River Restoration: A New Beginning

KOMPAS/DIONISIUS REYNALDO TRIWIBOWO

A family in Palangkaraya City performs the traditional ritual 'Nyelu Tehat' which means expressing gratitude for what was obtained in the past year and asking for blessings for the new year. The ritual was carried out on the banks of the Kahayan River near the Kahayan Bridge, Palangkaraya City, Central Kalimantan, Saturday (1/1/2022).

In 2021, Central Kalimantan was hit hard by repeated floods. It sent an alarm about the urgent need to heed the increasingly fragile environment, starting with protecting rivers, which are in critical situations.

Ramang, 36, a resident of Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan, took some of his family members to the Kahayan River on Saturday (1/1/2022) morning.

They stopped at the Sukarno Monument Park, before going down to a wooden platform by the riverbank, which used to be a boathouse.

The Ramangs held a nyelutehat, a Dayak tradition to mark the beginning of new year. With red headbands on, they rubbed their faces with river water and poured rice and sprinkled the blood of a slaughtered chicken into the river as a sacrifice.

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They chanted supplications to communicate their desire for blessings from the supernatural spirit they believe is “the owner of life”.

"[We] start every new year like this, and it has to be in the river," Ramang said. The incense was strongly scented.

Incense is a complement to the worship rituals of members of the Dayak community with the Kaharingan belief.

For Dayak people, rivers are the source of life, reflected by the term danum kaharingan, which means “water of life”. Their livelihood is inseparable from rivers as their traditional settlements have been built close to rivers for hundreds of years.

[We] start every new year like this, and it has to be in the river.

Marko Mahin, an anthropologist from Central Kalimantan, said rivers were the veins of Dayak communities, not only serving as a place to earn a living but also as a means of transportation and key to traditional rituals.

The severely flood-impacted rivers and damaged vegetation have affected the community. The issue was recently raised in a public discussion entitled "Recognizing the River as the Mother of Borneo's Life" held by the Borneo Nature Foundation (BNF) in Palangkaraya last September.

With rivers being vital to their livelihood, settlements of various Dayak tribal communities are found around tributaries. Rivers form a shared ethnic identity for the Dayak people.

"Many tribes may settle in a watershed area, but they become one community, [for example] the Barito people or the Kahayan people," Marko said.

KOMPAS/DIONISIUS REYNALDO TRIWIBOWO

A Resident of Palangkaraya City carry fodder that grows naturally on the banks of the Kahayan River, Palangkaraya City, Central Kalimantan, Saturday (1/1/2022). He uses a jukung in the Ngaju Dayak language or a wooden rowing boat.

Transactions occur between tribal groups along the river. People from the upstream area entering the post-harvest idle period or enduring bad crops will usually purchase downstream harvests.

The estuary dwellers cultivate rice fields with a harvest time usually in August or September. The upstream dwellers enter the harvest season around June or July.

Critical situation

Several rivers and their surrounding vegetation are reportedly in critical situations. Greenpeace data shows that the vegetation as ground cover around the Kahayan River, which in 1990 was 969,836.1 hectares, had shrunk to 570,847.7 hectares in 2020, a 63 percent decrease.

The 600 kilometer river flows across the Pulang Pisau and Gunung Mas regencies, as well as Palangkaraya. The recent flood caused the Kahayan River to overflow and submerge three regencies and cities for almost a month.

The Mentaya River in East Kotawaringin regency has seen a drop in its vegetation area, from 923,493.8 hectares in 1990 to only 287,714.8 hectares in 2020.

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The vegetation area along the 400 kilometer river has been converted into oil palm plantations at a scale that is considered the most critical of any river in Kalimantan with only 19.6 percent of ground cover remaining.

The ground cover of the Kaki River remained only 26.4 percent in 2020 from the previous period. There are six other major rivers that pass through 14 regencies and cities in Central Kalimantan in almost the same condition. Among them are the Kapuas, Barito, Sebangau, Sebangau Kecil, Katingan and Seruyan rivers.

“Deforestation driven by large-scale expansion of agriculture and logging has impacted the watersheds in Central Kalimantan. Landscapes are becoming more sensitive to climate change effects, such as drought and heavy rainfall,” Greenpeace forest campaigner Arie Rompas said.

KOMPAS/EMANUEL EDI SAPUTRA

Illegal gold mining in the Kapuas River, Sintang Regency, West Kalimantan last June.

Arie blamed this partly on the government’s move to abolish the rule that the ground cover had to remain at 30 percent. "Before the omnibus law, the rules were violated, let alone after [it was enacted]," he said.

He said the fast dwindling forest had brought about recurrent disasters since 1990, such as flooding due to overflowing rivers or tidal rise, droughts and forest fires on damaged peat areas.

The flood in November last year hit 121 villages and subdistricts in 36 districts in six regencies in Central Kalimantan. Affecting a total of 21,035 families, or 67,508 people, the flood was recorded as the worst in 30 years.

During the BNF event, Adiyaksa Prasidapati, head of the environmental management division at the Central Kalimantan Environmental Agency, revealed a government project called "Green Central Kalimantan" contained in the 2021-2026 regional medium-term development plan.

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He said the project aimed to carry out regreening based on strategic environmental studies and revised spatial planning. All development activities in the province in the next five years would be aligned with environmental goals, he claimed.

"Simply put, if the Public Works and Housing Ministry plans to build a road and finds that the location is prone to landslides, it must be coordinated for possible shifts," he said.

Rivers and their watershed areas must be continuously sustained. For the Ramangs, sustainability efforts entail spiritual connection with a deity as a token of respect to the nature, an “almighty owner”, through a ritual that has long been abandoned by many Dayaks.

This article was translated by Musthofid.