Dayak First Nation and the Legal Fault Line Reshaping Borneo: A First Nation on a Contested Island

 

The Dayak people hold a cosmic place in Borneo, a space that defines their identity and their future. They see it as their duty to protect this ancestral realm from destruction and deforestation driven by oligarchic interests. Documentation: gadis dayak fb.

By Apai Deraman

The Dayak people, widely recognized today as the First Nation of Borneo, have lived on the island for thousands of years. Their longhouses, river settlements, rotational farming cycles, and sacred forest zones formed a cultural landscape that balanced human life with ecological stability. 

For Dayak and inland Malay communities, the forest was not a backdrop. It was their home, their identity, and the core of their social order.

Modern legislation disrupted this unity. When the state began drawing legal boundaries, the indigenous landscape was suddenly divided into separate categories of land and forest. This split laid the foundation for a deeper national conflict that continues to shape Borneo’s trajectory.

Two Laws, Two Philosophies, and the Roots of Deforestation

Indonesia’s Basic Agrarian Law of 1960 was built on a social-justice vision. It recognized customary land, viewed land as a source of livelihood, and placed communities at the heart of land stewardship. In many ways, it reflected a soft socialist aspiration for fairness and redistribution.

Seven years later, the Basic Forestry Law of 1967 introduced a very different philosophy. The state claimed nearly all forestlands as its own and positioned itself as the central authority. Through this law, forests became a reservoir for industrial concessions. Logging companies, mining operators, and later plantation conglomerates gained access to millions of hectares with ease. This approach aligned with a state capitalist model, where the government holds ownership while private interests carry out large-scale extraction.

The two laws collided in practice. One empowered people. The other empowered the state. Out of this contradiction grew a truth that is uncomfortable yet undeniable. The largest driver of deforestation in Borneo was not shifting cultivation by villagers but the state’s own licensing regime.

Thirty Thousand Villages in Limbo

When forests were reclassified into state zones, more than 30,000 villages across the country suddenly found themselves inside areas labeled as forest land. Dayak communities that had lived there for centuries were treated as temporary occupants. Families could not obtain land certificates. Yet companies could acquire rights to hundreds of thousands of hectares with a single approval.

This imbalance produced structural conflict for half a century.

1. Communities were accused of entering forest zones that had once been their ancestral territories.

2. Customary leaders lost authority while bureaucratic permits dictated everything from farming to gathering forest produce.

3. Ecological systems that had survived for generations were displaced by industrial monocultures and open-pit mines.

The result is a legacy of insecurity, displacement, and ecological loss that the world is only beginning to understand. Dayak leaders increasingly argue that international institutions need to be informed. Borneo’s crisis is not only an environmental disaster but a governance failure rooted in legal contradictions.

The High Cost for Eco-Tourism and Cultural Tourism

Borneo still captivates global travelers with its towering dipterocarps, orangutan sanctuaries, ancient longhouses, and tattoo traditions. Eco-tourism and cultural tourism could thrive, and they could do so in a way that honors the people who shaped the island’s heritage.

Yet legal uncertainty stands in the way.

1. Longhouse communities inside forest zones cannot secure development permits.

2. Community-based eco-tourism initiatives face obstacles because they lack formal land recognition.

3. Sedimentation from logging roads clouds rivers that once ran clear.

4. Wildlife habitats contract, thinning the very attractions tourists come to experience.

Tourists often come seeking an untouched Borneo. What they encounter is a landscape pressured by policies that should have protected it.

Recognizing Dayak land rights would support both justice and sustainability. It would allow eco-tourism and cultural tourism to grow on foundations that are respectful and stable. Above all, it would reaffirm that Borneo’s future depends on the people who have cared for it the longest.