What about abandoned land?

31 palm companies in the lower lying parts of the border area. About two-thirds of Sintang District falls within the 100km border zone. 4.3 What about abandoned land? It is a great win for the conservation agenda that the Indonesian national government has expressed its commitment to steer oil palm development in the border area away from forestlands i.e. land under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Forestry and High Conservation Value Forests HCVF. ‘Abandoned lands’ are now set to be the primary target area for the envisaged expansion of oil palm plantations in the border area. It is feared though, that this will in practise mean that the customary rights land of the Dayak communities will be taken over. In the past 5 years, the Indonesian media regularly reported that a lot of plantation concessions issued by the government are not truly developed into oil palm greenfields. Instead, these lands appear to be abandoned as the concession holder does not work the land. Some recent data are presented below: - In East Kalimantan, 2 million hectares of land is reserved for oil palm development, but only 303,000 hectares have been planted. It is estimated that some 3.1 million hectares of forest was cleared under the banner of plantation development. 70 - In West Kalimantan, of the 1.5 million hectares of land reserved for plantations, only 354,000 hectares are planted see Table 6. Permits have been issued to 118 plantation companies, but only 66 companies are active. 71 Table 6. Status of oil palm plantations issued in several districts in Kalimantan. Area already released District Planted Not yet planted Total Non-active Pontianak 5,844 205,570 211,414 114,700 Landak 21,882 105,818 127,700 291,095 Sambas 12,558 117,518 130,076 113,850 Bengkayang 10,707 230,493 241,200 20,840 Sanggau 142,109 670,161 812,270 53,000 Sintang 63,088 279,062 342,150 272,625 Kapuas Hulu 5,400 15,750 21,150 319,010 Ketapang 92,749 373,326 466,075 328,650 TOTAL 354,337 1,997,697 2,352,034 1,513,770 Source: Dinas Perkebunan Provinsi Kalimantan Barat 2004. Why so much land remains unutilized is not well research. There are a few plausible reasons:

1. Timber is a common motive. The demand for timber in Kalimantan and

Malaysia is considerably greater than the volume that can be supplied from forestry concessions. With the strong plantation expansion drive, it was much easier to obtain oil palm licenses than it is to get a logging concession. Companies therefore applied for oil palm concessions, removed any valuable remaining timber stands and abandoned the area.