Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the head spokesperson for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), has received widespread and high praise for being incredibly hardworking and good at his job, with journalists penning whole articles explaining their appreciation for “Pak Topo” and his ability to quickly deliver accurate information under even the direst of circumstances — he has even kept working as usual despite currently being treated for stage 4 lung cancer.
But there are some in West Kalimantan who are incensed over inaccurate information they say Sutopo has spread. Groups representing the region’s indigenous Dayak community are calling on the BNPB spokesperson to apologize to them directly and undergo trial by their customary council for saying that their traditional land clearing methods were responsible for the forest fires that are once again proliferating in Kalimantan.
In a speech in front of the West Kalimantan Regional Representative Office in Pontianak yesterday, the secretary general of the National Dayak Council (MADN), Yakobus Kumis, demanded that Sutopo to come to West Kalimantan in the next seven days to clarify the contents of a press release from his office that said traditional Dayak practices were contributing to the large number of forest fires in the region.
“Sutopo’s statement, that we engage in slash and burn land clearing, we cannot accept that. Because all this time, the Dayak people with their local wisdom have not destroyed the forests. We have been farming here for thousands of years,” Yakobus said as quoted by Tempo.
Yakobus also said that traditional Dayak farming techniques do not include the burning of peatlands, which has been a massive contributor to air pollution and CO2 levels in recent years. He said anybody was welcome to come and observe the Dayak’s land clearing methods
A press release titled 10 Water Bombing and Artificial Rain Helicopters Deployed to Quench Forest and Land Fires in West Kalimantan was published on the BNPB website on August 23 and signed by Sutopo. The offending section reads:
“The large number of hotspots of forest and land fires in West Kalimantan is related to people’s habits of burning land before clearing land. Communities in Sanggau, Sambas, Ketapang, Kubu Raya and others have a tradition of ‘gawai serentak’ which is preparing for the planting season by clearing land by burning. Although the local government has banned it, it turns out that this habit is still practiced in many places. The challenge ahead is how to provide solutions to the community to be able to implement agriculture without burning or other incentives.”
The subject of slash-and-burn land clearing is a sensitive one for the Dayak people, who feel that their traditional methods have been unfairly scapegoated as being responsible for the forest fires and annual haze problem that engulfs the region each year. Large palm oil companies are sometimes accused of hiring third parties to slash-and-burn land on their behalf so that they can create plantations on the razed land and sometimes this is done under the cover of traditional land clearing practices.
The chair of the West Kalimantan Dayak Women’s Association, Katarina Lies said the Dayak community was offended by Sutopo’s statement and that they wanted to take legal action against it to prevent others from repeating the accusation.
“Now we are demanding that Pak Sutopo address this problem so that in the future there will be no one who is scapegoated if there is a forest fire that causes haze,” she said.
On Wednesday, Sutopo released a statement saying that he had no intention of insulting the Dayak people or labeling their traditional methods the cause of the forest fires. But various Dayak groups say he needs to make a direct apology to them and face judgment by the Dayak customary council to resolve the issue.
However, not all those representing the Dayak feel that way. The West Kalimantan branch of the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago (AMAN) said that they had already accepted Sutopo’s apology and said that further legal action was not necessary.
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