Income Sources

Does the local government's increased access to forest resources in the district have an impact upon poverty? Regional autonomy provides district governments with the authority to improve the welfare of communities in their districts. Malinau District in East Kalimantan has the opportunity to develop the livelihoods of its communities. Even though it has abundant natural resources, Malinau has yet to be able to guarantee a better standard of living for the majority of its people. The population of the district at the end of 2003 was around 43,844 spread across nine subdistricts, with the majority living in remote villages in or around forests. In the same year approximately 47% of households or families were recorded as being poor (Malinau District Rural Community Empowerment Office, 2003). The aim of this case study paper is to look at the impact of regional autonomy on two poor communities in this wealthy district, i.e. Sebinuang (North Malinau Subdistrict) and Metut (South Malinau Subdistrict).


Poverty in Rural Forest Communities and its Management
Figure 1 shows that non-timber forest products (particularly eaglewood or gaharu) are the largest source of income in Metut at around 37.64%.This is followed by farming at 32.56%, compensation from timber companies at 12.6%, and by wages, fishing and collecting firewood with a total of 18%.In Sebinuang wages or salaries provide the largest contribution at around 34.98% followed by income from farming at approximately 22.97%, non-timber

Perceptions of Poverty
poverty is a level of consumption for food and non-food items equal to less than 480 kg of rice in urban areas and 320 kg rice for rural areas, is applied, then these two villages are considered poor. From

Poverty Management Interventions of the Malinau District Government
As The spearhead for implementation are the government offices directly involved in the programs.The Poverty Management Committee (KPK) takes no active role either in formulating regional poverty management strategies or in coordinating their implementation.Poverty management programs run by these offices are routine programs with the KPK playing no part.
Research by Andrianto (2005) conducted in the same region mentioned that decisions made on poverty management activities implemented by KPK members, did not come from joint discussions or coordination between members, but from suggestions made by each government office independently of the KPK.6 Generally, several aspects of regional government intervention in Sebinuang have been better than in Metut.A main factor leading to this difference is accessibility.Areas with good access tend to be more affected by development (positively and/ or negatively) than the more isolated regions.
The development of infrastructure such as roads, bridges, harbours, health, education and other public facilities in subdistrict or district towns provides plenty of benefits to these areas, having an impact simultaneously on many aspects of villagers' lives.In economic terms, accessibility also influences prices for goods or basic needs.Sebinuang, which is not far from Malinau, is supported by easy vehicular access, helping prices to remain relatively stable.The same is not true for Metut, where distance and limited transport cause prices to rocket.This is made worse by the villagers' limited income sources and the unhealthy financially disadvantageous local market mechanisms, particularly for eaglewood sales.Low purchasing power influences the villager's ability to fulfill their basic needs as well.• Poverty management programs and specific regional/village needs should be synchronized through participatory planning processes and facilitation by parties committed to poverty management.

Endnote
1 No BPS data was found for calculating how much rice is required to provide 2,100 calories.

Table 1 .
Yearly Per Capita Expenditure (2003/2004) Note: At the time of this study rice cost Rp 3,500/kg in Sebinuang and Rp.5,000/kg in Metut forest products at 13.94%, commercial timber at 13.10% (

in Metut no respondents fell timber for commercial purposes) and fishing and firewood which together do not exceed 16%. The size of the contribution of wages to income in Sebinuang is closely related to the limitations of the surrounding forest both in terms of quantity and quality. Several families receive monthly cash income from incentives as village and customary authorities. Other incomes come from day work as labourers in other places such as the subdistrict town or in Malinau the district capital town. Looking at the percentages above, the contribution of the forest is slightly, though not significantly, larger in Metut than in Sebinuang. Influential factors are, among others, access to the forest and markets as well as the availability of alternative income sources besides the forest. Villagers in Sebinuang living near the subdistrict and district towns have the opportunity to earn a living outside the forest and work as labourers. Villagers from Metut, which is located in the middle of the forest, on the other hand, are far removed from the economic dynamics of people living in or around urban areas. These villagers have little chance to be involved in businesses outside the forest, which is the only thing supporting their families' economic needs. Are Local Communities Poor? Sayogyo's poverty line approach was used to determine livelihood levels in this research. The Sayogyo poverty line is defined as total family expenditure divided by the local price for rice and the number of members in the family (Sayogyo, 1977 in Seldadyo, et al. 2003). Data on expenditure was collected by collecting information about family spending over a certain time period and adjusted to prevailing local prices. Yearly per capita expenditure is presented in Table 1 and Figure 2. Table 1 shows a difference of approximately 40% in spending between the two villages. This difference is due mainly to the higher prices for essential goods in Metut, which are between 30 and 100% higher than in Sebinuang. Basic household goods, particularly those that have to be bought with cash dominate the amount of overall expenditure. If Sayogyo's poverty line (Sayogyo 1971), which states that Figure 3
. Variabilitas Persepsi Responden Mengenai Kemiskinan

Table 2 , average monthly per capita rice consumption in Sebinuang and Metut is 9.6 and 9.8 kg respectively. BPS calculates poverty figures using a food intake indicator of 2,100 calories per person per day (Anon, 2004a). Rao in Seldadyo et al. (2003), using the figure of 2,150 calories as recommended by FAO, found that a person requires 16 kg of rice per month to fulfill this number of calories. Therefore, the two study location villages, fall short of this amount by approximately 6.2 and 6.4 kg rice/person/month.1 Traditional subsistence farming methods cannot guarantee a rice yield sufficient to fulfill family consumption needs until the following year's harvest. In reality, for Punan communities in general, this lack in rice consumption can be substituted by forest sago
(Eugeissona utilis) or cassava, which are the main traditional sources of food of the Punan people.Specific research has yet to be carried out on the calorie content of these two food types.Local Perceptions

• The half-hearted villager resettlement program (respen) in the past, • Forestry policies that do not cater to the interests of forest communities and even marginalize them restricting their access to management and utilization of forest resources, • Policies that weaken community political systems and local values, • The economic and monetary crises which have affected all aspects of the economy, • Population pressures from increasing numbers of outsiders crowding out communities (especially the Sebinuang resettlement community), with the logical consequence of growing demands for space and land and more extensive utilization of forest land.
While development in the region continues, for the villagers in Sebinuang and Metut the forest remains vital in economic, social and religious terms, as well as for conservation.Even though the forest does not free them from the cycle of poverty, it can at least contribute towards fulfilling their daily food requirements in line with local standards.hristianCossalter