Mapping Customary Land in East Kalimantan, Indonesia: A Tool for Forest Management

Effective forest management requires balancing conservation and local economic development objectives. This project demonstrated a method for mapping customary land-use systems using oral histories, sketch maps, and GPS and GIS methodologies. These maps can form the basis of talks for identifying customary forest-tenure boundaries in order to assess how indigenous ways of organizing and allocating space might support or conflict with the objectives of forest protection, for evaluating different means of coordinating indigenous resource-management systems with government-instituted systems of management, and as a basis for formal legal recognition and protection of customary forest-tenure arrangements. The constraints on this process include the accuracy of the base maps, the ability of social scientists and mapmakers to accurately capture the complex relationships of traditional resource-management systems on maps, and the political will of the parties involved for recognizing different forms of land rights.