THE EVOLUTION OF PROPERTY RIGHTS AMONG THE BIDAYUH COMMUNITIES IN BAU, SARAWAK
Abstract
This paper examines the evolution of property rights in regard to resource use and tenure systems. Itspecifically highlights the rapid change from the communal property system to private or state propertyrights in Bau, Sarawak. In this paper I have explained the Bidayuh traditional resource use and tenuresystems based on local customs and histories, and how these have been effective to ensure sustainableuse of natural resources. However, the findings also show that even if the communal resource use andtenure systems based on the adat is effective in managing the communities’ natural resources, there isan inclination for these communities to gradually change to the state tenure system in order to securetheir access to natural resources and their land rights.
References
Agrawal, A., and Gibson, C.C. (1999). Enchantment and disenchantment: the role of community in natural resource conservation. World Development, 27(4), 629-649.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0305-750X(98)00161-2
Appell, G.N. (1986). Kayan land tenure and the distribution of devolvable usufruct in Borneo. Borneo Research Bulletin, 18(2), 119-130.
Appell, G.N. (1993). Hardin's myth of the commons: the tragedy of conceptual confusions. With Appendix: diagrams of forms of co-ownership. DLC Working Paper 8. Social Transformation and Adaptation Research Institute. 3-55.
Appell, G.N. (1995). Community resources in Borneo: failure of the concept of common property and its implications for the conservation of forest resources and the protection of indigenous land rights. In G. Dicum (Ed.), Bulletin series (98): Local heritage in the changing tropics - Innovative strategies for natural resource management and control (pp. 32-56). Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
Appell, G.N. (1997). The History of Research on Traditional Land Tenure and Tree Ownership in Borneo. Borneo Research Bulletin, 28, 82-98.
Azima, A. M., Sivapalan, S., Zaimah, R., Suhana, S., & Yusof, H.M. (2015). Boundary and customary land ownership dispute in Sarawak. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 6(4), 17-25.
https://doi.org/10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n4s3p17
Berkes, F. (Ed.). (1989). Common property resources: Ecology and community-based sustainable development. Belhaven Press.
Berkes, F., Feeny, D., McCay, B.J., & Acheson, J.M. (1989). The benefits of the commons. Nature, 340, 91-93.
https://doi.org/10.1038/340091a0
Bromley, D.W. and Cernea, M.M. (1989). The Management of Common Property Natural Resources: Some Conceptual and Operational Fallacies. World Bank Discussion Paper, 57, 1-66.
Chang, P.F. (2002). History of Bidayuh in Kuching Division, Sarawak. Sarawak Press Sdn. Bhd.
Chua, L. (2007). Fixity and flux: Bidayuh (dis)engagements with the Malaysian ethnic systems. Ethnos: Journal of anthropology, 72(2), 262-288.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00141840701387937
Chua, L. (2009). To know or not to know? Practices of knowledge and ignorance among Bidayuhs in an 'impurely' Christian world. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 15(2), 332-348.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2009.01556.x
Chua, L. (2015). Horizontal and vertical relations: Interrogating "individualism" among Christian Bidayuhs. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 5(1), 339-359.
https://doi.org/10.14318/hau5.1.016
Ciriacy-Wantrup, S. V. and Bishop, R. C. (1975). "Common property" as a concept in natural resource policy. Natural Resources Journal, 15(4), 713-727.
Cramb, R.A. (1989). Explaining variations in Bornean land tenure: The Iban case. Ethnology, 28(4), 277-300.
https://doi.org/10.2307/3773535
Cramb, R.A. (1993). The evolution of property rights to land in Sarawak: An institutionalist perspective. Review of Marketing and Agricultural Economics, 61(2), 289-300.
Cramb, R.A. (2007). Land and longhouse: Agrarian transformation in the uplands of Sarawak. NIAS Press.
Cramb, R.A., Colfer, C.J.P., Dressler, W., Laungaramsri, P., Le, Q.T., Mulyoutami, E., Peluso, N.L. and Wadley, R. (2009). Swidden transformations and rural livelihoods in Southeast Asia. Human Ecology, 37, 323-346.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-009-9241-6
Cramb, R. and Sujang, P.S. (2011). 'Shifting ground': Renegotiating land rights and rural livelihoods in Sarawak, Malaysia. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 52(2), 136-147.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8373.2011.01446.x
Cooke, F.M. (2006). Expanding State Spaces Using ʹIdleʹ Native Customary Land in Sarawak. (2006). In F.M. Cooke (Ed.), State, communities and forests in contemporary Borneo: Asia-Pacific environment monograph 1 (pp. 25-44). ANU Press.
https://doi.org/10.22459/SCFCB.07.2006.02
Demsetz, H. (2002). Toward a theory of property rights II: The competition between private and collective ownership. Journal of Legal Studies, 31(2), 653-672.
https://doi.org/10.1086/342028
Dowie, M. (2009). Conservation refugees: The hundred-year conflict between global conservation and native peoples. The MIT Press.
https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/7532.001.0001
Egay, K. (2010). Matter of access, not rights: Indigenous peoples, external institutions and their squabbles in mid-Tinjar River, Sarawak. Manusia dan Masyarakat, 19, 1-15.
Eghenter, C. (2000). What is Tana Ulen good for? Considerations on indigenous forest management, conservation, and research in the interior of Indonesian Borneo. Human Ecology, 28(3), 331-357.
https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007068113933
FAO. (2002). Land tenure studies: Land tenure and rural development. Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/3/a-y4307e.pdf
Feder, G. and Feeny, D. (1991). Land tenure and property rights: Theory and implications for development policy. The World Bank Economic Review, 5(1), 135-153.
https://doi.org/10.1093/wber/5.1.135
Feeny, D., Berkes, F., McCay, B. and Acheson, J. (1990). The Tragedy of the Commons: Twenty-Two Years Later. Human Ecology, 18(1), 1-19.
https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00889070
Freeman, J.D. (1970). Report on the Iban. Athlone Press.
Fong, J.C. (2011). Law on native customary land in Sarawak. Sweet & Maxwell Malaysia.
Hall, D., Hirsch, P. and Li, T.M. (2011). Powers of exclusion: Land dilemmas in Southeast Asia. NUS Press.
Hanna, S., Folke, C. and Maler, K. (1995). Property rights and environmental resources. In S. Hanna and M. Munasinghe (Eds.), Property rights and the environment: Social and ecological issues (pp.15- 29). Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics and the World Bank.
Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162, 1243-1248.
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.162.3859.1243
Harrisson, T. (1958). Origins of attitudes of Brunei Tutong-Belait-Bukit-Dusun, North Borneo 'Dusun', Sarawak 'Bisayan', Meting and other peoples. The Sarawak Museum Journal, 11(26).
Hong, C. (2015, January 12). Living alone on a mountaintop in Sarawak. The Straight Times. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/living-alone-on-a-mountaintop-in-sarawak
Horowitz, L. (1998). Integrating Indigenous Resource Management with Wildlife Conservation: A Case Study of Batang Ai National Park, Sarawak, Malaysia. Human Ecology, 26(3), 371-403.
Howes, P.H. (1960). Why some of the best people aren't Christian. Sarawak Museum Journal 9(15), 488-95.
Geddes, W.R. (1954). Land Tenure of Land Dayaks. Sarawak Museum Journal, 6, 42-51.
Lawrence, D. (2004). Land-use change, biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in West Kalimantan. In G. Gerold, M. Fremerey and E. Guhardja (Eds.), Land use, nature conservation and the stability of rainforest margins in Southeast Asia (pp. 253-267). Springer.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-08237-9_14
Levmore, S. (2002). Two stories about the evolution of property rights. Journal of Legal Studies, 31(2), 421-451.
https://doi.org/10.1086/342027
Majlis Adat Istiadat (1994). The Native Customary Law Ordinance: The Adat Bidayuh Order, 1994.
McCay, B.J. and Acheson, J.M. (1987). Human ecology of the commons. In B.J. McCay and J.M. Acheson (Eds.), The question of the commons: The culture and ecology of communal resources (pp. 1- 36). The University of Arizona Press.
McCay, B. (1996). Common and private concerns. In S.S. Hanna, C. Folke and K. Maler (Eds.), Rights to nature: Ecological, economic, cultural, and political principles of institutions for the environment (pp. 111-126). Island Press.
McCarthy, J.F. and Cramb, R.A. (2009). Policy narratives, landholder engagement, and oil palm expansion on the Malaysian and Indonesian frontiers. The Geographical Journal, 175(2), 112-123.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4959.2009.00322.x
McKean, M. and Ostrom, E. (1995). Common property regimes in the forest: Just a relic from the past. Unasylva, 46(180), 3-15.
Mertz, O., Christensen, A.E., Højskov, P. and Birch-Thomsen, T. (1999). Subsistence or cash: strategies for change in shifting cultivation. Geografisk Tidsskrift, 1, 133-142.
Mertz, O., Padoch, C., Fox, J., Cramb, R., Leisz, S., Lam, N. and Vien, T. (2009). Swidden Change in Southeast Asia: Understanding Causes and Consequences. Human Ecology, 37(3), 259-264.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-009-9245-2
Mertz, O., Egay, K., Bruun, T.B., and Colding, T.S. (2013). The last swiddens of Sarawak, Malaysia. Human Ecology, 41, 109-118.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-012-9559-3
Metcalf, P. (2002). They lie, we lie: Getting on with anthropology. Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203116692
Metcalf, P. (2012). The life of the longhouse: An archaeology of ethnicity. Cambridge.
Minos, P. (2000). The future of the Dayak Bidayuhs in Malaysia. Lynch Media & Services.
National Parks and Nature Reserves Ordinance (1998), Sarawak. The Commissioner of Law Revision Sarawak.
Nelson, J., Muhammed, N. and Abdul Rashid, R. (2015). Community's forest dependency and its effects towards the forest resources and wildlife abundance in Sarawak, Malaysia. International journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology, 22(5), 401-412.
Ngidang, D. (2003). Transformation of the Iban land use system in post-independence Sarawak. Borneo Research Bulletin, 34, 62-78.
Ngidang, D. (2005). Deconstruction and reconstruction of native customary land tenure in Sarawak. Journal of Southeast Asian studies, 43(1), 47-75.
Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511807763
Ostrom, E. and Hess, C. (2010). Private and common property rights. In B. Boudewijn (Ed.), Property law and economics, Vol. 5 (pp.53-106). Edward Elgar Publishing.
Padoch, C., Harwell, E. and Susanto, A. (1998). Swidden, sawah, and in-between: Agricultural transformation in Borneo. Human Ecology, 26(1), 3-20.
https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018740615905
Papau, D. (2014, June 24). Villagers win back their native rights land. Malaysiakini. https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/266652
Peluso, N.L. (1996). Fruit trees and family trees in an anthropogenic forest: Ethics of access, property zones, and environmental change in Indonesia. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 38(3), 510-548.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0010417500020041
Peluso, N.L. (2005). Seeing property in land use: Local territorializations in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Geografisk Tidsskrift, 105(1), 1-15.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00167223.2005.10649522
Quiggin, J. (1988). Private and common property rights in the economics of the environment. Journal of Economic Issues, 22(4), 1071-1087.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.1988.11504842
Ribot, J.C. and Peluso, N.L. (2003). A theory of access. Rural sociology, 68(2), 153-181.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1549-0831.2003.tb00133.x
Rousseau, J. (1990). Ethnic taxonomies and ethnic identity. Central Borneo: Ethnic identity and social life in a stratified society (pp.43-78). Clarendon Press.
Rubis, J.M. and Theriault, N. (2020). Concealing protocols: conservation, indigenous survivance, and the dilemmas of visibility. Social and Cultural Geography, 21(7), 962-984.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2019.1574882
Sandin, B. (1990). Iban adat and augury. Universiti Sains Malaysia.
Sarawak Fact and Figures. (2012). Sarawak: Population by ethnic group and administrative district, 2010. Retrieved from: http://www.mbks.sarawak.gov.my/modules/web/download_show.php?id=332
Sarawak Forestry Department Website (2020). National Parks. https://forestry.sarawak.gov.my/page-0-400-1012-tid.html
Sarawak Forest Ordinance (Chapter 71, 2015). Percetakan Nasional Malaysia Bhd.
Sarok, A. and Britin, F.B. (2016). Self-Organisation Initiatives in Community-Based Conservation: A Case Study of Bung Jagoi Heritage Bau, Sarawak Malaysia. Journal of Borneo-Kalimantan, 2(2), 1-21.
https://doi.org/10.33736/jbk.473.2016
Sather, C. (1990). Trees and tree tenure in Paku Iban society: the management of secondary forest resources in a long-established Iban community. Borneo Review, 1(1), 16-40.
Schlager, E. and Ostrom, E. (1992). Property-rights regimes and natural resources: a conceptual analysis. Land Economics, 68(3), 249-262.
https://doi.org/10.2307/3146375
Schmidt-Vogt, D., Leisz, S.J., Mertz, O., Heinimann, A., Thiha, T., Messerli, P., Epprecht, M., Cu, P.V., Chi, V.K. and Dao, T.M. (2009). An assessment of trends in the extent of swidden in Southeast Asia. Human Ecology, 37(3), 269-280.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-009-9239-0
Sikor, T. and Lund, C. (2009). Access and property: a question of power and authority. Development and Change, 40(1), 1-22.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.2009.01503.x
Starr, P. (1988). The meaning of privatisation. Yale Law & Policy Review, 6(1), 6-41.
Stead, V. (2017). Landownership as Exclusion. In S. McDonnell, M. Allen and C. Filer (Eds.), Kastom, property and ideology: Land transformations in Melanesia (pp. 357-382). ANU Press.
https://doi.org/10.22459/KPI.03.2017.12
Swaney, J.A. (1990). Common property, reciprocity, and community. Journal of Economic Issues, 24(2), 451-462.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00213624.1990.11505044
Tillotson, D.M. (1994). Who invented the Dayaks? Historical case studies in art, material culture and ethnic identity from Borneo [PhD dissertation, Australian National University]. Open Access Theses.
Toh, M.L., Tan, L.C., Tan, W.V., Ujang, M.U. and Thoo, A.C. (2019). A preliminary study on the formation of land legislation and cadastre system in Sarawak, Malaysia. International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology (IJEAT), 8(5C), 788-797.
https://doi.org/10.35940/ijeat.E1112.0585C19
Trebilcock, M.J. and Veel, P.E. (2008). Property rights and development: The contingent case for formalization. Legal Studies Research Series, No.08-10 (pp. 1-86), Faculty of Law, University of Toronto.
https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1084571
Tsing, A.L. (1993). In the realm of the diamond queen: Marginality in an out-of-way-place. Princeton University Press.
Van Vliet, N., Mertz, O., Birch-Thomsen, T. and Schmook, B. (2013). Is There a Continuing Rationale for Swidden Cultivation in the 21st Century? Human Ecology, 41(1), 1-5.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-013-9562-3
Wadley, R.L. (1997). Variation and changing tradition in Iban land tenure. Borneo Research Bulletin, 28, 98-108.
Wadley, R.L. and Colfer, C.J.P. (2004). Sacred forest, hunting, and conservation in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Human Ecology, 32(3), 313-338.
https://doi.org/10.1023/B:HUEC.0000028084.30742.d0
Walker, J.H. (1998). James Brooke and the Bidayuh: Some ritual dimensions of dependency and resistance in nineteenth-century Sarawak. Modern Asian Studies, 32(1), 91-115.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X98002984
Winzeler, R.L. (1997). Modern Bidayuh ethnicity and the politics of culture in Sarawak. In R.L. Winzeler (Ed.), Indigenous peoples and the state: Politics, land, and ethnicity in the Malayan Peninsula and Borneo (pp. 201-227). Yale University Southeast Asia Studies
Yusop, Y. (2017, March 27). Committed to Sustainable Forest Management. Official Website of Forest Department Sarawak. http://www.forestry.sarawak.gov.my/modules/web/pages.php?mod=news&sub=news_view&nid=361
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
-
Copyright Transfer Statement for Journal
1) In signing this statement, the author(s) grant UNIMAS Publisher an exclusive license to publish their original research papers. The author(s) also grant UNIMAS Publisher permission to reproduce, recreate, translate, extract or summarize, and to distribute and display in any forms, formats, and media. The author(s) can reuse their papers in their future printed work without first requiring permission from UNIMAS Publisher, provided that the author(s) acknowledge and reference publication in the Journal.
2) For open access articles, the author(s) agree that their articles published under UNIMAS Publisher are distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-SA (Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, for non-commercial purposes, provided the original work of the author(s) is properly cited.
3) For subscription articles, the author(s) agree that UNIMAS Publisher holds copyright, or an exclusive license to publish. Readers or users may view, download, print, and copy the content, for academic purposes, subject to the following conditions of use: (a) any reuse of materials is subject to permission from UNIMAS Publisher; (b) archived materials may only be used for academic research; (c) archived materials may not be used for commercial purposes, which include but not limited to monetary compensation by means of sale, resale, license, transfer of copyright, loan, etc.; and (d) archived materials may not be re-published in any part, either in print or online.
4) The author(s) is/are responsible to ensure his or her or their submitted work is original and does not infringe any existing copyright, trademark, patent, statutory right, or propriety right of others. Corresponding author(s) has (have) obtained permission from all co-authors prior to submission to the journal. Upon submission of the manuscript, the author(s) agree that no similar work has been or will be submitted or published elsewhere in any language. If submitted manuscript includes materials from others, the authors have obtained the permission from the copyright owners.
5) In signing this statement, the author(s) declare(s) that the researches in which they have conducted are in compliance with the current laws of the respective country and UNIMAS Journal Publication Ethics Policy. Any experimentation or research involving human or the use of animal samples must obtain approval from Human or Animal Ethics Committee in their respective institutions. The author(s) agree and understand that UNIMAS Publisher is not responsible for any compensational claims or failure caused by the author(s) in fulfilling the above-mentioned requirements. The author(s) must accept the responsibility for releasing their materials upon request by Chief Editor or UNIMAS Publisher.
6) The author(s) should have participated sufficiently in the work and ensured the appropriateness of the content of the article. The author(s) should also agree that he or she has no commercial attachments (e.g. patent or license arrangement, equity interest, consultancies, etc.) that might pose any conflict of interest with the submitted manuscript. The author(s) also agree to make any relevant materials and data available upon request by the editor or UNIMAS Publisher.
