[Asia_news] Human Geography Seminar

[Sandra Davenport]

Monday, 16 October, 2006
3.30pm - 5.00pm, Seminar Room C, Coombs Building

Dr Lesley Potter
Visiting Fellow
Department of Human Geography

The Kalimantan/Malaysia borderlands: contested resource periphery or 
conservation heartland?

It has been suggested that analysis of resource peripheries be given 
higher priority in economic geography, in recognition of their 
multi-dimensional nature through the intersections of economic, 
environmental, cultural and political values. The contests over 
resources reveal 'remarkably complex and fragmented global-local 
dynamics in ways not found in cores' (Hayter et al 2003, 21). This 
seminar examines contested production of an export crop (oil palm) in 
the Kalimantan/Malaysia borderlands, particularly the proposed 'oil 
palm corridor' along the border, announced by Indonesian President 
Yudhoyono in May 2005. The announcement surprised and alarmed many 
observers, as it followed the initiation one month earlier of the 
'Heart of Borneo' project, a trans-boundary three country 
conservation endeavour led by the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF). 
Close examination of the issue reveals a variety of discourses 
including definition of cores versus peripheries; the 'values' 
attributed to oil palm, forests and national parks; China's demands 
for Indonesian raw materials; the international politics of the 
border, especially smuggling, illegal logging and security; a 
re-centralisation of Indonesian land use planning and the resumption 
of transmigration. The major proponents were the central Agriculture 
Department, their Chinese investors, local estates and the military, 
with collaboration from provincial and district governments. They 
were opposed by the central Forestry Department, WWF and other ENGOS, 
the Center for International Forestry Research and the Alliance of 
Indigenous People. The official ratification of the 'Heart of Borneo' 
project by the countries concerned in March 2006 and more detailed 
studies of the agricultural potential of the borderlands produced a 
major back down by the corridor's proponents two months later. 
However, many questions about the aborted project and the future of 
the border region remain unanswered. Conclusions will be drawn from 
this case study concerning global/local and central/regional dynamics 
in Asia-Pacific peripheries.

Hayter, R, T Barnes and M Bradshaw (2003) 'Relocating resource 
peripheries to the core of economic geography's theorizing: rationale 
and agenda' Area 35(1), 15-23.

Convenor
Kersty Hobson
Department of Human Geography, Research School of Pacific & Asian Studies
Email: kersty.hobson at anu.edu.au
Tel: 612 54344

Sandra Davenport
Department of Human Geography
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
The Australian National University
Canberra  ACT  0200  Australia
Tel: +61-2-612-52205;  Fax: +61-2-6257 1893

http://rspas.anu.edu.au/humgeog/

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