During our stay at Woloin house in
Mlaswat village, we encountered such an unexpected request. Yulius Woloin, the
youngest brother of Agustinus Woloin asked Yustin and I to help mediate the
dispute that they had with the neighbor tribe, Karet tribe. One of the members
of Karet tribe chopped down three Merbau trees at Woloin legal territory six
months ago. Yulius Woloin found out Karet’s operation when he was walking
around to do a regular check. Amazingly, he was able to stop them before they
could take the blocks out of the territory.
They have invited the perpetrator
to show up in a traditional meeting twice. In Saifi, if there is a dispute or a
problem within the communities, they will try to solve it using their own
traditional rule – using a sense of kinship. Sometimes, an apology statement
like “sorry” would solve the problem. However, in this case, the perpetrator
never showed up. I could see how furious Yulius Woloin was when we discuss
about this problem, and Yulius kept telling us that the perpetrator had to pay
for the trees that had been chopped down with alive trees. Before we agreed to
help, I had a long discussion with Yustin because this was not on our agenda.
“No matter if it was in our agenda or not, we brought the name of Bentara
Papua, and by that, we need to assist the communities in any type of form,”
Yustin said.
I told Yustin that we needed to
gather information as much as we could. First, we walked into Woloin territory
to see the evidence. It was six miles deep into the jungle. While we were on
our way to the evidence location, I was mesmerized on how well Yulius was able
to navigate in the jungle. Yulius also tried to explain me how birds chips
could give him a sign, or what precautions action we needed to do if a boar was
chasing us. After passing several huts, I began to saw remnants of tree trunks
cut by chainsaws - that was it. We had arrived.
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Fig. 1
One of the trees that got chopped down
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In order to help mediate this dispute, we needed to
calculate the total loss occurred on Woloin side. Yulius did not know how much
exactly that the perpetrator needed to pay him because they usually did not count
it per meter cubic but per tree. “Aneh sekali! (It’s so weird!),” I said to
him. “Tapi saya tahu harga per meter kubiknya berapa sebenarnya (But I know how
much the actual price per meter cubic is),” he replied. For some reason, he
managed to get an official local government document that has list of trees
prices.
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| Fig. 2 Hendry looks exhausted |
After we measure the length and diameter of the trees, we
headed back to the village. My skin was full by red dots from the jungle gnats
– there were lots of them because our location was near by the mangrove area.
Our meals were ready for us when we
got back to Woloin house. After having our early dinner, we continued working
on the total loss occurred; and at that point I realized that Yulius Woloin
didn’t know how to calculate the volume of a tree. That sort of explained why villagers
often got scammed when they sold the tree to businessmen – they don’t know how
to calculate it right.
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Fig. 3
Yulius's measuring Merbau block
|
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Fig. 4
Yustin and Yulis were measuring the diameter of the second tree
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I showed Yulius how I calculate the real value of the trees
(using volume of a tube), and he seemed nor happy or unsatisfied. Yulius knows
that the real value of these trees are more than what they usually get; that is
why he never wants to sell it. But why those others villagers, who do sell the
trees, do not complain? How would they want to complain? They need the money.
If they do not want to sell it at the price that the brokers want, the brokers
can simply find another desperate seller who would want to sell the tree.
Finally,
we made an agreement letter and invited the perpetrator to a meeting. The
agreement letter states that if the perpetrators did not want to show up and
pay the total loss occurred, this dispute would be brought up to the Police
Department.
So the meeting took place right
before Yustin and I left Mlaswat village. As a mediator, I tried to be fair
with both side. I tried to hold myself from making any assumption – assumption
like Karet tribe was trying to wait until Yustin and I leave the village. They
didn’t want us to be there for some reason. As I expected, the perpetrators did
not show up. All in all, the Karet tribe definitely has their conviction and we
have the evidence.
As an observer, I knew that there
are some neighbors who thought that Woloin family were being naïf because their
austere manner towards deforestation. They were also some neighbors who admired
Woloin’s principle. Me too, I really like Woloin principle:
“Our ancestor passed down the land
for us. Therefore, we can go hunting for foods, gather fruits and vegetables,
and preserve it for our next generations. To destroy our land is the same as to
destroy our future.”
Indeed, it’s hard for one family to convince
the others that there are other ways to survive other than chopping down the
trees. If we cannot work together internally, how can we work together to
defend ourselves from outside pressure? During the last meeting with Karet tribe,
I spoke to the father of the perpetrator, “As we are having this conversation,
many trees have been chopped down. We need to be able to work together if we
want to save our forest”.
Reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UMAEXElHZk
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