The worst crises were, as in other years, on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, where human pressure on the forest is high, and deep peat soils mean that fires can burn for months. However this dry season there were also significantly more fires than usual in southern Papua, in Merauke and Mappi regencies. Timika, nearly 600 kilometres away, suffered from smoke haze as a result.

Merauke has become in recent years the main focus for the growth of industrial agriculture in Papua, due to various incarnations of  a central government project, the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate, and associated oil palm plantations. But is there a link between these development plans and the fires? awasMIFEE presents two articles to address this question. The first is an analysis of satellite photographs in two of Korindo’s plantations where clear evidence of fire on is found on newly-deforested land, by Sam Lawson of Earthsight. This article aims to complement that research by looking at the link between fire and deforestation in other plantations over the last four years, and the wider situation in Merauke.

Many fires outside plantation areas.

Fire hotspot data shows that the fires were found throughout the southern part of Merauke, where the vegetation is made up of mixed forest and grassland. Some of these fires were within plantation concession boundaries (unsurprisingly, since undeveloped plantation concessions cover well over a million hectares, more than a quarter of Merauke’s land area). There were a few concentrations of hotspots in areas where plantation companies are known to be active (Medco’s timber plantation in Zanegi village and woodchip factory in Boepe, Rajawali’s sugar cane plantation near Domande, PT Agriprima Cipta Persada and PT Agrinusa Persada Mulia’s oil palm plantations in Muting). However, as there were also many, many other fires away from these areas, there is insufficient evidence to conclude in these cases that fires were started by the companies.

Another important point is that some of the highest concentrations of fires were in areas where there are no plantations planned – such as Dolok Island, and the western part of Mappi Regency. It’s also worth pointing out that there were also a lot of fires across the border in Papua New Guinea, especially along the Fly River which flows close to the border.

The conclusion is: while it is certainly possible that some of the fires were connected with agricultural development, the high number of hotspots outside areas earmarked for plantations means it is likely that many of them were started for other reasons.

The big exception: Korindo.

In the more densely forested north-eastern part of Merauke, there were less fires. However when you look at where those fires were, you see a very strong pattern – many of them were clustered within oil palm concessions. What’s more, the hotspots (marked in orange) show a very strong correlation with data on areas deforested in 2015. (( Deforestation data is from Sam Lawson’s analysis of Landsat satellites, tracing the difference between images dated late January 2015 to late October 2015. ))

Three of those concessions are owned by the Korindo Group. PT Tunas Sawa Erma (which has been operating since 1998 but has not developed the whole concession) PT Dongin Prabhawa (which started land clearance in 2011) and PT Papua Agro Lestari (which appears to have just started clearing land in the last few months). Another is PT Bio Inti Agrindo (operating since 2012), which is owned by Daewoo International Corporation, but known to have a close relationship to Korindo.

Here’s a closer look at two of them: PT Dongin Prabhawa and PT Bio Inti Agrindo:

This is quite strong evidence to indicate that these companies may have been using fire to clear land, a practice which is illegal in Indonesia. This evidence is further reinforced if we look at fire data for previous years.  It appears that there have been fires in the concessions each year, and the fire locations closely follow each successive year’s cutting plans. The implication is that Korindo and Daewoo International companies appear to have been regularly using fire to clear land since 2012.

The following maps use a different source of deforestation data – tree cover loss data from the University of Maryland – which gives an indication of which bits of forest were cut each year, and this is overlaid with the hotspots detected by NASA MODIS satellites the same year. Both sets of data are available to browse on the www.globalforestwatch.org website, but due to the way that site is structured you can’t see them simultaneously like this.

Here’s some views of PT Dongin Prabhawa’s concession in 2012,2013 and 2014. The purple areas were the areas deforested that year. The orange dots are the hotspots recorded in the same year. You can see that in 2012, there were several fires in the area cleared, in 2013 fires burned in areas cleared that year and the year before, and then in 2014 fires broke out in more newly cleared blocks.

A similar pattern can be seen in PT Bio Inti Agrindo’s concession. Forest clearance started in the north-western corner of the concession, and moved eastward, including in 2014 clearing the corridor that eventually connects the larger eastern block of the concession. There were concentrations of hotspots in 2012 and 2013 in the western block, at the same time that deforestation was taking place there.

Just to the north of PT Bio Inti Agrindo is PT Berkat Cipta Abadi, another Korindo subsidiary which started clearing in 2012. Here too, the fires closely mirrored the deforestation pattern, with a particularly high concentration in 2014.

It’s a huge deal. Felda Global Ventures claims to be the world’s third largest oil palm plantation operator and the world’s largest crude palm oil producer. Eagle High Plantations says it has permits on 419,000 hectares of land in Indonesia. This includes two oil palm plantations in Papua: PT Tandan Sawita Papua in Keerom Regency and PT Varia Mitra Andalan in South Sorong.

As part of the deal, Felda Global Ventures intends to take a 95% stake in Rajawali’s sugar operations in Merauke. That’s the two operational companies, PT Cenderawasih Jaya Mandiri and PT Karya Bumi Papua. There’s also a 93.3% share in Rajawali’s undeveloped concession PT Riski Kemilau Berjaya.

The sugar business is probably particularly interesting for Felda Global Ventures, which is Malaysia’s leading producer of refined sugar and has ambitions to “become ASEAN’s largest sugar hub”. Having plantations in Indonesia gives the company the right to import sugar to Indonesia, which currently does not produce enough sugar to meet its consumption needs.

Felda reportedly paid $67 million in cash for the sugar companies. This works out at around 18.7 million Rupiah per hectare. As a rough comparison, the upper limit for land compensation paid to indigenous people in Merauke is about 300,000 Rupiah – less than one sixtieth of what was paid in this transaction.

In Kampung Zanegi, where PT Selaras Inti Semesta (SIS – owned by Medco) has operated an industrial timber plantation since 2010, only 39 people from Zanegi were employed as of May 2013.

Natalis Basik-Basik commented, “SIS has only recently employed 17 more local people this year. In 2001 only one person was working there, which increased to eleven people in 2010, but then was eight people in 2011 and only 2 in 2012.” All in all these numbers are very small when compared to the hundreds of employees who come from outside Zanegi or even from outside Papua. What’s more, most of the job for local workers are only as helpers, and 30 people are employed casually, without a contract.

“When SIS’s operations first started, many young people and adult men were recruited as chainsaw operators, daily casual workers and truck drivers. However, after only three months, workers from Zanegi were told to stop – the reason given was that they were no longer needed”, said Ernez Kaize, Zanegi’s village head.

In Kampung Domande, sugar-cane plantation companies PT Karya Bumi Papua and PT Cenderawasih Jaya Mandiri (both owned by the Rajawali Group), have been operating since 2011 but there are only six young people from Domande who work for the company without a contract.

The companies have stipulated their conditions for employment based on having full documentation, educational standard and skills or training. These conditions make it difficult for villagers who usually can only offer their limited experience and physical strength. Yet their hopes to be contracted by the company hinge on meeting these conditions. They cannot compete with other workers from Merauke city, including many who have origins outside Papua.

The wages that non-contract workers earn can be described as low, certainly not a decent wage. Yunus, a young man from Kampung Domande related that he was paid 1 million Rupiah per month, plus overtime money which was paid as food ingredients to a value of 25,000. This is really not sufficient if compared to the money reasonably needed to live on in the area, which in this area amounts to 100,000 Rupiah per day.
Neither the local government nor the companies have ever made the effort to conduct any training which could increase the skills and knowledge of local people of working-age, so they could be ready to work .

“What should really happen is that local government and companies train the people before they start any operations, so that local people are on an equal footing with others from outside the village, and can get a decent wage,” said Ernez Kaize.

Source: http://pusaka.or.id/perusahaan-belum-penuhi-janji-rekruitmen-tenaga-kerja-lokal/

Every day, the Malind people go to the forested swamplands to search for fish and hunt wild animals. In Domande village, throughout the last month or so, people have been collecting fish from the Duhibob swamp and pools near the village.

The villagers of Domande go out in groups to take the fish from the swamps using nets which they lay in a circle and then pull in between several people. The kinds of fish they catch are species of tilapia that weigh on average 1-2 kilograms. Around 50 large fish can be caught this way in a day. Meanwhile most of the fish they catch in the natural ponds are betok (climbing gourany) or gastor fish.

The tilapia, apart from being eaten at home , can also be sold to traders in the village that also own small shops and who buy fish on a skewer for between 10,000 to 13,000 Rupiah, depending on how big or small the fish are – most skewers will weigh over one kilogram. The shop owners bring the fish to Merauke city where they are sold to city traders from between 15,000 to 25,000 per skewer. The gastor fish are normally dried and salted, and a kilogram of dried fish can fetch 13,000 Rupiah.

Stepanus Kaize from Kampung Domande, claims that selling these swamp fish is a great boost to a family’s income. Aside from fishing in the swamp, people also catch fish and prawns from the sea in the appropriate season.

However, the people are worried that their fishing enterprise will yield less fish because of the impacts of PT. Cendrawasih Jaya Mandiri and PT. Karyabumi Papua, which are planning to use the land and swamps for a sugar-cane plantation and factory.

These two subsidiaries of the Rajawali group have already cleared forests around Iwakem, including water sources and the Yahunkihuhui and Ga’ul rivers, and mege pamaa, from which water flows into the Duhibob swamps. It is feared that the changes and loss of the forest will affect water circulation and the character of the local environment, bringing with it changes to plant and animal life, which in turn will reduce the income of people in Kampung Domande and surrounding areas.

Source: Pusaka http://pusaka.or.id/warga-domande-panen-ikan-rawa/

The company has already been operating in Domande village since 2011, and has built a road and cut down the forest to develop their plantation and factory infrastructure. “At the beginning, the company promised they would recruit local people as their labour force, but that turned out to be untrue. Many of the workers came from outside the village, which left local people feeling let down”, said Hubertus, a young person from Domande.

The company had made a list of ten promises which the people of Domande had agreed to, sweet-sounding promises about building facilities and infrastructure and recruiting local labour. But then when the people would demand their rights, the company would often refuse to meet those promises. Tired of waiting for the company to give compensation for the trees they had already felled, villagers and holders of traditional land rights blockaded the road in November 2012. The company managed to reach an agreement with local community leaders that they would meet their demands and pay compensation for the trees at the beginning of December 2012, but there have still been no signs that the company will meet the obligations which it agreed to.

“The company just decieves us all the time”, said Hubertus, irritated.

In Kaiburze village, the head of the LMA (Lembaga Masyarakat Adat = Customary People’s Organisation), Ursus B. Samkakai, has sent letters to the government and the company, making clear that they did not consider as legitimate any permits or agreements with investors made without the knowledge or agreement of the local people and the LMA.

Paulus Samkakai, LMA’s secretary in Kaiburse, related how villagers from Kaiburse, together with the Malind LMA at the Merauke Regency level, have asked the Papua branch of the National Human Rights Commission to issue a letter of recommendation to the local government and the Rajawali company. They want them to conduct a meeting to discuss compensation and the opinion of the Domande people who reject investment plans in the Kaiburse area.

The Kaiburze people reject the company because they no longer have access to much land. Most of their customary land is now taken over by transmigrant villages, covering a area of 40,000 hectares. The problem is that government and transmigrants, who have arrived from outside the area, often take over, use or sell this customary land, without the permission of the Kaiburse villagers or clans who hold the rights to that land. That includes giving it to the companies.

The people hope that through its policy and support the local government will protect the Malind people’s customary rights.

Source: Pusaka http://pusaka.or.id/2012/12/perusahaan-tebu-rajawali-manis-janjinya.html