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Accepted Paper:
The rise of plantation belt on the east coast of Sumatra: Dutch imperialism and land cover changes in Indonesia, 1870's-1930's
Devi Itawan
(Universitas Jambi)
We highlight the incredible speed of foreign private capital led to primeval forest destruction on the East Coast of Sumatra during the late 19th century. We use cadastral maps, aerial photographs, travel stories, and plantation enterprises journals to reconstruct land cover changes.
Paper long abstract:
Anthropocene and Capitalocene are still debated in figuring out the genesis of our environmental crisis. However, from the case of the East Coast of Sumatra, we find out that the main driver of tropical deforestation was the thriving plantation industry owned by foreign private capital and supported by the Dutch colonial government. The East Coast of Sumatra was once a terra incognita for the Dutch Colonial Government. It was a neglected region with massive primeval forest cover. However, the primitive accumulation by the European Entrepreneur during the Second Industrial Revolution caused an ecological shift in this region. It was demonstrated by the rapidity of land use change to create the so-called plantation region (cultuurgebied). The adaptation of shifting cultivation in tobacco plantations caused approximately 250.000 ha of primeval forest felling in the first 20 years of expansion. The number increased rapidly during the rubber boom, followed by the palm oil boom in the early 20th century, which led to 1.104.500 ha primeval and secondary forest conversion to plantation. By ensembling plantation expansion data annually from diverse historical sources, we aimed to reconstruct land cover change during the late 19th until early 20th century on the East Coast of Sumatra.