1. Death By A Thousand Cuts:
The Politics of Road Construction at
Kerinci Seblat National Park
Keith Bettinger
Department of Geography
University of Hawai’i
2. My Presentation…
• About Kerinci Seblat National Park…
• Pros and Cons of Roads…
• The new rules of Reformasi…
• Structural drivers of roads on Sumatra…
• Socio-political residuals?
• Some case studies…
• Recommendations…
3. Kerinci Seblat National Park…
• 14,000 square kilometers (big)
…
• 4 provinces, 15 kabs and
kotas…
• Established 1991…
• Tigers, rhinos (?), elephants,
various ecosystems, high
conservation value…
• An obstacle to commerce…
• Faces threats from all sides…
– Mainly encroachment
– 33 proposed road projects
5. Ecological Impacts of Roads…
• Disturbs habitats and
migrations routes…
• Route for invasives…
• Increases runoff and
erosion…
• Direct impacts on
hydrology…
• Undermines slope
stability…
• “Foot in the door”…
6. Road Construction on Sumatra…
• Extremely steep, unbuttressed road cuts…
• High rates of erosion and slope instability….
• Steep grades slow traffic…
• Use of inferior or diluted materials…
• Often poorly maintained by
district/provincial authorities….
• Facilitates illegal logging, cultivation to the
right and left of the road, hunting…
13. Otonomi Daerah and Infrastructure…
• Orde Baru projects controlled from center….
– Now districts and province chart their own “development
destiny”…
• Money now comes from DAK and DAU…
• Coalitions between district and national elites make
things happen…
• Infrastructure projects a favorite of district
governments…
– Public works: a “wet place” (tempat basah)
• “If you build it they will come”….
• A hierarchy of public policy…
14. Sumatra: All about the commodities…
• Rubber, Palm Oil, Gold,
Coal…
• Lots unexplored or
unexploited…
– Method to increase PAD…
• Transport costs affect
commodities more than
finished goods per unit…
• Road as a “friction
surface”…
• Indonesia’s “master plan”
for the future…Sumatra as
a source of natural
resources…
15. Reasons for building roads…
• Historical and cultural ties
between communities…
• Economic development…
• Open isolated areas…
• Evacuation routes…
• New connectivity for a new
province: reconfiguring the
geography of Sumatra…
– Driven by “elite” interests…
• “Aspirasi Masyarakat”
16. Aspirasi Masyarakat vs. Massa
Mengambang…
• How do you measure “aspirasi masyarakat”?
• A problem of scale: which “masyarakat”?
– Local? How local? A district? A desa? A dusun?
• Does TNKS inhabit a scale that no longer exists in
Indonesia?
– Park is a national, international(?) priority…
– But who is the constituency?
• “Blackboxing” “society” and erasing pluralism…
• Absolves the government of its responsibility to
spend public funds in a responsible manner…
17. Why is this important?
• Creating a false dichotomy between conservation and
development…
• Allowing the park to be used as a political tool…
• Roads currently attacked from conservation
standpoint?
– But who cares about conservation?
– Provides an opportunity to critique the road projects from a
broader perspective
– Increases advocacy and awareness
– In the long term public policy is improved
18. Muara Labuh Kambang
• 40km from Solok Selatan
to Pesisir Selatan
• Decreases distance from
250km to 60km
• Evacuation route,
economic development
• Connects mines to port at
Painan
• Refused by governor,
refused by MENHUT
19.
20.
21. Renah Pemetik…
• “End of the road”…
• Lots of infrastructure
investment…
• “Nasi sudah menjadi
bubur”….
• Pelompek-RP-Muara
Bungo
• Sharecropping
encroachment
• Land for sale in TNKS…
27. Recommendations…
• Establish procedure for deliberating road proposals…
• Increase inter-district and inter-provincial cooperation to
coordinate infrastructure projects…
• Examine road projects from the perspective of public
policy…
• Regions should create a viable framework or program and
demonstrate at least a modest commitment to getting the
job done before asking the international community for
money…
• Stop thinking in terms of a tradeoff between development
and conservation…
• Build tunnels…
