Adaptive collaborative management of community forests in Asia ...

178 • Herlina Hartanto
and that the area where the cooperative was collecting almaciga resin had
in the past been their area; moreover, the Batak village areas were said to be
within the expanded cooperative area. At that time, only the cooperative
had the legal right to extract resin because the Bataks were still dealing
with the administrative and technical requirements of permit renewal.
To solve this boundary issue, the team facilitated a meeting of the
cooperative’s board of directors to reflect on the causes and determine
how to handle it. The group assumed that a map of the two forest areas
would resolve the dispute, once the Bataks could see for themselves that
the boundaries did not overlap. No such map was available at the DENR
provincial office, however. On learning this, the group requested assistance
from the Palawan Tropical Forest Protection Project in obtaining the global
positioning system coordinates of the forest boundaries. A survey undertaken
by the cooperative, DENR, and Palawan Tropical Forest Protection Project
in March 2001; representatives from the Bataks and local government were
not able to participate. The survey clearly delineated the cooperative’s
forest boundaries on the ground, and a map was drawn.
In a meeting facilitated by the DENR site coordinator, the group showed
the map to the Bataks and explained the location of their forest area visà-vis
the Batak village. The map was neither useful nor effective, however.
The Bataks, like many other indigenous people in Southeast Asia, have a
different conception of boundaries and mark their territories by following
natural features, such as rivers and hills, not in the form of a line that
delimits the margins of a territory (Fox 2000). Nevertheless, the group
believed that a map showing the location of both areas, relative to each
other, was still needed, and DENR was asked to provide such a map.
During the dialogue, it became clear that the boundary dispute masked the
real problem for the Bataks: securing their livelihoods. Their inability to
obtain permits from DENR to access almaciga resin had serious economic
repercussions. Using this insight, group members reckoned that the
boundary dispute would be resolved indirectly if they could help the Bataks
make a living. They therefore negotiated a working arrangement to allow
the Bataks to extract almaciga resin from their forest area provided the
Bataks sold the resin back to the cooperative. In turn, the cooperative
would guarantee a price per kilogram of at least one-half to one Philippine
peso higher than that offered by the local traders. This arrangement was
welcomed by the Bataks, who usually bartered their resin for rice, coffee
or tobacco at unfavourable exchange rates. The cooperative also stood to