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Revised paper, 3 January 2011

IMPACT OF ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION ON

UPLAND POOR’S LIVELIHOODS :

CASES OF SOUTH KALIMANTAN (INDONESIA) AND SARAWAK (MALAYSIA)[footnoteRef:2] [2: This exploratory paper is based on the reports of the recently conducted two field studies, one in the province of South Kalimantan (Indonesia) and another in the state of Sarawak (Malaysia), as well as a limited literature study. The one in South Kalimantan was conducted and reported by Haris Fadillah, Ahmad Yunani, Gusti Fahmi Adliansyah, and Danang Adhinata from Lambung Mangkurat University (UNLAM), Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan; while the one in Sarawak, was by Wong Swee Kiong and Ling How Kee from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), Kota Samarahan, Sarawak. This paper has also benefitted from the comments made by Evi Nurvidya Arifin (Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore) and the assistance of Chua Cheng Siew (National University of Singapore).]

By: Aris Ananta, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore[footnoteRef:3] [3: Aris Ananta is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore. He can be contacted at [email protected], and [email protected] . With Richard Barichello, he edited the book Poverty, Food, and Global Recession in Southeast Asia. Is the Crisis Over for the Poor? Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, forthcoming (2011).]

Background Paper for Conference on the “Environment of the Poor”, 24-26 November 2010, New Delhi[footnoteRef:4] [4: For more information, see the conference website: http://www.adb.org/Documents/Events/2010/Environments-Poor/default.asp]

SUMMARY

The poor have often been blamed for environmental degradation, as being poor has caused them to destroy the environment. However, this study concludes that poverty is not the sufficient condition of the environmental degradation. It is only the necessary condition. The sufficient condition is the existence of a third party (big companies) that destroys the environment. The poor join the big companies because they see an opportunity to sustain their livelihood or even increase their income.

We recommend three policies to be implemented simultaneously, in addition to the full enforcement of the laws against environmental degradation. First is to create alternative employment opportunities for the local people so that they do not depend on activities which are harmful to their own environment. However, the people, including those from outside their area, may continue contributing to the environmental degradation. The people may not be able to resist joining the big companies in the environmentally harmful activities as long as their own income will rise. We cannot expect them to have a long vision.

Therefore, we need the second policy, that is to create employment opportunities which heavily depend on the bio-diversity of the environment. By doing so, it is for the interest of the local people to protect and enhance their environment. They will protest and resist companies and developmental projects which destroy their environment.

However, such a policy may not work well if those multi-national companies offer incentives and other forms of compensation (“bribery”) to the local people. Thus, we need the third policy, that is to enlist all goods produced by companies which destroy the environment. The list of the goods is then published and disseminated to all over the world, through credible sources such as international websites. The consumers have the right to know whether the goods and services they consume are harmful to the environment and/or are produced using environmentally harmful activities. The strong campaign to increase the consumers’ awareness will greatly reduce the demand for such products and consequently reduce profit of the companies. The decline in the profit will reduce the companies’ motivation to destroy the environment.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

The issues of poverty reduction and environmental conservations are very closely related. Comim, Kumar, and Sirven (2009), for example, even called the two issues as twin goals in economic development. The poor depend so much on their natural resource base and primary production sources that the degradation of the environment will have a negative impact on their livelihoods.

However, the poor have often been blamed for environmental degradation, as being poor has caused them to destroy the environment. This issue of poverty and environment actually dates back to the time of Malthus in the 18th century, with population growth as the main villain, in his publications on “An Essay on the Principles of Population”. Malthus argued that poverty and having too many children had brought the poor surviving on livelihoods that destroyed their own environment. As mentioned in United Nation Environment Programme (1995), the people’s constraints (education, information, health, and income) made them unable to make a long term planning. Their choices are limited and they have no control of their future.

Even, improvement in the environment may not be seen positively by the local people, as they do not have better alternative livelihoods. Because they benefit from the environmentally harmful livelihoods, they may often resist environment rehabilitation programs. For example, Cao et al (2010) found that farmers, livestock grazers and forest workers were disadvantaged by the “Natural Forest Conservation Program (NFCP)” in the dry-land areas of Northern Shaanxi Province, China. The program had successfully banned logging and grazing in the forest, and the people around the forest had lost their income as logging and grazing were their main livelihoods. This study also showed that the poorer the people, the more they suffer from the forest conservation program. Therefore, not surprisingly, the youngest and oldest population as well as the women were those who suffered the most from the conservation program. The study recommended that the government provide economic assistance to compensate the loss of income due to the forest conservation program.

Southeast Asia is a region where the timber logging industries have contributed significantly to government revenues. For example, rents from timber had become an important source for economic growth, government revenue and fiscal capacity in Malaysia. A large group of Japanese companies imported a very large volume of forest and agricultural resources from Southeast Asia. About 90 per cent of this import since 1970s came from Indonesia, East Malaysia (Sarawak and Sabah), and the Philippines. They built a long chain of business linkages to evade taxes and royalties through a patron-client networks, to maintain the low prices, resulting in destructive logging practices. This pattern is especially seen in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines (Daniel, Lebel, and Nan 2009)

Large areas of Southeast Asia’s forest has also been replaced with oil-palm plantation, which has recently become the world’s most highly demanded crop. On the other hand, oil palm plantation has often destroyed the bio-diversity of the environment. It results in habitat fragmentation and pollution, such as greenhouse gas emissions. It can only support a smaller number of species compared to the support from forest and other tree crops. Therefore, oil-palm industries can only be continued only if they can avoid their destruction on the bio-diversity of the forest. (Fitzherbert et al 2008)

Southeast Asia is also a region where economic growth has been side by side with over-exploitation of its environment. Economic liberalization and FDI (foreign direct investment) have brought negative externality, which is seldom taken into account in their cost-benefit analyses. Southeast Asia has suffered from a crisis in its social-ecological sub-system. As an illustration is the over-exploitation of forest resources in this region by unwise, often greedy and corrupt, logging industries, who moved from one country to another to maintain their timber markets. On the other hand, at the same time, the importing countries, such as Japan, have worked hard to protect their own environment, including forest. (Lebel 2009)

Another illustration is mining activities, which have changed the use and degraded the quality of land. The soil fertility declined and the soil eventually became infertile (Ghose 2004).

Salafsky and Wollenberg (2000) recommended alternative employment opportunities for people living near to areas rich of natural resources. An even better alternative is to create employment opportunities that depend on the sustainability of the environment. With this strategy, the micro view from the locals is compatible with the macro view of the environmentalists. This policy will is also aid in the conservation program of the natural resources. Therefore, as mentioned in Comim, Kumar, and Sirven (2009), any effective policy on poverty reduction should be based on a full understanding on the very close relationship between the environment and livelihoods of the poor.

This paper aims to have in-depth experience on the impact of change in environment on the livelihoods of the communities, particularly in the province of South Kalimantan (Indonesia) and the state of Sarawak (Malaysia). It tries to suggest some policy recommendations to protect and improve environment through improving the livelihoods of the people. It is an exploratory study which needs to be followed by deeper studies, to test the wider applicability of the policy recommendations suggested in this paper.

METHOD OF ANALYSIS

As an exploratory study, this paper does not intend to be exhaustive on all impacts of environment on poverty through changes in the poor’s livelihoods. It concentrates on the Island of Borneo, the third largest island in the world, located south of the Philippines. Politically, it comprises Brunei Darussalam, two Malaysian states (Sarawak and Sabah), and four Indonesian provinces (South Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, and West Kalimantan). It has a very large rain forest, but its biodiversity has been under serious threat from logging, palm-oil plantations, and mining industries. The culture of the population in the whole island is almost similar to each other.

In particular, we carried out in-depth interviews with people in the province of South Kalimantan in the Southern Borneo and the state of Sarawak in the Northern Borneo. The two selected areas have something in common. Both have rich natural resources that changed the pattern of livelihood of the communities. In South Kalimantan mining and logging have become important sources of livelihood and therefore welfare of the local community. In Sarawak development projects and logging have also been significantly contributing to the way local people earn their living.

We interviewed the people in these two areas to find out the their perceptions on environmental degradation, improvement in livelihoods, and their quality of life. The data collections were mostly qualitative in nature, interviewing key-informants and villagers. The field work in South Kalimantan was conducted in July 2010, interviewing 20 respondents, mostly aged between 30 and 40 years old. Almost two third of the respondents had primary school education, and more than two third worked as farmers. Most earned about Rp 2,000,000 (about US$220) a month. The field work in Sarawak was carried out in September 2010 with 58 respondents, mostly aged 41 to 60 years, working as farmers, and about a quarter had no education at all. Around one third of the respondents earned below RM500 (about US$160) a month. Readers, however, should exercise caution in interpreting this statistics since these statistics may not well represent these areas.

SOUTH KALIMANTAN

The province of South Kalimantan is the second largest producer of coal in Indonesia, after the province of East Kalimantan, and yet, provision of electricity is still a big problem in these two provinces. Most of the coal was exported. Only the remainder was available for domestic use in Indonesia, including in South Kalimantan. In 2009 , mining and quarrying contributed 21.47 per cent to the province’s GDP, after agriculture (24.63 per cent). Most of the natural resources, forest, plantation, and mining are in Meratus Mountains and at the foot of the mountains. Per capita income was about US$1,613[footnoteRef:5] and poverty rate was 5.12 per cent. [5: Assuming that US$1 is equal to Rp 9,000.]

The mining industry has benefited much more to the betterment of societies, and yet it has led environmental degradation suffered by all societies. For example, surface mining is the preferred method of mining but this method has often led to soil degradation and forest cover destruction. (Fatah 2008)

The communities selected for the province of South Kalimantan are those living in upland area, the Meratus Mountain Range. More specifically, the field study was concentrated in three villages in the regency of Banjar: the village of Paramasan Bawah (which is very far from mining activities, but close to the forest), the village of Rantau Bakula (very close to mining activities) and the the village of Belimbing Lama (relatively far from mining activities).

Actually, the regency of Banjar was not poor, with a poverty rate at 4.24 per cent in 2007. The three villages were selected simply for an exploratory comparison of effect of environment degradation on livelihoods of the people and how the people reacted to the environmental degradation.

Rantau Bakula Village

This village is very close, about 2 km, to the mining activities. It is relatively better off, but its environment has been polluted, and the soil fertility has been degraded. However, the respondents perceived that the environmental degradation had been over-compensated by the much improvement in their livelihoods—through new employment opportunities and lucrative compensation from the mining companies.

The people used to work primarily in subsistence agriculture. They seldom sold the agriculture products. They used the output mainly for their own consumption. The arrival of coal mining activities have changed their livelihood and economic conditions. Then, the local people worked mainly in the mining activities, and some even sold their land for mining. They worked mostly as daily workers, not contract workers. They could not work as contract workers because of their low educational qualifications. They had to be satisfied with working as daily workers. The contract workers were mostly people from outside the areas. Yet, their salaries were relatively high about 1.7 million rupiah (about US$200) a month, living in a mountain. As a comparison, a fresh graduate from a third tier university in Indonesia, working at a call centre in a bank in Jakarta, earned only 1.6 million rupiah a month. Living cost in Jakarta is much higher than that in the mountain.

The younger generation has improved their education, often completing their senior high school education. The younger generation wanted to work in the mining activities, while the older people were more likely to continue working in agriculture The young generations saw relatively wealthier migrants working in the mining activities, and they wanted to attain that prosperity. The head of the village even helped the companies to recruit and train the local people.

The mining companies helped a lot in raising the standards of living of the local people, by, for example, funding many facilities such as for sport, mosque, and roads in the village. The roads in the village are in good condition. Figure 1 shows a paved road in the village.

Figure 1. A Paved Road in Rantau Bakula

Courtesy of Aris Ananta

The local people had been relatively richer, seen from the appearance of their houses (mostly with concrete), ownership of satellite TV dished, motor cycles, and cars. Figure 2 describes some houses in the village. The village also has schools (from primary school to senior high school), a mosque, and a community health centre.

Nevertheless, the local people were also aware about the negative impact of mining activities on their environment and livelihood. In particular, the mining in this village is the surface mining, which usually destroys a large area of land or hills. Figure 3 shows some hills in Meratus mountain before being flattened and mined. On the other hand, Figure 4 depicts other hills which have been flattened, ready to be mined.

Figure 2. Houses in Rantau Bakula


Figure 3. Hills, Before Being Flattened

Courtesy of Gusti Fahmi Adliansyah

Figure 4: Hills, After Being Flattened


Coal mining was also a noisy process. They used grenade to destroy the hills. The thunderous blast from this process was even heard in a village about 10 km from the mining activities. It rattled the houses of the villagers. The process also polluted the environment with ashes, dirtied the fruits and food sold in some eating stalls near the roads. The ashes were flown by trucks shipping the coals from the mining areas.

The local people depended heavily on the river for their daily need of water. But, the river was also then polluted, resulting in the decline in the number of fish. The respondents were also aware that the soil fertility would decline and even become infertile after exposure to the mining activities.

In short, the surface mining usually eroded the soil, produced dust and noise, as well as polluted the water. It also disturbed the livelihood of the people, who depend heavily on river.

Therefore, in another village, bordering with the Rantau Bakula Village, we found an under-ground mining activities, expected to minimize the environmental degradation resulted from the coal mining. The under-ground mining does not need to eliminate the surface of a large area or a hill. The trees on the surface are not disturbed. This is a China owned company which brings many workers from China. However, the head of the village of Rantau Bakula is worried about the social impact of this under-ground mining activities. He said that the workers from China practiced a different custom from the one which has been traditionally performed by the local people. The workers from China had irritated the local people. Their behavior is very different from that of the people in the village of Rantau Bakula.

However, the people in the Rantau Bakula village did not seem to care so much about this degradation of the environment, because they perceived that they were better off compared to the time before the arrival of mining activities. The effects of environmental degradation would affect the local people in the long term, but they are only concerned about the present and near future. The absence of alternative employment and their low education may have resulted in this ignorance.

Belimbing Lama Village

The village has a nice and peaceful environment, but the people remained poor. They were not as “wealthy” as the people in Rantau Bakula village. The village only had dirt, unpaved, roads, as shown in Figure 5. Unlike the village of Rantau Bakula, this village is located farther, about 8 km, from mining areas, but closer to the forest. Some respondent also participated in mining activities, but these were small scale traditional gold mining activities which did not affect the environment significantly.

Figure 5: A Dirt Road in Belimbing Lama


The people had not received much influence from the outside. Electricity was still minimal. They used river as the main source of water (for all purposes: drinking, bathing, laundry, etc.) They already had a primary school, a pesantren (Muslim school run by religious leaders), and a community health centre, but their houses were mostly still poor, as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 6 Houses in Belimbing Lama


On the positive side, the environment had not been polluted. The local people continued working as farmers and hunting/ gathering forest products. They worked using a traditional rotational cultivation system, with a regular cycle of clearing land. They also used the forest products only for their own consumption. Therefore, their activities did not disturb the bio-diversity of the forest.

The people did not feel disturbed by the mining activities as the activities were relatively far from them. The grenade blasts from mining activities in the Rantau Bakula village was audible, but they did not care. The mining companies did not compensate the local people either.

An exception is a respondent who lived relatively close to the mining activities. Mining companies was obliged to reclaim the soil after being used for mining activities, so that the soil can be used again for agriculture. He complained that the company did not reclaim the area very well. The company only sowed the seed for akasia trees[footnoteRef:6]. As a result, he could not use the soil for other plantations, including rubber plantation. [6: Akasia (acacia manggum) wood is very popular material to make furniture.]

However, not everybody remained as farmers. The rising traffic passing this village from migrants working in the mining activities in the Rantau Bakula village has created a business opportunity for a family in this village. Figure 7 shows a “warung”, something like a “convenient store”, providing daily needs, including snacks, with opening hours from early morning until late in the evening. The warung was also used for residence and the owners opened the warung as soon as they woke up and closed the store only when they went to sleep. It was an entrepreneurial activity, tapping the market opportunity arising from the arrival and mobility of workers in the mining activities in the Rantau Bakula village.

Figure 7. “Warung” : an entrepreneur in Belimbing Lama


Paramasan Bawah Village

This village has both a nice, peaceful environment and rich community. It is very far from mining activities but close to the forest. The local people used to work on subsistence farming. Additional income were earned from rotational plantations. While waiting for the harvest, they also carried out small scale timber logging activities and traditional gold mining. See Figure 8.

Figure 8 Traditional Gold Mining and Logging in Paramasan Bawah


Changes happened after the existence of logging industries (1980-1993), though the logging industries are no longer there now. The logging industry brought outsiders to come and work in the village. The villagers were very open and friendly to the migrants, thus allowing the migrants to quickly integrate with the village life The migrants have changed the way of life of the people in the village. There were a lot of mixed marriages. The local people also learned that employment opportunities were not limited to farming.

The respondents said that economic conditions of the village have been improving in the last decade. The local government has helped with the improvement of the welfare of the people. It provided electricity with diesel fuel and solar energy. It built a community health centre, schools, a mosque, a weekly market, and a traditional community hall (rumah adat). The houses equipped with a satellite TV dish, shown in Figure 9, illustrates the wealth of the people in the village.

In short, the people in this village were relatively better off, though the houses were mostly made from wood. Some of them had motor cycles.

Figure 9. Houses with a Satellite TV Dish in Paramasan Bawah


Nevertheless, the migrants seemed to be richer than the locals. The migrants were more likely to work in trade, motor-cycle workshop, as well as making window and door frames, while the locals were still concentrated in the traditional employment, farming and plantations as well as small scale gold mining. With the arrival of logging industries, they also learned how to collect forest products for sale. Though the formal logging industries have ceased their operations, the local people continued collecting forest products. Some products were used to build their own houses, some were sold. Such activities were actually banned by the local government, but they managed to bribe the officers.

The respondents did not say that the logging activities were excessive. They even said that they took care the bio-diversity of the forest when logging. Nevertheless, from the way they answered, we guess that they did not reveal the whole truth. We guess that they knew the logging activities were excessive, but these activities were lucrative business and they knew how to elude the rules and regulations. The village paved road, which connects the village with other villages and the capital of the regency, has facilitated the fast transportation of the products of illegal logging.

Furthermore, as the village is far from mining activities, the village’s environment did not suffer pollution from mining activities. The village was s very scenic, though they started polluting with “modern’ waste such as plastic, as shown in Figure 10.

Figure 10. Scenic Village of Paramasan Bawah, with “Modern” Waste


The village is an illustration where non-environmentally friendly mining activities in another village have resulted in improvement in economic well being of another village without at the same time suffering the negative externality from the environmental degradation.

SARAWAK[footnoteRef:7] [7: The names of the respondents mentioned below are not the real names.]

Sarawak is a Malaysian state endowed with rich natural resources, particularly its forest. The forest has generated a significant amount of revenue to the state through its production of timber and timber-based/ wood-based products such as rattan and wooden furniture. Sarawak is one of the largest exporters of hard-woods and timber in the world. However, Sarawak is also one of the regions which experienced deforestation, particularly because of logging and development of rubber and oil palm plantations.

Sarawak used to be an agricultural-based economy. The local people were accustomed to depend heavily on land and forest products for their livelihoods. However, it has changed to rapid industrialization in urban areas, particularly the wood-based industries, petrochemical industries, and light to medium size construction companies. In rural areas, the concentration was on large scale plantation cultivations such as oil-palm, carried out by private large plantation corporations. In 2009, the per capita income was about RM 29,045 or US$8,623. “Mining and quarrying” and “manufacturing” had become the two most important sectors to the economy, with each contributing 24.8 per cent to the GDP. Forestry contributed only 3.5 per cent to the GDP. However, large projects such as the hydroelectric dam, oil palm plantation, and logging activities have degraded the rainforest in Sarawak significantly.[footnoteRef:8] [8: The degradation of the soil can be seen from official statistics, satellite, and cartographic data.]

Interestingly, the people had also been increasingly aware of their human rights. They felt that they had become the victims of development, particularly related to logging and plantation activities. As reported by Thien (2005), the traditional communities of Dayak Selako and Dayak Lara in Sarawak had lost their native customary rights of lands to the state or private agencies for the purpose of logging and plantation activities as well as other development projects. Some of them had become active in a growing number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

The study in the state of Sarawak is concentrated in an upland area in Lundu/ Sematan, North-western part of Sarawak. Specifically, the study was conducted in two Bidayuh-Selako villages in the state of Sarawak, both at the foot of Pueh Mountain Range. One is a relatively populated area, while the other is less populated. Logging activities at Mount Pueh around the two villages have been going on since early 1970s.

These two villages are selected because they are located very close to the forest, which used to be the main source for the livelihoods of the local people. They used to collect forest products for both their own consumption and further production into handicrafts for sale. They consume things such as wild vegetables, herbs, fruits, wild boar, and fishery products (fish, prawn, and crab). They also use the forest products to build their own houses. Forest products were also used as raw materials for further production, such as rattan mats, rattan basket, and decorative items for sale.

Nevertheless, timber logging and development projects near these villages have resulted in the deforestation, diminishing the forest and fishery products. Some respondents complained that they lost of their main source of income. A respondent, Billy, a married man with lower secondary education aged 60 mentioned that logging activities have reduced the source of food for the people in the village. He also said that he got lesser and lesser forest pandan (screw pine) and rattan from the forest. Animals such as wild boar had also declined in number because they had migrated to other areas. Figure 11 depicts one of the forests they heavily depended for their livelihood.

Deforestation has also affected the livelihood of the people who depended on the fish from the river. Figure 12 shows one of the rivers.

The logging activities have also resulted in serious erosion and shallower rivers in the villages because of mixture of sediments and sands flown by the rain. These conditions made the soil infertile and unsuitable for planting vegetables and other edible crops. People who heavily depend on harvesting fishery products could no longer get their food from the rivers like they used to. Those who caught fish from the river and sold them for their livelihood had suffered great of income. The local people suffered economic loss because of the logging companies which destroyed their livelihoods. There were even fighting incidents, where the villagers fought with the workers of the logging companies. The government took the sides with the companies and the villagers were arrested.

Figure 11. Forest as the Source of Various Resources for Villagers’ Livelihood

Courtesy of Wong Swee Kiong

Figure 12. River as the Water Source for the Villagers’ Livelihood

Courtesy of Mustafa Abdul Rahman

Agricultural development such as oil-palm plantation has also destroyed the livelihood of the people by polluting the rivers, the main source of livelihoods for the people

Hamdan, a 46 years old man with primary education, complained that

“Pesticides, herbicide and insecticide used in oil palm estates had actually polluted the rivers nearby the estates. A lot of fish in the river have become extinct due to water pollution caused by change in environment due to agricultural development projects”

Another serious problem faced by the villagers was the quality of their rivers, which they had mainly relied on for their daily activities. The quality of the water has been particularly affected by timber logging.

Kolisa, a married women aged 40, with an upper secondary education, shared

“Water pollution is the most serious problem to logging activities. The trees that had been felled down had not been replenished with replanted trees. Consequently, water at the catchment area on the mountain would was polluted with mud and sand each time it rained. This had made the water not safe for consumption.”

Billy told us that

“The piped water became muddy and thus cannot be used for drinking, taking bath and for cooking.”

Hamdan shared that

“The most significant effect of logging activities is water pollution. Water pollution has caused water channelled to every household to become so muddy each time after the rain. This has caused the water unusable for drinking or for cooking purpose.”

Figure 13 shows a river, which became muddy after raining. It could no longer be used for household uses.

Figure 13. A Muddy River (After Raining) Which Is Not Suitable for Household Uses

Courtesy of Mustafa Abdul Rahman

However, some people benefit from agricultural development projects such as oil palm plantation. However, they did not want to work in the oil-palm plantation because they perceived the wages were too low. They liked the oil-palm plantation because the companies gave dividend to the people who allow the companies worked on their land.

Mathew, aged 24, married, with lower secondary education said that

“Oil palm plantation has less environmental effect to the villagers as the plantation is rather far from the village. Indeed, the developer utilized abandoned, unused, land to plant oil palm. The villagers also receive dividends from the company.”

Another respondent, Simon, a man of 60 told that

“Development of oil palm plantation in the village has improved the economic status of the villagers as the developer paid dividend to the villagers who gave up their land for development purposes. The oil palm projects have actually provided employment opportunities to the villagers.”

Interestingly, Hamdan, who complained about the loss of livelihoods from the polluted rivers, actually also benefited from the oil-palm projects. He had a more stable larger income (through the dividend paid by the companies) than from harvesting the rivers. He also mentioned the improvement in village infrastructure as another benefit of the oil-palm projects.

In short, the logging activities and oil palm plantation have changed the livelihoods of the local people, from self-sufficiency to market economy. Easier access to various basic facilities such as health and educational services has also raised the literacy rate among the villages. The villagers changed from heavy reliance on forestry products to more viable forms of livelihoods. Some switched to construction; some had their own farms to produce foods for their own consumption and for sale to people outside the village. Some even mentioned that they preferred the current livelihood, rather than hunting and gathering forest products. Though initially they did not like the destruction of the environment, some eventually did not mind the environmental degradation as they already became better off economically by working in alternative employments.

Interestingly, some respondents had shown their strong resistance to the negative impact of the development projects. They said that there would have been more timber and other forest products available for them and their children, if there had not been any logging activities and development projects.

References and further reading may be available for this article. To view references and further reading you must purchase this article.

References and further reading may be available for this article. To view references and further reading you must purchase this article.

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

Macro (environmental) views are often contradicting the micro, short run, views of the people. It is not fair, however, to force the local, lowly educated, people to have a macro, long term view. We cannot just expect the people to protect their environment for the benefit of future generation, and that we all live in only one planet, without providing them with alternative livelihoods. Their immediate concern is their everyday lives during this present time. They are still struggling for their daily necessities. They want to climb the economic ladder to follow the consumption pattern of those seen in television.

We have three policy recommendations which have to be implemented simultaneously. The first policy is to provide alternative employment opportunities for the people. Without alternative employment, they will continue their only source of livelihoods in environmentally harmful activities. The challenge is that the alternative employment opportunity must provide earning larger than their current earning, including the compensation (or “bribe”) from the large companies to continue their environmentally harmful livelihoods.

Nevertheless, this policy alone will not guarantee the stop of the destruction of the environment. Other people may still be recruited to work in the companies. Therefore, we need the second policy, that is to create employment opportunities which depend heavily on the bio-diversity of the environment. By doing so, they will not have the incentives to destroy the environment. Furthermore, they will work hard to protect their environment because the protected bio-diversity of their environment will allow them to climb their economic ladder faster. The local people will blockade any attempt to have activities which destroy the bio-diversity of their environment.

However, a large amount of compensation (or bribery) may still work to placate them from protesting the destruction of the environment. Therefore, we also need the third policy, that is to enlist all goods produced by companies which destroy environment. The list is then disseminated to all over the world through credible sources such as international websites, mass media, and other widely accessed publications. The consumers have the right to know whether the goods and services they consume are harmful to the environment and/or are produced using environmentally harmful activities. By doing so, the demand for these products will decline, resulting in the decline of the profit from the companies. Eventually, there will be no incentive for the companies to invest in the environmentally harmful businesses.

Finally, it should be remembered that these three policies should be implemented along with the strong implementation of the rules and regulations against any business which destroys the environments.

SELECTED REFERENCES

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Comim, Favio, Pushpam Kumar, and Nicolas Sirven. “Poverty and Environment Links: an illustration from Africa”, Journal of International Development, 21, 2009, pp. 447-469.

Daniel, Rajesh, Louis Lebel, and Sakkarin Na Nan. “Forest Use, Conversion and Governance’. In Critical States. Environmental Challenges to Development in Monsoon Southeast Asia. Edited by Louis Lebel, Anond Snidvongs, Chen-Tung Arthur Chen, and Rajesh Daniel. Selangor, Malaysia: Strategic Information and Research Development Centre, 2009.

Fatah, Luthfi. “The Impact of Coal Mining on the Economy and Environment of South Kalimantan Province, Indonesia”, Asean Economic Bulletin, April, 2008.

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