An Overview of the Partners of Community Organizations’ Resource Management Program in Sabah, Malaysia

INTRODUCTION

Sabah

Sabah is a Malaysian state located at the northern end of Borneo, which has 39 different indigenous ethnic groups, speaking 50 languages and 80 dialects (Partners of Community Organizations, 2007). The Kadazan of the Dusunic peoples are the most numerous (Lasimbang C, 2002), 17.8 percent of the state’s population (Wong, 2003) the total of which was recorded as 2.6 million during a census taken in 2000 (PACOS, 2007). Indigenous peoples make up 60 percent of the state’s population, most in rural communities; only 30 percent of Sabah’s population live in urban areas (PACOS, 2007).

The Kadazan

The Kadazan have a strong bond with their traditional lands, forests, rivers and surrounding seas (Lasimbang C, 2002). Claudia Lasimbang (2002) - who is herself Kadazan and the coordinator of the Community Organizing program for Partners of Community Organizations (PACOS) - says their culture links aspects of life into an interwoven network that encompasses agriculture, education, social interaction, judicial processes, arts, health, politics, economics and resource management. They have four main guiding principles:

* Ohusian respect for the environment, particularly plants and animals; recognizing that accidental or deliberate action can cause detrimental environmental responses.
* Oguhian respect for other people.
* Ovusung respect for their elders is of the utmost importance.
* Opuunan a form of social responsibility and concern for the welfare and well being of others.
(Lasimbang C, 2002).

These four principles influence the people’s beliefs on how a viable, indigenous economy needs to work. Theirs is based on the sustainable use of resources, reciprocity such as the sharing of hunted game, social responsibility and integration in the form of the tamu, a weekly open-air market (Lasimbang C, 2002).

Partners of Community Organizations (PACOS)

Partners of Community Organizations (PACOS) is a volunteer, non-governmental organization (NGO) local to the Malaysian states in northern Borneo. Their Mission statement is “To raise the overall quality of life of indigenous communities” (PACOS, 2007). Central to their aims and programs is the building and strengthening of community organizations, indigenous knowledge (IK) systems on resource management and positive indigenous values, in part through the establishment of both formal and informal networks connecting community organizations at all levels (Lasimbang C, 2002).

PACOS’ Programs

Besides lobbying at state and national government levels and various public awareness activities, PACOS has the following programs:

1. Community Organizing Training
2. Socio-economic Development
3. Resource Management
4. Land Rights
5. Community Education
6. Adat (Customs) and Culture (PACOS, 2007)

All the programs have elements of IK incorporated to varying degrees, for example the community education program involves training of indigenous preschool level teachers, who work in the kampungs (villages), to help them educate younger children with a knowledge of the modern world, while maintaining an indigenous cultural perspective (PACOS, 2007).

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM

The aim of the resource management program is to support communities’ use of their traditional resource management systems to maximize efficiency and sustainability (PACOS, 2007). Enhancement of such methods may result from the sharing of knowledge with other communities through the development of networking between community organizations or by the supply of information or techniques from sources outside Sabah.

Resource Mapping

Traditionally, indigenous resource knowledge has passed down from generation to generation orally and by example, often kept within family groups. With PACOS’ technical support and encouragement and drawing on the knowledge of all, communities are building up maps of the resources in their local area (PACOS, 2007). Having their IK recorded in this visual form, that all can learn to understand, improves the kampung’s ability to manage their resources sustainably. Gathering of medicinal and food plants from forest areas, hunting and fishing can be managed without overlap. By managing what is taken and when, they no longer have to see shortages developing before introducing measures to counter them; moving from a reactive management to a proactive one.

Sabah Parks, the State Government department responsible for park management, introduced the Crocker Range Park Management Plan in 2006, which includes Community Use Zones that are to be managed jointly by Sabah Parks and the local communities (Global Diversity Foundation, 2006). To aid in this, Sabah Parks asked the Global Diversity Foundation to undertake an “ethnobiological assessment of key resources and anthropogenic landscapes that are important for the indigenous Dusun communities living inside and adjacent to the Crocker Range Park in Sabah” (GDF, 2006).

The GDF work closely with an eight-person team of local field assistants, community leaders, indigenous experts and local researchers to gather the necessary data and determine appropriate methods for future monitoring (GDF, 2006). This includes a close working relationship with PACOS and several local communities in the Buayan-Kionop region of the park to make use of their “innovative approach to community resource mapping” (GDF, 2006). The results of this research will have a significant impact on the structuring of the rules and regulations that will compose the Community Use Zone Management Agreement between Sabah Parks and local indigenous communities.

River Management

The major river in Sabah is the Kinabatangan River, Malaysia’s second largest at 560 kilometers (Wong, 2003). Large tracts of forest in the upper reaches have been felled by commercial logging enterprises since the early 1950s, and in the middle and lower reaches has been replaced by oil palm plantations since the 1980s; approximately fifty percent of the virgin forest has been lost to these activities (Karacsonyi, 2001).

A significant impact from this is to the mechanism of flooding, the reduction in forest cover results in an increase in the speed of the inflow of water during the rainy season (Freshwater Systems lectures, 2007). This leads to more rapid flooding over the floodplain area of the Lower Kinabatangan River, which is causing annual problems for the local populations (Daily Express, 2007) and the local wildlife (Karacsonyi, 2001).

The river has 168 species of freshwater fish, twelve of which are fished commercially (Wong, 2003). Government estimates for freshwater fish yields until 1998 showed an average of 1650 tonnes harvested per year, from 1999 through to 2002 the yields have been less than 100 tonnes per year; the figures are based on the fish offered for sale at tamu (market) (Wong, 2003). Wong (2003) says that this is due to reduced fish stocks due to habitat destruction from logging activities, pollution from agriculture plantations, over-fishing and illegal fishing methods such as the use of poisons or electrocution. It is well known that logging and plantations with minimal if any riparian margins increases sediment inflow in addition to any pesticide used on the plantations, leading to a reduction in macro-invertebrate populations that fish require as a food source (Freshwater Systems lectures, 2007), and damaging fish breeding sites and habitats (Siar & Marmulla, 2007). However, this would not seem to reasonably explain the drop from 1700 tonnes harvested in 1998 to 89.5 tonnes harvested in 1999.

Traditional resource management practices when fish are in decline is to hold a ceremony of managal or bombon to mark the river site as off-limits (Lasimbang C, 2002). This is done through a sagit ceremony held at the site; a pig is slaughtered, cooked and eaten by the whole kampung (village) (Lasimbang C, 2002). This would seem a more likely explanation for the dramatic reduction in fish yields from 1998 to 1999. Although there is no overt reference to this in available literature, the State Government passed a law in 2003 called the Sabah Inland Fisheries and Aquaculture Enactment that gives the state fisheries department wide powers to manage and regulate inland fishing including setting up a community-based resource management (CBRM) program that empowers local communities to rehabilitate, restore and manage fish resources in their rivers (Wong, 2003), commonly known as the Tagal system.

The Tagal System

Under the Tagal system the Department of Fisheries (DoF) of Sabah, a state government agency, works in conjunction with local communities that have traditional use rights, preferably to several deep river pools, and manage and utilize their riverine resources under the leadership of the “headman” of their community (Siar & Marmulla, 2007). Communities must meet these requirements to be eligible (Siar & Marmulla, 2007), thus limiting this arrangement to indigenous communities. The “headman” may be the traditional leader of the kampung, for the Kadazan that is the huguan siou (paramount leader), or the leader of the Village Development and Security committees (see the Federal Government section).

The system establishes the legal right for these communities to harvest the fish in a sustainable manner for their own sustenance and for sale and their duty to ” protect their riverine fishery resources from poaching, overfishing, illegal fishing and from any other activity that may pollute their rivers and water bodies and destroy fish habitats” (Siar & Marmulla, 2007), effectively giving legal backing to the traditional practice. This means that when the elders place a prohibition on fishing at a particular place or for a particular species, both their own people and any outsiders can now be fined if they break that prohibition (Wong, 2003). This program is strongly supported by local leaders, politicians, the State Government and most Federal Government agencies (Wong, 2003).

PACOS, besides pushing at state government level for this Enactment, help communities form their Tagal committees to liaise with the DoF fisheries and district officers, who act as consultants to them. Resource mapping will have facilitated the development of this partnership between State Government and local communities by provided documented details of each kampung’s riverine resources. The Community Organizing training program increases the ability of representatives of the village Tagal committee to communicate effectively with the DoF officers.

The Tagal system is showing signs of success with increasing populations of indigenous and endemic fish being noted in upstream rivers (Siar & Marmulla, 2007). It was awarded the Outstanding Sabah Environmentally Friendly Project Award 2005 by the Sabah Environmental Action Committee and has become known throughout Malaysia with communities in other Malaysian states wishing to participate in similar schemes in their own states (Siar & Marmulla, 2007).

Micro Hydro Power

Many rural communities, particularly in more remote areas, have very limited or non-existent connection to municipal supplies of clean water or electricity (Lasimbang A, 2007). If available at all, electricity is produced by diesel-powered generators that demand both an economic, purchase and transport, and environmental cost, pollution and noise (Lasimbang A, 2007).

The remote areas do have an abundant year round rainfall and a hilly or mountainous topography that lends itself to many fast-flowing stream systems, ideal for micro hydro power systems (Lasimbang A, 2007). PACOS has assisted indigenous communities in the “conceptualization, design, installation, and implementation” of these systems in the expectation that the community through their investment in designing and maintaining these systems and their ownership of the project will have the greatest likelihood for long-term success (Lasimbang A, 2007). Through this practice, the local communities can determine where to site the micro hydro power systems based on ohusian, the principle of ensuring no detrimental impacts on animals or plants, whether purposeful or accidental. With this they can happily use the systems to improve their situation without fearing the ill effects harming the environment would bring. Ohusian may cause an individual to fall ill who has negatively impacted the environment, requiring rectifying the situation so they can become well again (Lasimbang C, 2002).

Politics and Public Perception

The main challenges PACOS faces in implementing its programs are in its interactions with government departments and the urban public. Funding comes from individual donations, member contributions and international funding agencies (PACOS, 2007), but most projects are relatively low-cost, with the communities involved doing the planning and implementation as well as contributing to resource costs as able.

State Government

The Tagal system and the Community Use Zone Management agreement discussed previously demonstrate a relatively good relationship between the indigenous communities and the DoF and Sabah Parks respectively, both of which are state government agencies. The passing of the Sabah Inland Fisheries and Aquaculture Enactment by the State Government in 2003 shows that state politicians are responsive to indigenous peoples concerns, if for no other reason than that they make up 60 percent of the state’s voting population. Unfortunately, this does not appear to be as true at a national level.

Federal Government

The Kadazan traditional political structure is based around a council of elders composed of the huguan siou (paramount leader), mohoingon kampung (village elders), bobohizan (priests and priestesses) and mongugasap (herbalists) (Lasimbang C, 2002). This has been undermined to an extent by the Federal Government instigating the appointment of Village Development and Security committees that the councils do not oppose, fearing they will be labeled as belligerent and primitive (Lasimbang C, 2002). Doing so would also go against the principles of oguhian and opuunan. Clear signs of a dependency-syndrome are appearing but there are hopes for a positive merger of old and new political systems (Lasimbang C, 2002).

Malaysia’s branch of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an international NGO, has been working with government agencies, the private sector and local communities in a project called Partners for Wetlands to realize the re-establishment of forest corridors along the Kinabangtan River (Mansourian, Davison & Sayer, 2003). The Department of Irrigations and Drainage (DID) is the federal agency responsible for management of river catchments and on their website is a report on integrated river basin management for the Kinabatangan catchment written by WWF (Regip, Alfred & Indran, 2007) that mentions only in passing consultation with local politicians and leaders, but none with local communities. It is all about what DID and WWF can do together, perhaps reflecting DID’s attitude towards interaction with local people in their area of authority and purposefully written that way by WWF to facilitate DID’s cooperation.

The Partners for Wetlands project has much local support, in part because it will bring economic benefits to landowners and communities (Mansourian et al., 2003) through enhancing ecotourism opportunities. Ecotourism is becoming an important economic industry along the Kinabatangan River. Initially this was started by outside agencies that came into conflict with the local people if they failed to involve them at the early stages of their planning (Schulze, 1998). However, the idea has caught on and the local communities are turning to ecotourism as an alternative income to agriculture and timber extraction (Karacsonyi, 2001).

Logging operations are under federal jurisdiction and reserves including customary lands have often been allocated without gazetted notification to allow objections, despite this being a requirement under the Forest Enactment (PACOS, 2007). The opinions and desires of the indigenous peoples seemingly of no significance to the Federal Government, only the influence of NGOs and world timber markets have led to improvement, logging operations are moving towards more sustainable and environmentally friendly methods (Wong, 2003).

The Federal Government of Malaysia has voted in favor of accepting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at the 61st General Assembly on September 13th (United Nations, 2007). As a member of the Human Rights Council of the UN, they also voted in its favor on the 29th of June, 2006 (PACOS, 2007). The United Nations (2007) report on the proceedings seems to cast considerable doubt that the declaration as it stands can be practically implemented or even consistently interpreted. That Myanmar’s representative also voted for it seems a shade hypocritical considering recent events there. But at least it can be considered a hopeful sign for the future of the indigenous peoples of Sabah.

Public Perceptions

Urbanites and some older indigenous children educated in boarding schools may hold a derogatory opinion of the rural indigenous populations; the term orang kampung is used colloquially for an uneducated person (Lasimbang C, 2007). This is in part through physical and social separation, changing socio-economic practices, such as ecotourism, is increasing interactions between indigenous and non-indigenous sectors of the population which will hopefully work towards overcoming these prejudices. Some of those educated at boarding schools, those working through PACOS being a prime example, are using the educations received to enhance the socio-economic status of the indigenous communities while maintaining positive cultural values.

Conclusion

PACOS is working efficiently and effectively in support of their mission statement. They speak the languages and understand the cultural background of the communities they work with since many of them are themselves indigenous. Through allowing conceptualization and planning stages to be decided by the communities rather than suggested or imposed, the communities immediately have a vested interest in the projects and getting them implemented and maintained. Benefits can now be seen at many kampungs generating an eagerness for participation in communities not yet assisted. The political situation is improving, certainly at the state level and with hopeful signs for the federal level, at least in part through the lobbying and public awareness activities of PACOS. PACOS is a positive and forward thinking NGO that demonstrates the benefits that can be achieved.

References:

Daily Express of East Malaysia (2007) Kinabatangan river level keeps rising.
Retrieved October, 2007 from
http://www.dailyexpress.com.my/news.cfm?NewsID=46669

Global Diversity Foundation (2006) Applied research in Southeast Asia.
Retrieved October, 2007 from http://www.globaldiversity.org.uk/regional_programmes/southeast_asia/applied_research.html

Karacsonyi, K. (2001) Take me to the river. Geographical 73(8): 50-56.

Lasimbang, A. (2007) Micro hydro power brings lights to remote villages in Borneo.
Retrieved November, 2007 from
http://www.sabah.net.my/PACOS/Microhydro.htm

Lasimbang, C. (2002) Indigenous peoples of Sabah: traditional resource management.
Retrieved October, 2007 from
http://www.cpsu.org.uk/downloads/Claudia_.pdf

Mansourian, S., Davison, G. & Sayer, J. (2003) Bringing back the forests: by whom and
for whom? RAP Publication 14: 27-36.

Partners of Community Organisations (2007) About us.
Retrieved October, 2007 from
http://www.sabah.net.my/PACOS/

Regip, J., Alfred, R & Indran, R. (2007) Integrated river basin management planning for
the Kinabatangan catchment, Sabah: approach and strategy.
Retrieved October, 2007 from
http://www.water.gov.my/web/water%20forum//Malaysian%20Water%20Forum/Review%20Report%20Sector%202/Integrated%20River%20Basin%20Management%20Planning%20for%20Kanabatangan%20Catchment%20Sabah,%20%20Approach%20and%20Strate.pdf

Schultze, H. (1998) Nature conservation through Ecotourism development a case study
of a village in the Lower Kinabatangan area, Sabah. Tigerpaper 25(3): 12-17.

Siar, S. & Marmulla, G. (2007) Successful involvement of local communities in
conservation programmes for Malayan mahseer in River Kinabatangan of
Sabah, Malaysia. Retrieved November, 2007 from
http://www.fao.org/participation/Tagal-lessons.html

United Nations (2007) General Assembly adopts declaration on rights of indigenous
peoples: major step forward’ towards human rights for all, says President.
Retrieved November, 2007 from
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/ga10612.doc.htm

Wong, J. (2003) Current information on inland capture fishery in Sabah, Malaysia.
Retrieved October, 2007 from
http://www.fishdept.sabah.gov.my/download/inlanfisheriesp.pdf