Mului forest

MULUI CUSTOMARY FOREST IS LOCATED IN PASER REGENCY, EAST KALIMANTAN, ON THE INDONESIAN PART OF THE ISLAND OF BORNEO.

The Mului community has been fighting for the rights to manage their lands and fending off claims from mining and logging corporations for decades. Then in 2018, after the establishment of the Indonesian government’s new customary forest regulations, the Paser Government officially acknowledged the Mului community as an indigenous group and recognized their rights to manage their forest.

The FCF is supporting them to protect over 7,200 hectares of pristine rainforest.

Grantee Team

LSM Padi, the project Grantee, is an East Kalimantan-based NGO that has been supporting Mului community since 1996. Padi assisted in securing the forest’s customary status and has experience in managing conservation and development projects.

The status of forest, and wood in particular, in the Mului community is strong. Many other villages allow small-scale loggers to work in their forests, but in Mului it is forbidden to sell timber cut in the “adat” (or indigenous) forests. To cut down a few trees for one's own needs is permissible if the plan has been discussed and there were no objections from other members of the community, but no one may cut down trees for individual financial gain. The special status of wood in the community was established decades ago after people saw the devastation caused by logging permits given away by other villages. Logging the forest would provide a lot of cash in a short time, but destroy future harvests of forest products not only for the current generation but also for their children. They think of the forest as their "insurance" for when the rice harvest fails or some other disaster threatens them.

The Mului also consider certain areas to be Mori or “forbidden” forest that can only be entered for certain rituals, and others to be Sipunkg forest, managed collectively for the Mului people’s subsistence needs, including firewood and house construction.

To learn more about the Mului Community and their history of protecting the Mului forest, you can read this article in the Borneo Research Bulletin.

Biodiversity

The Mului community have identified many vulnerable, near-threatened and critically endangered plants and wildlife within the Mului forest, including the Proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus - Endangered), Bornean gibbon (Hylobates muelleri - Endangered), yellow muntjac (Muntiacus atherodes - Near-threatened) and black hornbill (Anthracoceros malayanus - Vulnerable). Tropenbos International Indonesia also produced a Biodiversity assessment of the nearby Gunung Lumut Protected Forest in 2009 which suggests there may also be White-fronted langurs, Silvered langurs, Red Leaf monkey, Long-tailed monkey, Slow loris, sambar deer, Flat-headed cat, Sun bear, Malay civet, Smooth-coated otter and many more!

Located in the Lumut Mountain, Mului forest is also an important source of water and generates several rivers.