Kemiri (Aleurites moluccana) and Forest Resource Management in Eastern Indonesia: An Eco-historical Perspective

Abstract

Kemiri, Aleurites moluccana, is an important useful plant in the Indonesian archipelago. It has been grown for both subsistence and commercial purposes, particularly in regions with a tropical monsoon climate, and has been important in sustaining the everyday life of people in Eastern Indonesia. It has been utilized for various purposes: the lipid-rich seeds provide material for illumination, cooking and pharmaceuticals, and its trunks provide timber. Most of the production is currently exported to Surabaya for local consumption, and part of it is exported abroad. In addition to such economic uses, it is worth paying attention to kemiri's role in the rehabilitation of forest areas in Eastern Indonesia. There were two epoch-making periods in relation to kemiri plantations, one in the colonial and the other in the New Order period. In South Sulawesi in the 1920s and 1930s, the Dutch forestry agency recommended kemiri planting to rehabilitate abandoned fields of shifting cultivation. This was the region's first encounter with government forest policy. Under the New Order regime, in accordance with policies favoring rapid economic development, "encroachment" on forest areas raised complicated issues. As local people, both natives and migrants, began to open forest areas for agricultural purposes, the government of South Sulawesi was forced to adjust the disignated boundaries of forest areas and also to launch a new policy for stabilizing the encroachment. Under Pola Sul-Sel (the South Sulawesi system), agricultural activities were legally recognized, even in the forest area, if combined with the plantation of useful trees such as kemiri. As these cases show, kemiri can be considered to have left an important "footprint" from which we can learn about the process of political ecology in forest areas adjacent to agricultural lands in Eastern Indonesia.