Position of the Ulayat Rights in the Law and Government Policy After the Regional Autonomy in Singingi Region, Riau Province, Indonesia

Abstract

Ulayat right is a legal term related to communal rights of a community (ethnic) regarding the land environment and based on adat, collectively and hereditary. This study analyzes government policy in using customary ulayat rights. The researchers assume that environmental responsibility is related to the basic principles of environmental management: good governance, subsidiarity, and prior appropriation. The object of research in the Singingi Indigenous Territory of Riau, Indonesia, shows differences in regulations determined by the state related to economic potential and people's perception to the land. Efforts to control mining potentials have resulted in the abolition of ulayat rights, whereas the country's potential (forest potency) permits grant permits to harvest and care for forests, and the potential for agricultural potential is limited. The study concludes that the practice of the modern state has shifted collective ownership to private ownership (Shi, 2018)(Shia, 2007), but Rantau Singingi indigenous peoples have a strategy to maintain their collective ownership as an environmental responsibility.