How Young Indigenous People Safeguard Customary Forests

October 15, 2025 | 03:16 pm

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The anger that has burned inside 29-year-old Nabot Sre-klevat all his life has finally reached its breaking point. For more than two decades, he has watched giant ironwood or merbau trees (Intsia bijuga) fall in the customary forests stretching across Seramuk and Saifi Districts in South Sorong, Southwest Papua. Illegal logging has stripped their land bare. "It still goes on because of dirty deals between timber tycoons and those holding customary rights," said Nabot, Chair of the Knasaimos Youth Movement, on Tuesday, October 7, 2025.

The customary rights holders he referred to are people of the Tehit tribe, an ethnic group living in the southern part of the Doberai Peninsula (Papua's Bird's Head). Within this major tribe are six subgroups who call themselves Knasaimos—an acronym of their names: Kna, Saifi, Imian, Ogit, Srer, and Salmeic Klawsa. Together, they consist of 52 clans totaling 3,815 people.

The Knasaimos customary territory lies along the coast facing the Seram Sea, covering 97,441.55 hectares, roughly three times the size of the city of Surabaya (33,300 hectares) in East Java. Within that area, they have divided the land into zones for settlements, gardens, forests, rivers, and the sea. One of those customary areas is a lush stretch of forest rich with merbau trees, a prized hardwood species.

But today, Nabot said, three to four light trucks still shuttle in and out daily, hauling illegal merbau logs out of their ancestral land. The practice continues, sustained by clans who still depend on logging for their livelihood. "If we stay silent, the forest will be destroyed," Nabot said.

Read the Complete Story in Tempo English Magazine

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