buluh lamandau september 2005 update

Funding Organisation: Australian Orangutan Project

Project’s key goals

• Contain and curtail all illegal activities taking place on the Buluh Lamandau River
• Construct and bring into operation an orangutan release camp on the Buluh Lamandau

Activities completed (2005)

• 17 June: $34,254 AUD is received from the Australian Orangutan Project
• 23 June: Final meeting with Indonesian managers to confirm strategy for future protection of the Buluh Lamandau Nature Reserve
• 1–4 July: Preparatory meetings with KSDA (Forestry Department) and police
• 23 July: Joint Orangutan Foundation, Police and KSDA patrols commence
• 31 July: Illegal logging stopped but local farming activities continue
• 6 August: Dr. Galdikas and KSDA officials visit the Buluh River
• 8 August: A patrol of KSDA jagawana (forestry police) and five policemen fairly resist instructions to evict farmers from the river because the exact location of the Nature Reserve’s border is unclear
• 21 August: Forestry Department team arrives to demarcate the Reserve’s border
• 23 August: First community meeting held in the village of Pendulangan, located at the mouth of the Buluh River. The local camat (approximately equivalent to mayor) attended this meeting
• 27 August: A second community meeting is held in Pendulangan
• 11 September: Site visit to confirm location of border on Buluh Lamandau River

Lamandau Project Manager showing one of the new border signs

Activities still to be completed

• Erect an obvious and permanent sign to support demarcation of the Reserve’s border
• Stop all farming on the Buluh River within the Nature Reserve
• Construct the orangutan release camp
• Recruit staff for the camp
• Release orangutans

Assessment of progress of activities and results to date (including monitoring activities)

Through AOP’s support, undeniable progress has been made in securing the Buluh River and, beyond that, in helping to ensure the integrity of the Lamandau Nature Reserve. It was the Foundation’s activities on the Buluh River which generated the impetus to have the Reserve’s border demarcated. The value in having a defined border can not be overstated. It acts as a landmark on which to base all community discussions, patrolling and conservation planning. It is especially encouraging that the Forestry Department embraced the task enthusiastically and did not just concentrate on the Buluh River (which the Foundation highlighted as the most pressing need) but continued around the whole reserve. At the time of writing, the marking of the western border was almost complete.

Additional progress has been made in securing the cooperation of the designated law-enforcement authorities, namely the police and KSDA. Joint Police, KSDA and Orangutan Foundation patrols have been run from mid-July. Illegal logging on the river was stopped swiftly. A certain amount of momentum had been generated previously by earlier anti-illegal logging patrols elsewhere in the Reserve. As a consequence, once patrols started on the Buluh River, the loggers withdrew quickly. It is fully accepted that the threat of a resumption of illegal logging remains ever present but the Foundation now has the easier task of preventing logging, rather than stopping it. Guard posts have proven very effective in stopping loggers from returning, as they deny the loggers the use of the rivers which provide the only access to the interior of the Reserve.

Patrols, which are strict law-enforcement activities, have been backed up by community meetings to sensitise local people to, firstly, the legal reality of the nature reserve and, secondly, to the Foundation’s plans. The camat or mayor has accompanied Foundation representatives to these meetings and has been fully supportive. As a result, at the 27 August community meeting, it was agreed that:

• There would be no more logging and no more opening of new land on the Buluh River
• Only 34 people who registered their land last year, would be allowed to farm in the area
• These people are only allowed to farm this year, in this growing season
• This is the final policy; after this there will be no other dispensation and action will be taken against people who do not obey the rules or Government laws

Difficulties experienced to date

The Foundation has had least success in stopping local farming activities. There are at least 67 people farming inside the reserve and another 100 on the Buluh River leading into the reserve. Whereas the illegal logging was stopped swiftly, farming is much harder to curtail. There are a number of reasons for this: farming is associated with ‘food for families’ rather than with money as is the case with illegal logging, hence there is a reluctance on the part of the police to act too harshly; land rights are confused – logging is demonstrably illegal but farming is not necessarily so (the villagers all claim they were outside of the reserve), there can be historic claims on land which are hard to prove or disprove; and many of the people farming are immigrants who genuinely may not have known the area was a reserve and were duped into purchasing the land from unscrupulous people in Pendulangan village. No one wants to inflict a serious financial loss on them.

The Foundation has a clear strategy for dealing with the problem of farming but it is time consuming and this is the major reason why the project is running a month behind schedule. Firstly, the border had to be agreed – that has now been achieved. Secondly, the Foundation identified every person farming inside the reserve and, using GPS, mapped where they are working. On-going patrols are now applying pressure on the farmers to leave, however, as a negotiating option, the Foundation will allow the people to use their land for this growing season (now until March). After that they must agree to leave. Furthermore, the Foundation is confident that the level of current activity which will increase as construction work begins will act as a further deterrent the villagers will see the Foundation is serious and unmoveable. They will know therefore they can not expand their farms meaning they will have to leave eventually.

Army sergeant standing in a recently burnt farm straddling the border. Note the singed trees on the forest edge. With their leaves gone, these trees will die.

Photograph showing how the farms extend along the river leaving a clear forest edge

Photo showing how close the forest can come to the river if there is no farming

Budget and Agreement from AOP

The total budget for this project is AUD $80,426. $34,254 was sent by AOP to the Buluh Lamandau project in June 2005. Since the Orangutan Foundation UK has met the funding conditions set by AOP and have made satisfactory progress towards the projects stated objectives, the next payment of $15,390 will be made in September 2005.