"No merun, no food." This statement reflects Mek Nuraini's disappointment. She can no longer cultivate rice as she once did by using the traditional merun-burning method, due to the ban enforced by Jambi Provincial Regulation Number 2 of 2016, aimed at preventing and controlling forest and land fires
Mek Nuraini, a descendant of the Inner Sembilan Indigenous People, feels very afraid to continue opening up land using the merun practice. Her fear stems from frequent encounters with police patrols and security forces monitoring fires near their homes and gardens.
To provide for her family's food needs, Mek Nuraini had no choice but to collect oil palm bunches to earn money for rice. She worked 2-3 days to gather a sack of oil palm weighing around 30-50 kg, which she sold to collectors for Rp. 50,000-70,000. However, the earnings were insufficient to afford rice priced at Rp. 155,000 for 10 kilograms, forcing her to depend on her child's income from working on other people’s plantations
Before the burning ban, Mek Nuraini was able to harvest rice annually by planting local rice varieties such as puteh, rimbo rice, and talang rice, which thrived on burnt land. These rice varieties matured in about 7 months, yielding approximately 7-8 tons per hectare.
“To determine the right time to start burning, we plant banana trees. When the banana leaves grow to the size of a pot lid, it signals that the land is ready to be cleared and ploughed,” explained Mek Nuraini.
In the past, Indigenous women of the Batin Sembilan community traditionally practiced rice planting through shifting cultivation as a natural way to prevent pests. If farming continued on the same land in the next seasons, controlling the abundant growth of wild grass would become challenging. However, with the growing expansion of immigrant plantations and restrictions on company-owned areas, the practice of shifting cultivation has been abandoned.
Mek Nuraini, along with thousands of families from the Batin Sembilan indigenous community, cultivated rice and various food crops on their customary land, which they successfully reclaimed from Ecosystem Restoration Concession (ERC)
In 2015, an agreement was made to establish boundaries between ERC Corporation and the indigenous community, covering 15,000 hectares. However, to this day, no steps have been taken to finalize the boundaries or conduct field verification. Moreover, the community has yet to receive full recognition from the state.
"In history, merun has never caused large-scale fires. We have always protected nature, unlike the widespread fires on plantations and company-owned lands," said Mek Nuraini.
However, when a fire occurs, the community always bears the loss. If a fire happens within the concession area, the company receives compensation in the form of tree seedlings. On the other hand, when fires occur in the community's gardens, there is neglect, and the state provides no compensation. This conflict is bound to escalate, especially amid growing climate concerns framed as efforts to protect the area and save the climate.
