Description

One of the most serious end threats in TL is slash-and-burn agriculture. Although banned, the weakness of gov. institutions and national law has meant that this agricultural system persists. In 2007, RAEBIA began to look for a solution by combining modern and traditional approaches. The modern approach aimed to replace shifting agriculture with permanent terrace-farming, to replace the open-grazing of animals with a household- based livestock system, and to set aside spaces for forest conservation. Yet it became clear that more had to be done not only to promote the new practices associated with permanent farming but also to prohibit the old ones associated with slash-and-burn. RAEBIA found the answer in an indigenous system of law and resource mgmt that dates from the pre-colonial period. Known as Tara Bandu (TB), it placed cultural taboos on hunting and clearing land. TB had fallen into disuse during the Indonesian period (75-99). RAEBIA was the first NGO to blend traditional resource regulation with an agricultural agenda consisting of farming, livestock mgmt and forest conservation. The traditional authority of TB now serves to fortify and legitimise a new system of land mgmt, enacted through RAEBIA’s Participatory Land-Use Planning Program (PLUP). This combination of old and new means that RAEBIA has not imposed an external system of regulation, but relied on a deeply-rooted tradition to effect change ‘from the inside’: moving with culture rather than against it.