Bugis Settlers in East Kalimantan's Kutai National Park: Their Past and Present and Some Possibilities for their Future

Abstract

"East Kalimantan's Kutai National Park now consists of 198,629 hectares of lowland rainforest and was first established as a 'protected area' in 1936. Kutai is important for the conservation not only of plant and animal species but also of water resources for major industries and rapidly growing coastal communities adjacent to the park. The largest of these communities, Bontang, estimated to have more than 80,000 people, is said to have been a fishing village of about 7,000 people before industrial development began in the 1970s. The park includes some previously logged or mined tracts and a number of settlements. This report is concerned with the people of Teluk Pandan, Selimpus/Kandolo and Sangkimah, settlements of Bugis farmers and fishers within the national park's boundaries. For the sake of planning long-term park management (which is to be integrated with development planning for the region as a whole), provincial and regional governmental bodies and park authorities favour moving the people in these settlements out of the park to obviate the need to deal with such problems as controlling the size of enclave populations, keeping their use of land within permanently fixed boundaries, and making sure that they do not engage in logging, hunting and other prohibited activities."