Palm Moguls Rule Papua (1 Jul 2008)

Local people should be prioritized as workers

Tempo Magazine - As many as 13 companies are ready to develop palm plantations in Papua covering an area of 352,651 hectares. Five of them have begun operating while the rest are in the process of preparing the land.

Director of Seedlings and Production Means of the Directorate General of Plantations of the Department of Agriculture, Darmansyah Basyaruddin, is optimistic that with the total investment in trillions of rupiah, the prosperity of the Papuan people will be raised.

"Thousands of labor force will be absorbed, and that is why I am confident that the prosperity of the Papuan people will be realized," he said to Tempo, last Tuesday.

The government gave signals that more than half of the whole labor force needed in each company should be prioritized for local people. As for experts, if not available, they can be recruited from other regions. In addition to that, said Darmansyah, the government request the investors to the apply partnership patterns. "Among others, 20 percent of raw material must be taken from plantations that belong to local residents."

Concerning the area for palm industries in Papua, Director-General of Plantation Plants of the Department of Agriculture, Achmad Mangga Barani, once mentioned the number 885,140 hectares spread in 19 regencies. Papua, he said, has very great potential for palm oil. "The soil structure and the climate are suitable," he said. "Plantations in Papua are not that dense compared to those in Kalimantan and Sumatra."

Chief of Biak Customary Council, Yan Pieter Yarangga, does not immediately welcome all the plans. Judging from the orientations of previous companies that operated in Papua, they tend to prioritize workers from outside. "There has not been any palm company that contributed to the prosperity of the indigenous people and their surroundings," he said in a seminar titled "Save the People and Forest of Papua" organized by the NGO Telapak at the Cemara Hotel, Monday last week. A Greenpeace campaigner, Bustar Maistar, agrees with Yan. He refers to palm plantations in Prafi, Manokwari, and in Arso where most of the workers to cultivate the land are taken from transmigrants. As for Arso people, they still use their land as a hunting zone. "We are also worried that the clearing of land for palm plantations will be risky for deforestation," he said at the same event.

According to Septer Manufandu, the Chairperson of the Papuan NGOs Cooperation Forum, the speed of degradation and deforestation is 1.08 hectares per year. Now, out of 31 million hectares of the remaining forest, 17.8 million hectares remain in Papua and its size is decreasing from year to year. "I hope what has happened with Kalimantan and Sumatra will not occur in Papua," he said.

Responding to such anxieties, Section Head of the Forest Zone Authorization of Planology Body of the Forestry Department, M. Said, said that the clearing of land for palm is allowed only within the zone of Product Conversion Forest. "Out of that zone we will not give permission," he said to Tempo.

Product Conversion Forest is a zone of prior producing forest, now no longer productive and which can be converted to a non-forestry zone. According to data from the Planology Body, the area of productive forest in Papua is around 30 percent of the total forest area in Papua, or around 12.6 million hectares

Darmansyah stated that the opening of a palm plantation area must be made in accordance with the principles and criteria of production of sustainable palm plantation, as mentioned in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. "If it is not, then we will hold back the operation permit."

-- Fanny Febyanti, Arti Ekawati and Sudrajat