6/23/14 10:38 AMPresidential Candidates Say Indonesians Want Large Plantations, but Do They Really? | The Jakarta Globe

Page 1 of 3http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/presidential-candidates-say-indonesians-want-large-plantations-really/

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Presidential Candidates Say Indonesians Want LargePlantations, but Do They Really?By Erik Meijaard on 06:40 pm Jun 22, 2014

Category Commentary, Opinion

(JG Graphics/Modina Rimolfa)

How to best use Indonesiaʼs land resources? This is one of the more crucial questions facing the presidential candidates inIndonesiaʼs upcoming election.

Both candidates seem to agree that Indonesia needs to increase its food security, for example by expanding the amount ofirrigated land and halt conversion of agricultural land into housing and industrial lands. Joko Widodo appears to target theconversion of “9 million hectares of unoccupied, degraded lands,” as he was recently quoted as saying by the Jakarta Globe.Prabowo Subianto is slightly less ambitious but still seeks to open up of 4 million hectares of land for agriculture and bioethanolproduction.

I can understand these objectives to some extent, but wonder about the details.

First, agriculture provides employment for over 40 percent of the Indonesian population and around two-thirds of rural household

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6/23/14 10:38 AMPresidential Candidates Say Indonesians Want Large Plantations, but Do They Really? | The Jakarta Globe

Page 2 of 3http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/presidential-candidates-say-indonesians-want-large-plantations-really/

income. Increasing country-wide incomes and reducing poverty therefore has a lot to do with agricultural development strategies.More income from agriculture requires an increase in agricultural yields or expansion of the land area under agriculture. Of thesetwo, the expansion solution seems to be favored by the candidates.

The big question, however, is where these new agricultural lands will be found? Sure, on degraded lands, but what does thatmean? For example, there could be a big difference between how the Forestry Ministry would classify a piece of land, and how alocal farmer would look at that same piece of land. Someoneʼs degraded land could well be someone elseʼs forest garden.

The governmentʼs challenge to recognize what really is degraded land, and by whom it is considered degraded, creates a majorpotential for social conflict and inefficient land use.

A few years ago my research team asked some 7,000 people in 700 Kalimantan villages what they thought about forests, andunder which circumstances they would support deforestation — studies published recently in the journals PLOS ONE andEcosystem Services.

Plenty of people like the large-scale deforestation that often comes with plantation development. They told us that plantationsbring employment, infrastructure and facilities such as schools. These people mostly live in areas that have already beencompletely deforested.

On the other hand, 46 percent of the rural people in Kalimantan we interviewed strongly disliked large-scale forest clearing forplantations. They felt that companies provided insufficient employment, had significant negative environmental impacts, andcaused major losses of products that people freely obtain from forests.

In large parts of Kalimantan with some remaining forest, people feel especially negative about large-scale plantations andindicate significant appreciation of forest services such as flood prevention and the cooling effects of forests.

A lot of these people actually liked deforestation, but only at small scales, sufficient for them to develop their own gardens andsmall-scale plantations. Interesting, a lot of these people live exactly in what the Forestry Ministry would likely call “degradedland,” i.e. timber concessions which have been overharvested and illegally logged and of which parts are used for communityagriculture.

It seems that many people in Kalimantan, and likely elsewhere in Indonesia, are not at all interested in the grand presidentialplans to clear “degraded lands” for large-scale agricultural expansion. So if the objective is to raise community welfare andreduce poverty, a broader view is required that not only looks at increasing agricultural outputs at all costs, but also considers thescale at which this should happen. Furthermore it is crucial that the presidential teams do not blindly stare at potential revenuesfrom agriculture but also consider the costs.

Studies in Kalimantan and Sumatra are clearly demonstrating the increasing environmental costs of poorly planned land use.Flooding of lowlands related to forest clearing and peat drainage, temperature increases as high as 8 degrees Celsius on clearedland, and zoonotic diseases such as Leptospirosis that increase with deforestation, are all examples of the high societal costs ofignoring environmental impacts.

To make a long story short, once the new president is at the helm, it will be really important to identify clearly what peopleactually want. Are large-scale plantation companies really the best way to reduce rural poverty? I donʼt think so. Instead, helpingcommunities, for example, through technical assistance and micro-financing, to increase their own agricultural yields at smallerscales, would likely be more effective and ultimately reduce societal costs, while maintaining environmental services.

Good planning on the basis of existing data on community perceptions could help prevent conflict and implement the best landuse for any particular area.

In that respect it is good to see that Jokowi announced an expansion moratorium on plantations with social conflict, andplantations that are ecologically unsustainable, as elsewhere reported in the Globe.

I understand that presidential campaigning needs to use simple messages, and maybe behind the simple campaigning slogans,the two presidential teams have thought up intricate, well-informed plans to achieve their agricultural expansion objectives. Butas I see things now, there is a lot of room for improvement and refinement. This is where science could help policy and decision-making.

I really hope that both teams are supported by top-notch scientists who really understand the complexities of land use. Theyshould tell the future president that behind simple campaigning rhetoric, a carefully thought-out plan is needed that functions a lotbetter than the land use plans Indonesia has used so far. For now the question of how Indonesia could most optimally use itsvast land and natural resources to efficiently increase social welfare appears to remain unanswered.

Erik Meijaard coordinates the Borneo Futures — Science for Change program from Jakarta.

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6/23/14 10:38 AMPresidential Candidates Say Indonesians Want Large Plantations, but Do They Really? | The Jakarta Globe

Page 3 of 3http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/presidential-candidates-say-indonesians-want-large-plantations-really/

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