Land redistribution key to reducing

inequality
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Alexander Irwan and Yanuar Nugroho

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Jakarta | Wed, September 19, 2018 | 09:44 am

Scenic view of a tropical forest in Kalimantan. (Shutterstock/File)
One similarity between the three Asian economies, namely Japan, South Korea and
Taiwan, is their success in becoming high-income countries after World War II while Commented [WU1]: Relational Process

maintaining a more equal distribution of income. Currently the Gini Index of Japan,
South Korea and Taiwan are in the low 0.30s, while Indonesia’s index (a lower
middle-income country) is around 0.40. Key to the ability of the three countries in
maintaining a more equal distribution of income is land reform, which they conducted
as early as the 1940s and 1950s.

The 2016 data from the Global Hunger Index and last year’s figures from the United
Nation’s Food and Agricultural Organization show that the world’s hunger and
malnutrition cases increased from 777 million in 2015 to 815 million in 2016.

This problem is not solely due to lack of food, but is also related to villagers’ lack of
access to land and concentration of land ownership in the hands of corporations. Lack
of access to land and natural resources is among major contributing factors to
increasing inequality.

Yet it is never too late to conduct land reform. The Indonesian government’s plan to
provide ownership certificates and long-term leases over land and forests totaling
more than 21 million hectares to local communities living within or in surrounding
forest areas needs to be supported.

With these certificates and leases, millions of poor rural Indonesians will have the
necessary legal certainty to invest in those lands and forests as assets to improve their
livelihoods and help ensure a brighter future for their children.

The government’s social forestry program, for example, provides local communities
and indigenous people legal access to manage forests and other natural resources
within them.

Recent research by the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago (AMAN)

demonstrates that indigenous communities create significant economic value from
their forest management.

The Kajang community in Bulukumba, South Sulawesi, creates approximately Rp

28.92 billion (almost US$2 million) of economic value per year from production of
natural products and various crafts. The Moi Kelim community in Sorong, West
Papua, creates even larger value, reaching Rp 41.23 billion per year. As a comparison,
the Moi Kelim community’s economic value creation is significantly higher than the
total Sorong regional domestic product, currently at $2,413 per year per capita
(excluding oil and gas).
These findings rebuff the common assumption that indigenous peoples’ activities in
forests bring less economic value in comparison to large-scale economic activities like
plantations or mining.

It is thus only appropriate that Indonesia has been selected to host the 2018 Global
Land Forum 2018, to be held in Bandung from Sept. 23 to 27. This forum is
conducted only once every three years and is attended by international development
organizations, UN agencies, government agencies, academics, non-governmental
organizations, as well as civil society organizations (CSOs) and villagers working at
the grass roots level.

In these times of global uncertainty and growing inequality, Indonesia can use the
forum to showcase its efforts to reduce inequality through land and forest
redistribution. Indonesia’s best practices, along with others from around the world,
can be shared with the aim of finding solutions to increasing inequality in the low- and
lower middle-income countries.

Indeed, Indonesia has much to share, not the least of which is the constructive
collaboration between government agencies at all levels with CSOs and millions of
villagers from across the archipelago to actualize the progressive land and forest
redistribution agenda.

One example is the creation of a community forestry in Namo village, Sigi regency in
Central Sulawesi. During the 1980s, the Namo community living around Lore Lindu
National Park had limited access to the forest.

However, since the implementation of the hutan desa (village forest) program in
Namo, the community set up zones in the forest for various types of forest
management. Research by the Partnership for Governance Reform (Kemitraan) in
2016 shows an increase in monthly income of Rp 900,000 per household from
managing non-timber forest products, like rattan or bamboo.

From abroad, another success story on community forest management comes from
Honduras. Community forestry in Honduras has been characterized by little or no
formal or legal rights over forest areas.

However, a study in three municipalities of the central highlands found that in the 10
years between 1994 and 2003, community forestry enterprises contributed
approximately $7 million to the local economy. In one municipality, Lepaterique,
local residents established small-scale logging operations in 1992. Five years later, a
socioeconomic survey found the income of households involved in these logging
activities had doubled and that 50 to 60 percent of their total income had come from
forest activities.

The 2018 Land Forum will be held in Bandung, host city of the historic 1955 Asia-
Africa Conference, which at that time represented nearly one-quarter of the world’s
 land surface and roughly 54 percent of its population. The final Communique of the
Conference underscored the need for participating countries to provide technical
assistance to one another through the exchange of experts and technological know-
how, as well as the establishment of regional training and research institutes.

May the 2018 Global Land Forum deliver promises of the 1955 Asia-Africa
Conference in bridging collaboration among emerging countries that are struggling to
reduce inequality through land and forest redistribution.

***

Alexander Irwan is acting director of the Ford Foundation Jakarta office, and Yanuar
Nugroho is deputy chief of staff for Analysis and Oversight of Strategic Issues on
Social, Cultural and Ecological Affairs at the Executive Office of the President.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of
The Jakarta Post.

Topics :

 land-redistribution, land-reform, economic-inequality, inequality, poverty-

alleviation, fores