For local farmer Sibukdin, Sepaku subdistrict in North Penajam Paser regency, East Kalimantan, is the only place he knows like the back of his hand. The 60-year-old said he and his family had been living there for generations.

Sibukdin claimed that his ancestors of the Paser Balik indigenous community had lived in the area centuries ago.

Paser Balik is one of 12 subcommunities of the indigenous Paser people, who inhabit areas across East Kalimantan. The community formed two sultanates of Sadurengas and Paser between the 1500s and 1910s.

A recent survey estimates that around 100,000 Paser people still live across the province, including in Sepaku subdistrict.

After years of living peacefully and working on his own small plantation, Sibukdin recently became concerned about the government’s plan to build a new capital city in East Kalimantan. The only thing that came to his mind was if the megaproject would take his land once and for all.

“This is our home and here’s where we live. I don’t think I can hand over this land to anyone because where else will I live?” Sibukdin told The Jakarta Post.

When President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo announced his ambitious plan in August to relocate the capital city from Jakarta to North Penajam Paser and Kutai Kartanegara regencies in East Kalimantan many raised questions about which land would be used to build the new city.

When the Post visited the two regencies in mid-September, most of the land in Samboja district, Kutai Kartanegara regency, was filled with oil pumps and other facilities managed by state-owned energy holding company Pertamina as well as small-scale coal mining companies.

On the other side, most land in the neighboring Sepaku district of North Penajam Paser regency was filled with rows of oil palm trees from plantations mostly owned by smallholders.

There were some palm oil collectors seen on each side of the road on the way through the district.

Apart from oil palm plantations, some of the land was filled with industrial forests that grow various plants such as acacia trees and sengon (silk trees). That land is also included under the concession of several corporations.

At least seven companies hold concession permits for 164,975 hectares of land across the two regencies. Among the companies are state-owned forestry company PT Inhutani, which holds permits to use 10,457 ha of land, as well as private forestry companies, namely PT International Timber Corporation Indonesia (ITCI) Hutani Manuggal and PT ITCI Kartika Utama.

Both companies are owned by Hashim Djojohadikusumo, the younger brother of Gerindra Party chairman and losing presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto. Located in Sepaku, the company manages land stretching from Kutai Kartanegara to North Penajam Paser and West Kutai.

ITCI Hutani Manuggal is one of the main pulpwood suppliers for pulp and paper giant APRIL Group.

The government previously confirmed that the 180,000 ha of land earmarked for the new capital city would be located in a production forest area.

Jokowi’s administration even claimed it would take over industrial plantation forests, which are part of production forests, managed by state-owned enterprises and private entities, if needed.

APRIL Group declared its support for the new capital plan although it would affect the company’s operational activities as the location for the new capital would be within the concession area run by ITCI.

“We believe the government will make the best decision and solution regarding the matter,” the company’s spokesman Agung Laksamana said recently.

Another land-related issue lingering on the future site of the new capital is land speculators, who buy land plots across the two regencies hoping to make a profit later by selling at a higher price.

Sabukdin said there were several people claiming to be land brokers that had approached local residents and asked whether they wanted to sell their land to the brokers.

“I think it’s fine if locals sell their land, because it’s their own land. However, if the people selling the land are newcomers claiming to be land brokers, we don’t agree. They should also respect our objection if we don’t want to sell our land, rather than forcing us to sell it,” he said.

Land speculators had previously hindered the government in relocating its offices to Jonggol in Bogor, West Java, in the mid-1990s. Located about 48.7 kilometers, or a one-and-a-half-hour drive from Jakarta, Jonggol had long been cited as a possible location for the new capital city.

At that time, then-president Soeharto had planned to move the government offices to Jonggol, but the plan was scrapped because of, among other causes, spiking land prices due to speculation.

North Penajam Paser Regent Abdul Gafur Mas’ud issued a regulation in September that granted local authorities greater authority to supervise any land purchasing in the regency.

“Since the issuance of the regulation, every land purchase transaction must be reported to the authorities, so the local administration can decide whether to allow the transaction or not. Therefore, people won’t sell their land as they like,” Abdul said recently.

He added that the regulation was issued in an attempt to prevent land conflicts among residents due to conflicting ownership. Such supervision was also expected to prevent land value from rising sharply as a result of speculation.

Under the regulation, local leaders would issue a temporary land certificate that could be used to obtain a permanent one.

Abdul also advised residents not to purchase any land registered under a company’s concession as well as protected forest.

East Kalimantan Governor Isran Noor previously said he would issue a gubernatorial regulation to prevent land speculators and other parties from making excessive profits from the capital city relocation project.

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