Industrial plantation forest or better known as HTI is one of forest management systems in Indonesia. In accordance with the name, HTI is closer to forest management system with industrial style.
HTI working system in managing forest is through substituting rain forest plantation with monoculture forest. This certainly affected the enviromnent and forest preservation. Because of that, in indigenous people community’s opinion, HTI is a versus in customary forest management system.
For people in Aceh, penetration of HTI as the government’s hand is a disaster. They felt like closing it down, but administration and regulation owned by HTI made them suppressed and powerless.
So far, Aceh Besar and Pidie are two areas that are facing the group of HTI. Complaints to complaints keep on coming time after time, but it has never been noticed.
The problem is HTI that seems to be protected by regulation because they are the “hands” of the government in occupying forest. On the contrary, people’s community that has customary forest governance is being detained by various things such as administration and beaurocracy when they want to occupy the forest by indigenous people’s way.
Moving on from this mistake, JKMA Aceh, in cooperation with JKMA of each area affected by HTI, tried to explore the right, role, and authority of HTI. Result of the early survey of JKMA team to Department of Forestry of Aceh Besar, showed that they did not have HTI permit document
There are severals documents that have to be prepared by PT Acehnusa Indrapuri as the ruler of HTI in Aceh Besar, such as Amdal, UKL, UPL, RKT, and RKU. All of these documents could be asked from Department of Forestry of Aceh Besar. Since they haven’t had some of those documents, the forest tenure with HTI system by the corporation is categorized as problematic.
But this documents case was denied by BPN of Aceh Besar. They stated that the permit and those documents have been submitted to Department of Forestry of Aceh Besar. On the contrary, Department of Forestry admitted to have not received those documents. This means that the buzz about HTI management permit in Aceh Besar area seemed to be protected by the government institution.
There are some indication of HTI violation in Aceh Besar area, one of them is people’s farm that is included in HTI authority area. Other than that, there is still HTI’s land that still overlapped with the people’s residency. This happened in Gampông Neuheun, Gampông Labui, and Gampông Leungah
The same case happened in HTI area in District Pidie. In Gampông Kulee and Gampông Kareung, Mukim Tungkop, Sub District Batee, people’s farming land is marked as HTI area. Other than that, in Sub District Muara Tiga, HTI area is very close to people’s rice field.
THE CHRONOLOGY OF HTI IN PIDIE
BACK THEN, The Netherland occupied Aceh land little by little by pumpkin farming. The further the the tip of the pumpkin plants spreaded, the further the Dutch claimed their land. Because of that, there is a pemeo from Acehnese, “Lagè Beulanda pula labu.”
Of course in this independent era, they wish for no pumpkin farming system of the Dutch in occupying people’s land. In fact, HTI penetrates Pidie just like how the Dutch farmed pumpkin. How ironic!.
Confession of local people, HTO started to occupy the people’s land of Pidie little by little through the border of the village. At that time, Public Relations of HTI was CA (initial name) from Beureunuen. The owner of HTI was IR with the help of L in Banda Aceh.
“When CA entered our village, there were people who refused their land to be occupied by HTI. But HTI did not care. They kept on demolishing the land with heavy equipment.” Said Teuku Abdurrahman, resident of Gampông Kulee, Mukim Tungkop, District Pidie.
According to Abdurrahman, people were not brave enough to protest because HTI team worked under the watch of Kodim Pidie. Morover, CA who brought HTI to the village stated that he worked based on the order of Department of Forestry. If people wanted to protest, CA said, they should face Aparat Kodim.
“Let me explained this: the forest belongs to people, government belongs to people as well. On the contrary, Kodim is responsible for keeping the country’s security, not the forest. This hill is clearly part of our village, not ownerless. If village area is occupied by HTI, where else will the people live?” said Abdurrahman, retelling his experience in facing HTI.
Ironically, after that statement, the next day, Kodim gathered the people around there. Representative of Kodim Pidie stated that the hill had to be demolished. But Abdurrahman answered that demolishing the hill is matter between the people and HTI. Kodim is just the mediator of HTI.
It was the story on how HTI penetrated Pidie starting from 1995, particularly in Gampông Kulee and Gampông Kareung, Mukim Tungkop. Because HTI party used Kodim as their “metal hands”, the people could not fight. Rather than losing the whole land, said Abdurrahman, the people finally agreed to give 60 hectare of people’s land to HTI.
“Those 60 hectares were then demolished by HTI and they planted them with monoculture forest plantation. It is important to highlight that people gave their land away forcefully, as it was impossible for them to deal with Kodim.” He added.
PT ANI AT A GLANCE
PT Acehnusa Indrapuri (ANI) is a corporation engaged in the field of plantation. It was established in Jakarta, 2 April 1993. According to contemporary Ministrial Decree of Forestry No 762/kpts-II/92 date 5 August 1992, Forest Timber Product Exploitation Permit on Planted Forest (IUPHHK-HTI) has been given to PT Takengon Pulp and Paper Utama on 166.500 ha. Through Ministrial Decree of Forestry No 1571/MENHUT-IV, date 10 September 1993, IUPHHK-HTI has been swithced to PT Indonusa Indrapuri (now PT ANI), with the area that became 118.515 ha.
In the development, those corporation areas lessened to be ± 111.000 ha in District Pidie and Aceh Besar. This is in accordance with Ministrial Decree of Forestry No 95/kpts-II/97 date 17 February 1997 on HPHTI Issuence (IUPHHK-HTI) with the permit validity period until 2035.
PT ANI once did not get the Decree of reimposition of IUPHHK-HTI, because it was in arrears of payment for DR (reforestation funds) and PSDH (Forest Resource Provision), source: Tempo, Tuesday, 28 September 2004. Morover, in the audit report from BPK year 2007, it was mentioned that the DR loan of IDR 40 billion was not realistic with the condition of corporation in the field (www.environmental-auditing.org).
So far, the corporation is still causing problem related to the land occupancy and ownership that is still unclear in reality. Some conflicts occured and ended with “silence” of the corporation and let the land be occupied by other parties. In general, ± 111.000 ha forest area management by PT Acehnusa Indrapuri has not shown any positive performance and has not given big contribution for the government and society.
Published on Buletin Tuhoe XVII Edition, May 2016
Source: JKMA Aceh
