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Indonesia's Indigenous People Not Yet Focused on Climate

Fidelis E. Satriastanti
Wednesday, 25-April-2012

 

Though long identified as among those most vulnerable to the effects of global warming, indigenous groups meeting at a national summit in North Maluku barely touched on the issue of climate change.

Nina Dwisasanti, a researcher on climate change adaptation at the Samdhana Institute, said the issue of adapting to climate change was not yet high on indigenous peoples’ agenda.

“I think that’s fine because they already have a lot to deal with, including land disputes and rights issues,” she said on the sidelines of the fourth congress of the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago (AMAN) in Tobelo, North Halmahera.

Nina was the moderator of a discussion on “Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change Adaptation,” one of a series of events that are part of the AMAN Congress, attended by representatives of indigenous groups from across the country. M. Djauhari, a representative for a group from Enggano Island in Bengkulu, told the discussion about how his community had been fighting the provincial administration’s plan to set up a rocket launch site on the island.

“We are worried about the future of our island,” he said.

“Where will our grandchildren live if the launch site is built on the island? We also live in fear of the military, because they have no problem locking us up for the smallest of mistakes.”

With all these problems on their plate, Djauhari acknowledged that there had not been any special discussion or efforts in his community on adapting to climate change.

Representatives from a community in the Togean Islands in Central Sulawesi, however, said they were keenly aware of the issue of climate change and concerned about what steps they could take to adapt.

“We are very concerned about it,” said Mardan, a representative. “The weather is getting hotter and our harvests are failing. We are also worried because the sea level has risen by a meter. Many of our homes are flooded and our people are having to move to areas farther away from the beach.”

He said the community was also having to deal with massive deforestation in their area by logging companies that had reduced the forest cover there to a tenth of its original 290 hectares.

“It’s not indigenous people who are destroying the forest but the exploitation by companies. The result is that whereas 20 years ago we could survive for five months through the dry season, now we cannot survive even one month,” Mardan said.

Nina said she hoped that indigenous groups could soon start to adapt to climate change.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

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