Caring The Nature: Challenging Climate Change With The Bayanese

Traditional Values Of Forestry

By; Libasut Taqwa1

At the Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) in Paris, Joko Widodo, the
president of Republic Indonesia revealed the significant role of indigenous people in
maintaining forests especially in Indonesia. In Indonesia, Currently there are approximately
57 million hectares of forest area controlled by indigenous people, and 40 million hectares of
which are still maintained. This is a proof that the indigenous people in Indonesia play a
significant role in maintaining the forest toward of worlds climate change.
One of the indigenous groups that still exist in Indonesia are the Bayanese People. An
indigenous people at the Bayan North Lombok regency, West Nusa Tenggara. The Bayanese
still maintain their forests very well. Forest guarded by customary law called awiq-awiq,
namely a set of custom rules containing 23 principles related prohibitions, obligations, as
well as forest preservation system that has lasted for hundreds years. But now, their efforts
seems deteriorate when the dualism of indigenous forest management involving the
government in this case the local government. The dualism increasingly intense since the
regulations published by the local government in act number 1 of 2006 that governing the
Bayanese indigenous forest.
This study is the result of field research conducted since October 2015-May 2016 in
rural Bayanese village at North Lombok, Indonesia. This research aims to find out how awiqawiq as the traditional rules of the Bayanese capable of preserving indigenous forests for
hundreds of years. This research also wanted to convey the significance of the Bayanese
cosmological values in forest management can be a good solution to the forests and
environmental sustainability. In addition, the study also look at the extent to which the
dualism of forest management affect the sustainability of indigenous forest in the era of
modernization and industrialization in Indonesia.

1 Libasut Taqwa, postgraduate student of Universitas Indonesia. major in Politics

and International Relation in the Middle East. Junior researcher at Abdurrahman
Wahid Centre-Universitas Indonesia, I also interesting in politics, international
relation, religion, environment, and democratization.

Keywords: awiq-awiq, Bayanese people, indigenous forest, climate change, cosmological

values, local government.