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FairFrontiers public exhibition LIVES on the EDGE
Researcher talks
19 January 2026
Researcher talks
19 January 2026
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Yeah, so I would like to recent our research, so perhaps you already have a background about SAMA.
00:10And our research about perception of fairness and human-human boundaries.
00:16And this paper for this research already submitted to the University of Illinois Studies.
00:21I think almost one month, but still with the editor, hopefully.
00:28Okay, so this research examines the local perception of fairness and how communities define fail
00:41to work through the tree plantation project in Pitas Sabah, Malaysia,
00:45as well as to analyze how these perceptions link to the community's well-being.
00:53To understand the context, I will show you a bit of information about tree plantation in Pitas
00:58that led to the contestation over the land for past community carries.
01:04The issue started when the Sabah Forestry Development Agency, or SAFORDA, introduced a resettlement scheme
01:09and promoted a solution to the problems of poverty and low-productive agriculture through a tree plantation project by planting
01:17Acacia.
01:24At the time, residents from 59 villages agreed to participate in their customary land for the project,
01:30and SAFORDA assured them the land would be returned after the first harvest from Acacia.
01:35But even though the harvesting has long been completed in 2003, the land has not been returned yet,
01:42and SAFORDA's promise has not been kept until today.
01:48And the authorities now become the public-private company filed against the community for trespassing onto the plantation area.
01:5720 from the 59 villages known as the T20 was established and has been fighting to reclaim their land rights.
02:08And they are now dealing with the various evictions.
02:13So in general, Pitas has significant ecological and socio-economic changes and affecting their ancestral territory.
02:23So this is also reported by Jude and Patrick that the community in Pitas have found a 40-year land
02:32rights struggle
02:33following what is described as a trick by the forestry authority.
02:43So this is the framework we used to analyze the study.
02:49And we see from lens of equity, the distribution to see how the community can access and can get the
03:00distribution of benefits and burden towards the land use changes.
03:04And also the reputation, how far the community thrives also recognize and the procedure dimension where the community is involved
03:17in decision-making regarding to land and natural resources management.
03:25For data collection, we used mixed methods and we collected from July 2023 to April 2025.
03:34And we did focus group discussion, household survey and transit boards.
03:39I think I will skip this slide and go to the next slide about the data analysis also used both
03:47qualitative and quantitative analysis.
03:50About Pitas, I think we have a bit information from Aswath Thorn.
03:55And yeah, Pitas is one of the poorest areas in Saba, a rural and less developed state.
04:02And to the government, growing tree plantations in Pitas is a suitable way to increase the productivity of the area.
04:14Pitas is also a mix of coastal areas and heavy trends with small and diverse ethnic blobs.
04:20And if you see here, the purple highlight is the G20 village areas and villages marked with red and red
04:26rectangle are villages revisited for data collection.
04:30This is the land situation.
04:32This is the land situation and we can see the change at least at the four aspects.
04:36So from subsistence to commercial agriculture.
04:42We can see from shifting cultivation to the cash crops such as palm and rubber.
04:47And also there is a change related to the land tenure from communal or customary land to the land that
04:55fully or partially controlled by Saba.
04:57And the change from free access to limited access to the forest.
05:02And the change of infrastructure from, for example, low bank fraud and electricity in the villages to the improved infrastructure
05:10of off-road and electricity.
05:14So we enter to the findings part.
05:17So in here, I will explain about local, how local perceive fairness and its link to the human well-being.
05:26This slide shows how the community perceive fairness toward the land use changes, particularly in benefit sharing and burden distribution.
05:35And we can see mostly participants felt not fair and the rest felt somewhat fair and fair.
05:43According to the Gale, Bennett, and Rudney, fairness perceptions are strongly influenced by the balance among the equitable distribution, recognition,
05:52and procedural fairness.
05:55In PITAS, community perception of fairness reflects deep inequities in dimension of distribution, where people feel deprived of their land
06:04without fair compensation.
06:06And in dimension of recognition, where people's rights and culture are ignored.
06:11And in dimension of procedure, where people are excluded from decision making in land and resources management.
06:20The unfulfilled premises and lack of government action further reinforce their sense of marginalization and injustice.
06:29And we go deep to the community and ask how they define the affair.
06:36So from the narrative we have, we divided the narrative into four groups of definitions.
06:48Fair is when your land rights and ownership were recognized.
06:53Fair is when you have equitable land distribution and utilization.
07:00Fair is when Safoda could fulfill their promise.
07:04Fair is when the villagers are involved in decision making.
07:09So for community in PITAS, fairness is not just about what they get, but also about how the rights are
07:17respected and how decisions are made.
07:20Here are some narratives from community in PITAS that show their unfairness feeling.
07:25For example, they say companies such as AFI, Safoda take away the rights of villagers because they are considered encouragers,
07:33not allowed to conduct agricultural activities in those areas.
07:37Access is not allowed by Safoda. Freedom has decreased.
07:41That is easy. Just give back the land to us.
07:45If they didn't chase us away from our land, we would not have to disturb them.
07:51From the perception of fairness, we try to see the link with community well-being.
07:55Well-being relies on healthy ecosystems that provide vital services like clean air, water, food, and stable climate.
08:04Cultural factors such as a sense of belonging and identity are also important for well-being.
08:09And in PITAS, one key issue is the villagers' limited access to land and resources due to control by a
08:17public-private venture which has altered the ecosystem services they rely on.
08:22This shift has changed the human well-being bundles of villagers, both material and non-mental information.
08:30This table shows you how communities well-being experience changing over the past 25 years, both material such as health,
08:41level food, especially for agricultural sector, income, money, and natural resources.
08:47And also from non-material with constituents, cultural and identity, recognition of customer-related rights, social relationships, and high-ending
08:59land.
09:00And the most negative chance is recognition of the customer-related rights.
09:07As you can see in these graphs, when we ask the community about the requirement for having a good quality
09:14of life, the top answer is land.
09:16Followed by clean water, money, public facilities, crops.
09:21So to community, life is not only the material, beyond all that it related to their culture and identity.
09:30And let's see how is actually the land situation in PITAS.
09:34Based on the households back in May 2024, we can see mostly people on the land but don't have the
09:41time home.
09:43Almost 50% of the land is used for gas crops such as oil pump and rubber and they don't
09:50practice seeding cultivation anymore
09:52because seeding cultivation requires land to follow.
09:58And fellow land is equal to idle land and idle land is equal to unused land and it potentially to
10:05be taken.
10:06So having a title is also a big challenge for community, especially to those who plant oil pump
10:12because they couldn't renew their license, they should have the title and mostly land under the Safodas cassette.
10:25So don't have NPO license means you couldn't sell your oil pump.
10:29And this is how community's land size has changed in the past five years.
10:37Only 50% participants answered the question.
10:4325% participants experienced the land size has changed.
10:48Almost 80% couldn't explain well how and why the land size has changed.
10:55But the half of the rest answered participants said it has decreased due to being taken by Safoda
11:03and due to landslide or agricultural waste.
11:08And about the water, here are some narratives from community about water scarcity they have been missing.
11:15For example, water quality decreased because water source is affected by roots of trees planted by Safoda.
11:22It's hard to get the clean water in here, you can have the clean water for free, the government provides
11:27that
11:27but you need a car to accommodate it since the place is quite far from our village.
11:32Some people take this as an advantage by providing the surface but it's costly like 70 to 30 seconds per
11:42cubic lot of time depends on the distance.
11:45I only can shower for once a week. The water crisis is making daily life even more challenging.
11:51And about the health conditions, this is the common illness community experience in Peters.
11:57You can see mostly experienced infectious diseases such as malaria, flu, cold, fever and dingoo.
12:05And when asking community if the illness has relation to the land uses or changing environment,
12:11only half participants answered it and about half of them said yes.
12:16Those who answered yes attributed health issues to water problems caused by Safoda's development program,
12:23particularly the use of chemicals which they believe increases cases of diarrhea, allergies, malaria and dingoo.
12:37And Acacia plantations require significant amounts of water and have been linked to reduced groundwater levels, worsening water shortage.
12:47Also, Safoda's activities were linked to the weather changes, contributing to fever and cold.
12:53Thus, strong growth construction was also seen as a cause of respiratory problems like COVID.
13:00And we assume that both those who answered no and no provided no answer may not recognize that chronic conditions
13:08such as hypertension and diabetes could be stress-related due to ongoing customary land rights struggles with Safoda.
13:16A villagers in his 20s stated that he couldn't eat and sleep well due to stress by an affection letter
13:23sent by authority and found himself as hypertension.
13:29And this is the likelihood situation of community in Pitas.
13:33Families' livelihood are largely based on crop farming, especially from cash crops such as rubber and oil palm.
13:43Almost half of the participants reported earning higher income compared to five years ago.
13:52However, the income is still less than 10,000, mostly less than 10,000 ringgit Malaysia.
14:00That is actually almost below minimum wage in Salma, that is 18,000 ringgit Malaysia per year.
14:11And about the assets, the most prominent asset is the mobile phone.
14:16And yes, the number of mobile phones, motorbikes, and cars or trucks have increased.
14:23We argue that these changes are closely linked in infrastructure development associated with the plantation, such as improved access to
14:32electricity and road construction.
14:46And this also has led to construction.
14:53an increase in access that I mentioned before.
15:08In addition, this improved infrastructure have also improved various aspects of life, especially social relationships.
15:17Before they need, like, so long time, like many days to only visit one village.
15:24But with improved roads, they cannot visit many villages in only one day.
15:29While this may be seen as a positive outcome of development,
15:33it should be reconsidered whether these benefits truly compensate for the challenges faced by the local community.
15:42And amidst the struggle conditions, mostly community in Pitas feel satisfied with their current life and grateful for everything is
15:53the main narrative behind that.
15:56While people are thankful for basic needs, health, and family well-being, many feel anxious about land access, uncertain futures,
16:06and the lack of essential resources like electricity and housing.
16:10There is a strong desire for land rights, government support, and improvements in infrastructure to ensure a better future for
16:20themselves and their children.
16:24And as conclusions, we highlighted four points here.
16:29First, the sacrodite implementation projects we view as more than an alteration in menus.
16:36The changes have created a deep sense of unfairness for most villagers.
16:42Second, the dynamic of justice seeks fairness is much deeper and more complex, particularly concerning land and resources management.
16:52Third, the impact stretched beyond material to include non-material impacts.
16:57The non-material includes the lack of recognition of customary and cultural rights.
17:02There has been a noticeable decline in the upkeep of cultural practices, which is a direct result of the pruning
17:09of customary boundaries, including sacred areas, which leads to the eroding of cultural identity.
17:17And the last point is, these findings confirm the reality that the perception of families are closely tied to human
17:25well-being bundles and underscores the urgent aid for more inclusive and equitable governance of land and natural resources.
17:34That's all my presentation.
17:38Thank you very much for your time.