Adaptive collaborative management of community forests in Asia ...

138 • Eva Wollenberg, Ramses Iwan, Godwin Limberg, Moira Moeliono, Steve Rhee and Made Sudana
purposes and questions (see below). We nevertheless shared concepts and
methods in Bogor and developed fruitful synergies with the work of our
colleagues elsewhere that informed the work in Malinau.
Malinau River watershed
The Malinau River watershed is the most densely populated area of the
district and the most developed. The CIFOR Adaptive Collaborative
Management team chose to work in the 27 villages of the upper Malinau
River (Figure 5-2), from Sentaban to Long Jalan, to be close to other
CIFOR activities. About 6,673 people (Malinau Voting Census 2003)
reportedly live in the 500,000-ha watershed, although we suspect this
figure is slightly higher than the actual resident population. The villages
are distributed among 21 settlements with as few as 15 to as many as 997
individuals each. About 51 percent of the households are considered poor
according to national standards of housing, clothing and number of meals
per day (BKKBN 2001). The area is ethnically diverse, with the main ethnic
groups being the Kenyah, Merap, Lundaye, Tidung and two Punan groups
(Malinau and Tubu). The Merap 9 ethnic group reportedly controlled the
territory for most of the 20th century and maintains a wide presence. Punan
groups that historically collected forest products for the Merap often lived
and intermarried with them.
Government resettlement programs in the 1960s to 1980s and one program
in 1999 then encouraged other Dayak groups from more remote areas of
the district to settle in the area. Current villages correspond to the different
ethnic groups that arrived in the area at these different times. The villages
maintained their autonomy and were linked to the official government
structure through their kepala desa (village heads), most of whom also
had local authority within their village as customary leaders. In the upper
Malinau, nine settlements consist of such ethnic village clusters, with two
to four villages in each location.
With the resettlement programs, population pressure on local resources in
the watershed increased substantially, and newcomers did not always sever
ties with their former territories. Villages in the upper Malinau claimed
multiple territories that overlapped with other villages’ claims. Based on
district Decree No. 3 in 2001, the government has sought to transform
the clusters into single villages and reduce the overall number of villages.
District officials have also stated that villages could make claims only to
land where they were living.