MANGKUBUMI sheet, 1st Edition: January 2020

1st Edition newsletter “MANGKUBUMI sheet”

The control and use of forests on the southern coast of Tulungagung, East Java has changed drastically in the last 20 years. One of the things that seems to significantly influence this change is the role of migrant women who invest their remittances in the forest. Perum Perhutani (Indonesia State Public of Forest Company), which has managed 2.4 million hectares of forest in Java since 1961, inherited what the boschwezen (Dutch colonial forest service) had done in controlling land, species and labor. Those controls change over time. In the southern area of Tulungagung, forests have disappeared and turned into sengon, maize, banana, and other fruit crops. The community began to control forest land, control the use of forest land. Perum Perhutani (Indonesia State Public of Forest Company), once or twice manifested its remnants of control with repressive measures.

The Indonesian government is trying to accommodate this phenomenon with a social forestry program called IPHPS (Permit for Utilization of Social Forestry Forests) which in essence grants forest utilization permits to communities managing forests with tree stands below 10%. In managing forest land, the community gets capital from remittances from girls and wives who work outside the region or abroad. The masculinity of forest tenure and use by cutting wood, cutting wood, transporting wood, hoeing, and raising capital from men’s labor outside the region, is now gradually changing with changes in crops, labor systems, decision-making, and sources of capital. Women forge new positions in forest management and change their associated aspects (access, control, land use, land cover, labor, etc.).

The southern coast of Tulungagung is part of the southern karst island of Java, with marble stone specifications. Perum Perhutani determines the suitable forest class on barren and rocky soils is the ja tree. Prior to forest looting in 2000, the community lived from planting crops between ja trees using an inter-cropping system for about 3 years since planting ja. After that, society had to leave. The water is hard, there are no springs, the river is dry. Landless farmers have to wait for the forest clearing schedule for Perhutani to get the 3-year cultivated land. This difficult situation has made the migration of both men and women to a high level from this area. In the 1980s, the transmigration program absorbed workers from this area by bringing their families with them. In the 1990s, when HPH, HTI, and plantation concessions flourished outside Java, this area was also a source of labor. In the 2000s, many female workers migrated abroad (Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan). Currently, the sources of employment within the village and outside the village are mixed in the household economy and manifest in forest land.

 

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