The Pattiro Toa Indigenous Community is a community located in Terasa Village, West Sinjai District, Sinjai Regency with a customary area of 1.125,5 hectares which is used as a source of livelihood. Before there was land control dominance by the government, the Pattiro Toa Indigenous Community lived in peace, free from terror and threats of seizure of customary areas. However, everything changed when the government began to control and change all customary areas into state forest areas which functioned as production forests. This can be seen in the Pattiro Toa Indigenous Community in three villages, namely Cenre, Pattiro, and Kasimpurang, who have just realized that they no longer have free access to their customary areas, including customary forests.
This condition causes conflict due to the imbalance in control of livelihood resources for Indigenous Peoples, the weak role of customary institutions in managing customary areas and the loss of trust of young people in managing Indigenous Peoples communities. On the other hand, the government continues to pressure Indigenous Peoples to continue to protect forests, water and rivers in their customary areas. Meanwhile, in terms of recognizing customary areas, the government has not fully recognized the existence of Indigenous Peoples in fulfilling its obligations to provide rights to recognize customary areas. Recognition of customary areas and the determination of customary forests should be the responsibility carried out by the state.
This then builds awareness for Indigenous Peoples who are accompanied by the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN) Sinjai Region to carry out a movement to advocate all their interests to the government. In 2019, the Indigenous Peoples successfully received recognition of their customary areas which was marked by the issuance of Regional Regulation (Perda) Number 1 of 2019 concerning Guidelines for the Recognition, Protection, and Empowerment of Indigenous Peoples. This regulation is a legal umbrella for Indigenous Peoples to continue efforts to identify, verify, and validate Indigenous Peoples. In 2021, the Government also formed an Indigenous Peoples committee which is renewed annually and includes these activities in the Sinjai Regency Strategic Plan (Renstra) 2024-2026.
Furthermore, through the support of the Nusantara Fund, the Pattiro Toa Indigenous Community with assistance AMAN The Sinjai region has again strengthened the consolidation of the movement to obtain legal access to the management of customary areas and Customary Forests through the preparation of social and spatial data. As a result, the Pattiro Toa Indigenous Community has succeeded in mapping 1.178,8 hectares of customary areas. In addition, the Indigenous Community has also succeeded in compiling documents on the identification of history, customary areas, customary law, customary institutions, and customary assets that can be used as knowledge that is passed down from generation to generation.
This is in accordance with the statement of Jasmadi Akbar as the person responsible for the program who said:
"Participatory mapping has had an impact on increasing Indigenous Peoples' knowledge of the extent of their customary territories and recognizing the overlapping claims between Customary Forests and state forests. Therefore, through the support of the Nusantara Fund, it has had an impact on efforts to restore Indigenous Peoples' rights to Customary Forests that have been managed for generations."
From the available customary area mapping data, the Pattiro Toa Indigenous Community then identified and compiled a Customary Forest map document which was then used as support for the submission of an application for the determination of a Customary Forest covering an area of 835,7 hectares. In the process of implementing the activity, AMAN Sinjai Region together with the Pattiro Toa Indigenous Community also involved the Kampala Indigenous Community. This can be seen from their involvement in several meetings and by submitting documents identifying the Kampala Indigenous Community's customary area of 1.106,6 hectares.
More broadly, this activity ultimately gave birth to increased understanding and strengthened the solidarity of the movement for Indigenous Peoples consisting of the Pattiro Toa Indigenous Peoples, the Kalampa Indigenous Peoples and the Barambang Katute Indigenous Peoples to jointly identify, verify, and validate customary areas and Customary Forests to increase access to recognition and protection of customary rights in their respective areas. In addition, the process is now also helping village governments, sub-district governments, and district governments in encouraging the acceleration of recognition of Indigenous Peoples with the availability of Indigenous Peoples identification documents.