Whose Woods Are These? Counter‐mapping Forest Territories in Kalimantan, Indonesia

ABSTRACTS This paper examines the politics of land and forest rights in Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo). Forest mapping by government forestry planners allocates rights of resource use and land access according to forest types and economic objectives, only rarely recognizing indigenous occupancy rights or forest territories customarily claimed or managed by local people. As maps and official plans based on them ignore, and in some cases criminalize, traditional rights to forest, forest products, and forest land for temporary conversion to swidden agriculture, indigenous activists are using sketch maps to re‐claim territories ‐ a process that requires re‐defining many traditional forest rights. The paper considers the political implications of mapping and the implications of a focus on land use rather than forest use.