Deforestation, agricultural concession policies and potential conflicts in Sanggau district, West Kalimantan province, Indonesia

Land occupation in the West Kalimantan province (Indonesian Borneo) and particularly in the Sanggau district, our study area, has changed considerably: Dayak slash-and-burn agriculture before 1900, the introduction of rubber in agroforests at the turn of the twentieth century, the development of oil palm as well as Acacia mangium estates in the 1980s and 1990s (both private and semi public), with a clear acceleration of such trends in the last decade. This case study is very demonstrative of potential land conflicts which might emerge from various actors' strategies with different and sometimes antinomie logics. Since the I980s, various actors - the state. private companies. local Dayak communities and Javanese transmigrant populations - have adopted land-use strategies that have caused a new definition of overall land-use as well as land tenure and rights that were initially based on `customary right' (Adat in Indonesian). The government policy of developing concessions for oil palm and Acacia rnangium has led to a new legal redistribution of land, to the detriment of local populations without clear information for the latter. Such situation might generate potential sources of conflict in the near future between concession holders and local communities in the context of land becoming scarce. The objective of this chapter is to present the current situation in terms of land use on a legal basis as well as what happens in reality. Three possible ten-year scenarios are proposed, aimed at estimating the impact of these changes on land allocation. (Résumé d'auteur