Environmental Sociology: AA 30303

Sem 1. 2015-2016: Weeks 4, 5

CONTENT OF LECTURES

Concept: political forests

Why are forests political spaces?
Control over forests and its effects
Colonial control over land and forests
Why they remain in practice today

Concept: political forests

Why are forests political?
Political ; because forests are the site of
power and
Control,
For states to gain wealth
For communities to earn livelihood
For as long as there power and control over
something,
Or someone, or some; the process of
controlling

Peluso and Vandergeest

2001

P & V talks about Southeast Asian forests

How access or the rights to access and use

forests were transferred
From local control to Centralised control via
colonisation
What process of colonisation made the transfer
of control over forests possible? (or what are
the enabling processes that made centralised
control possible during colonial times?)

Enabling Process 1.
Generally transfer was
made
Through legislation (acts, enactments ordinances)

E.g. Sabah Land Ordinance 1930,

Sabah Forest Enactment 1968, (amended) 1984
Sabah Sabah Park Enactment 1984
Sarawak Land Code 1958
Kedah

---- CREATION OF STATE FORESTS strong objection

from the local communities and continue to this day.
Sabah land Ordinance 1930 and Sarawak Land Code
1958
- all land belong to the state, unless they have title .
- only land with titles belong to the people

ENABLING PROCESS 2: Science of

forestry
Expert knowledge .
1) Using science to justify exclusion or inclusion
Science to justify the creation of forest reserves
(exclusively for timber teak, ramin, meranti ); - OF
VALUE TO STATES AND INDUSTRY, especially timber
industry. AFTER WWII
2) Forestry science does not include the livelihood of
communities as important - e.g. exports of aromatic
wood (e.g gaharu, resin and damar; gutta percha,
feather , skin crocodie, deer) - OF VALUE TO LOCAL
COMMUNITIES
3) Colonial governments invest heavily in forestry
departments, forestry science became institutionalised

Enabling Process 3: GEO POLITICAL POWER

and control
E.G. FOR KING OF SIAM
CONTROL OVER FOREST means claim over
territories and expanding jurisdiction eastwards (indochina French power,
westward Burma)
history of relations between historical Siam
and Kedah and Kelantan is about control
over forests and territories. (Satun people
of southern Thailand speak Kedah Malay,
People in Sungei golok, pattani and
naratiwat province in Southern Thailan
speak a version of Kelantan Malay)

however, there is Legal pluralism

BUT the legislations and forestry administration cannot
ignore altogether customary practices (adat)
So legislations tend to include SOME aspects of
customary practices
E.g. section 5 (2) of the Sarawak Land Code
- different ways of claiming customary rights to land.
E.g. agriculture, grave sites, padang ragut
Sabah Land Ordinance 1930 also provided for different
ways of claiming customary rights to land, Sections 14,
15 and others.
E,g, Kedah British advisers gave the Sultan of Kedah
the power to collect land rents. -- historically, power
was not centralised in the hands of one Sultan.

Legal pluralism = partial recognition of

customary practices
Why partial
Because the objectives of the legislations (Acts,
ordinance, enactment) in Sabah and Sarawak and
Semenanjung are to make way or to create space for
commercial plantations.
FOR PENINSULAR MALAYSIA AND COLONIAL POLICY AND
ITS EFFECTS, READ SHAMSUL A.B. FROM BUMIPUTRA TO
COLONIAL RULE
Vandergeest and Peluso: large scale rubber plantations in
Malaya (successful colonisation)
Large scale forest plantations for teak as in Thailand
In Sabah tobacco (e.g. Darvel Bay), in Sarawak not so
successful because the Brooke regime was not efficiently
colonial.

Present day effects: colonial acts continued

until today
Why are dams possible in many developing countries despite the land being
occupied by indigenous peoples?
Answer : Using the concept of political forest, Look at who controls forests now,
and whose needs are considered primary? And whose needs are regarded as
secondary?
Case studies: Hydro power as renewable energy: as an effect of political forest
the Sardar Sarovar dam India, the Sungei Selangor dam, Malaysia because of
Extension from colonial Acts.
Colonial legislations - promote centralised control -change of landuse from
use by local communities to use for energy generation.
Sardar Sarovar dam hill tribe people (adivasi)
Selangor dam land occupied by Orang Asli
BOTH DAMS INVOLVE PEOPLE BEING DISPLACED. ARGUMENTS FOR BUILDING
DAMS ARE USUALLY ABOUT DEVELOPMENT; OR ABOUT THE COMMON GOOD

Why colonial laws remain in practice

today
BECAUSE
1) Not much forests left
2) NOTE: DECISIONS ABOUT LANDUSE (plantation agriculture,
logging, mining) is a State government issue, not Federal.
LAND/FORESTS ARE A SOURCE OF STATE REVENUE AND POWER
(THROUGH PATRONAGE)
POLITICAL FORESTS ESTABLISHED DURING COLONIAL ERA
CONTINUED UNTIL TODAY SO THAT
In Sarawak native access to land under sections of the Sarawak
Land Code 1958, allows Native Customary Lands to be established,
but limited activities. In Sabah, Native Title and Communal Title , according to some
sections of the Land Ordinance 1930, but only under certain
conditions.
FOR BOTH SABAH AND SARAWAK
Lands under NCR or NT/CT suffer from Insecurity of tenure
because State government has power to makes decision about land
use.

All readings will be put on facebook

I) Peluso anad Vandergeest, on political forest
2) Pratyusha Basu The Narmada Valluey(Sardar
Sarovar Dam)
3) Swainson and McGregor on the Sungei Selangor
Dam
REMINDER FOR LECTURE 3: DR. Afrizals lecture , the
readings on technocentricism and ecocntricism are in
the usual textbooks, - De Stigueir,
Roberts, Jane.
Additional reading on recycling Dr. Afrizal has already
put on face book.
THE END.