Chapter 23
Land Tenure on Peatland: A Source
of Insecurity and Degradation in Riau,
Sumatra
Kosuke Mizuno, Michiko Hosobuchi, and Dyah Ayu Ritma Ratri
Abstract Peatland has long served the panglong (timber) businesses as well as the
local people. In the nineteenth century, people could clear the land as long as they
paid the sultan or community chief. The Sultan in Deli gave empty land concessions
to companies (tanah kosong) on the condition that the company kept the land for
swidden agriculture for local people. The Agrarian Law in 1870 enabled the colonial
government to grant land concessions to companies for woeste grond (waste land),
over which the people had no rights. The concept of “waste land” was different from
“empty land” which was a part of the customary land tenure system. After the
independence, the Basic Agrarian Act and the Basic Forestry Act recognized the
customary communal right of disposition (hak ulayat) and the right to clear land;
however, these rights were strictly interpreted, making it challenging to implement
them. The Basic Forestry Act stipulated the state forest area (kawasan hutan) as the
forest over which the people had no rights other than hak ulayat. The Forestry Act in
1999 added that people were prohibited from cultivating and/or making use of and/or
occupying the state forest area illegally. According to our survey at a village in the
peatland area, almost all land was state forest area, in which there were a lot of
production forests over which companies had been granted concessions. On the
other hand, local people had settled there since the 1930s and acquired land through
inheritance, buying, and clearing. Many of them have letters of certificate for this
land. Today the government tends not to recognize such letters issued for state forest
areas. These conditions have given rise to the insecurity of land rights in the
peatlands. While the government hopes that agrarian reform would resolve land
tenure issues through social forest programs, local people have yet to see benefits
from these programs.
K. Mizuno (*) · D. A. R. Ratri
School of Environmental Science, Universitas Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia
e-mail: mizuno@cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp
M. Hosobuchi
Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
M. Osaki et al. (eds.), Tropical Peatland Eco-management,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4654-3_23
627
Land Tenure on Peatland: A Source
of Insecurity and Degradation in Riau,
Sumatra
Kosuke Mizuno, Michiko Hosobuchi, and Dyah Ayu Ritma Ratri
Abstract Peatland has long served the panglong (timber) businesses as well as the
local people. In the nineteenth century, people could clear the land as long as they
paid the sultan or community chief. The Sultan in Deli gave empty land concessions
to companies (tanah kosong) on the condition that the company kept the land for
swidden agriculture for local people. The Agrarian Law in 1870 enabled the colonial
government to grant land concessions to companies for woeste grond (waste land),
over which the people had no rights. The concept of “waste land” was different from
“empty land” which was a part of the customary land tenure system. After the
independence, the Basic Agrarian Act and the Basic Forestry Act recognized the
customary communal right of disposition (hak ulayat) and the right to clear land;
however, these rights were strictly interpreted, making it challenging to implement
them. The Basic Forestry Act stipulated the state forest area (kawasan hutan) as the
forest over which the people had no rights other than hak ulayat. The Forestry Act in
1999 added that people were prohibited from cultivating and/or making use of and/or
occupying the state forest area illegally. According to our survey at a village in the
peatland area, almost all land was state forest area, in which there were a lot of
production forests over which companies had been granted concessions. On the
other hand, local people had settled there since the 1930s and acquired land through
inheritance, buying, and clearing. Many of them have letters of certificate for this
land. Today the government tends not to recognize such letters issued for state forest
areas. These conditions have given rise to the insecurity of land rights in the
peatlands. While the government hopes that agrarian reform would resolve land
tenure issues through social forest programs, local people have yet to see benefits
from these programs.
K. Mizuno (*) · D. A. R. Ratri
School of Environmental Science, Universitas Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia
e-mail: mizuno@cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp
M. Hosobuchi
Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
M. Osaki et al. (eds.), Tropical Peatland Eco-management,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4654-3_23
627