Riko was just one of more than 200 OMPS in Teluk Bakung Village whose livelihood depended on the forest. The head of Loncek Hamlet, Donatus Dino, told me that from 197 households there, 90 percent depend on the forest.
The women tap rubber trees or work as coolies in oil palm plantations. ose who have the capital and connections usually employ people from Sambas to fell the trees in their forests.
“ That is why, there could be thousands of Sambas people working in forestry in Loncek,” said Dino, more than the population of Loncek itself.
Today, there is less than 7,000 hectares of the forest remaining. Since the 1980s, Teluk Bakung Village and the surrounding areas have been parcelled into plots by a number of companies for their concession areas. Villagers are just coolies on their own land.
“Our people only fell the remaining timber,” said Valentinus Agip, one of a few lucky young men of Teluk Bakung who had the opportunity to go to college earning his bachelor’s degree in social sciences. Because of that, he was elected as the Head of Teluk Bakung Village.