci region, an area that can't be developed and has no immediate benefits for the citizens of his regions.  Since Kerinci region is located in an enclave within the park, Pak Murasman's plans to build roads to connect the region to other areas have been foiled, because roads passing through the park need special permission from the Ministry of Forestry, which has not been forthcoming.  Pak Murasman has cleverly used the existence of the park for political gain; he portrays the park as a common enemy of the people of Kerinci and positions himself as their champion.  He is very adept at appealing to the emotions of people; one of his favorite lines has become something of a slogan around here:

"Kita disuruh menjaga TNKS, tapi mana konvensasi untuk rakyat Kerinci?  Dunia berkoar-koar mengatakan TNKS paru-paru dunia, tapi mereka tidak memperhatikan paru-paru masyarakat Kerinci."

We are ordered to guard Kerinci Seblat national park, but where's the compensation for the people of Kerinci?  The world cries out that Kerinci Seblat national park is the "lungs of the earth", but they don't pay attention to the lungs of the people of Kerinci. 

This is a very powerful message around here, but it's not entirely accurate.  I'll elaborate further in future posts as to the relationship between the people here and the park.  Suffice it to say that this can be described as a political strategy; numerous complaints have arisen about problems that don't seem to get solved in Kerinci region (4), and so the park serves as a convenient distraction.  But regardless of the relationship between the bupati and the park, people here took the eviction deadline quite seriously, and, just as they were in Merangin, were quite concerned about the future.


However, when the deadline rolled around, Pak Murasman claimed that the border markers delineating the park's boundaries had disappeared, and so the people had no way of knowing they were in the park (5).  They were therefore not in the wrong, said Pak Murasman, and he refused to carry out the eviction orders.  As a result, the people are still there.

Thus we have two different approaches to a common problem.  The anecdotes above show us that conservation is not just about plants and animals; it's a political activity as well.  And the success of conservation efforts at places like Kerinci Seblat National Park are very much influenced by the politics of places just outside the borders.  Over the next year here I'll be exploring this issue and others like it further. 

NOTES


(1)  This is something of an exaggeration, but you get the idea. 

(2)  These traditional rules are known widely as adat in Indonesia and have been recognized as having legal validity.

(3)  Which I will not be discussing in this post for a number of reasons....

(4)  Incidentally, two times in the past week alone Pak Murasman or his "close associates" have been reported to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK).

(5)  Many (maybe most) of the park's boundary markers are in disrepair or are non-existent.  Many of those missing have been moved or destroyed by encroachers.

Illegal Cultivation at Kerinci Seblat National Park

Yesterday I made my first visit to one of the 400 or so villages situated on the edges of Kerinci Seblat National Park.  These visits will be an important part of my work here because they will help me to understand the relationship of the park to the people living around it.  This particular village is in the area of Gunung Tujuh (Mountain 7) in the Kerinci regency, about 60 kilometers from my home in Sungai Penuh. 

Most of the people in the village (and in the region in general) are farmers.  They grow potatoes, chilies, corn, and cinnamon in the hills.  Unfortunately, the place where these particular villagers farm is within the national park, and so their activities are technically illegal.  From the perspective of the park, agricultural activities and conservation are incompatible.  The park exists, among other reasons, to protect the forest, and so the clearing of land to plant crops undermines the park's mission.  For their part the farmers have to make a living somehow, though.  This conflict has been the source of a considerable amount of tension over the years. 

The Farmer's Logic

It costs about $200 per planting

Park marker with chili field in background.  The field is in the park.

session to rent a patch of land in the Kerinci valley.  A farmer can get three crops of chili peppers per year, so the total rent is about $600.  Although the price fluctuates widely, in an average year a farmer can make $1000 growing chilies.  Fertilizer, seeds, and pesticide costs about $150 per year, so in the end the profit is about $250 per year.  However, if the farmer cultivates inside the park, where land is essentially free, the profit jumps to $850 per year.  In other words, a farmer can more than triple his income by farming inside the park.  In this way the park functions as a kind of subsidy for the local economy.  Agricultural production is increased, and all in all there is more money to spend, which makes everyone better off locally.

But there is a heavy price to pay.  Cutting down the trees on the slopes removes the root systems that help anchor the soil, increasing the rate of erosion.  Over the past couple of weeks I've noticed a number of stories in the national newspaper (Kompas) describing the problems facing paddy rice farmers in various parts of the archipelago.  Paddy rice requires a lot of water, which entails the construction and maintenance of irrigation works.   Farmers on Sumatra, Sulawesi, Java, and Kalimantan are all complaining that their irrigation channels and water reservoirs are getting shallower and shallower as a result of sediment flowing out of the hills.  Not only does the sediment decrease the capacity of the waterworks, but it increases the risk of flooding since it takes less water to fill the canal. 

In addition, rainforests are unique in that most of the nutrients that help the plants grow are not found in the soil itself, which is usually relatively poor, but rather in the trees, bushes, vines, and other plant life that make up the forest.  When something in the forest dies, bacteria, insects, and fungi immediately go to work recycling its nutrients, as you can see in the video below.  This means that the nutrients never get returned to the soil  To clear land, farmers cut the trees and then burn them.  The ash is good fertilizer, but it only lasts for a year or two.  After that all of the nutrients are gone forever, and it's very difficult to get trees to grow again.  Instead what generally happens is that grasses and shrubs move in, as in the picture to the left.  These grasses are very good at colonizing vacant land, and they create root systems that make it all but impossible for tree seedlings to thrive.  What's worse is that the grasses continue grow from the roots even after the grass is cut, making it extremely difficult to rehabilitate the land. 

As a geographer this is a very interesting problem to me because there is a spatial separation between who benefits and who pays.  Like I mentioned, the farmers in the villages benefit from cultivating in the park.  But they externalize (1) the costs of farming to other people at various scales.  At the local scale, there are landslides and decreased rice production due to the degraded irrigation systems.  At the global scale everyone is worse off because the park is less able to protect biodiversity and buffer against global warming. 

Finding a Solution

In the past enforcing the borders of the park has proven to be very difficult for the park's managers.  The geography of the park complicates the task; the park is a little bit bigger than the state of Connecticut, and its elongated shape means that the border is more than 2500 kilometers in length.  At first the park tried strict enforcement, handing out fines to those that farm inside the park and putting some farmers in jail.  This didn't go over well with the farmers, though; in the picture to the right you can see the remnants of a park building that was burned more than a decade ago by angry villagers after several farmers were arrested. 

Part of the problem is that the villagers were here before the park, and so many of them feel they have a more legitimate claim on the land than the park, which was established by the central government, which is hundreds of miles away.  Another problem is that there has traditionally been little cooperation from the local government of the areas around the park.  The park's staff is relatively small, so in order for strict enforcement to be feasible they would need the help of the local government.  The sign in the picture at the beginning of the post is from the local government and cautions people not to go in the park, but in the background you can see that the hill has been converted to fields.  The sign doesn't seem to have much effect.

Now the park is attempting a new strategy.  Over the past couple of years management has spent a lot of time doing what they call "socialization" in the villages around the park.  This entails sending a staff member along with a couple of rangers to a village to make a presentation about the benefits of the park and the dangers of growing crops on slopes.  According to park officials, villagers are receptive to the message.  When I went to Gunung Tujuh they were also in the midst of a reboisasi (tree planting) coordinated by the park with the assistance of the army.  Local people (2) are paid according to how many trees they plant.  The crews were planting surian (Toona sinensis), petai (Parkia speciosa), pulai (Alstonia scholaris), and gaharu (Aquilaria malaccensis). 

I asked if there were conflicts between the tree planters and the farmers, but no one was really willing to answer the question.  My reasoning was that if you plant trees, someone has to lose their farmland.  I also asked one of my new friends, who happened to be working on the project, if the locals would remove the seedlings after the project was finished and the army left.  He didn't seem to think so.  But I'll go back in a few months to see for myself and talk to the villagers some more.  They were happy to have a visitor and were very welcoming and eager to talk.  They even gave me a bunch of fresh bananas to take home.

Notes

(1)  Businesses often are able to pass along the costs of production to someone else.  For example, consider a factory built on a river.  The factory dumps wastes products into the river, and therefore doesn't have to pay to dispose of the waste.  However, the waste creates additional burdens for people downstream through decreased fish catches and increased costs for water purification, or increased costs for medical treatment from people getting sick from the water.  Economists refer to these as externailities.  The general idea is that somebody always pays and that nothing is free.  Can you think of some other examples of externalities?

(2)  The crew I talked to was actually from a town about 20 kilometers away, but one villager told me that local people were part of the project, too.