Land as Presence, Land as Property: Parmalim Ontology and Competing Ecological Futures in North Sumatra

Recent conflicts between the indigenous Parmalim community and industrial forestry in North Sumatra are often framed as disputes over land rights or environmental protection. This paper argues that such conflicts reveal a deeper ontological divergence concerning the moral status of land. Parmalim cosmology understands land as spiritually constituted through tondi, a life-force that binds humans, forests, and territory within reciprocal moral relations. By contrast, missionary Protestant theology introduced in the nineteenth century reframed land through a stewardship paradigm that conceptualizes nature as divinely entrusted resource under human management. While stewardship theology is not inherently extractive, its managerial anthropology historically aligned with colonial and postcolonial land governance. Drawing on decolonial theory and political ecology, the paper argues that Parmalim cosmology generates structural resistance to commodification by disrupting anthropocentric moral hierarchies embedded in modern land regimes. The case reveals how competing religious ontologies shape environmental futures in Southeast Asia.