Jamaluddin, declared that it was “confident that it will be able to solve the land woes of the Orang Asli within the next ten years” (The Star 25.3.1996). The reality is that, today, only 0.5 per cent of Orang Asli land is currently permanently titled. The former Director-General had said that state governments had agreed in principle to give land titles to Orang Asli, and that the JHEOA would apply for the lands “on which others had no claim on, those earmarked for cluster agriculture schemes, and those the under planned villages concept approved by the state governments.” The presumption here is that is not necessary that the titles will be given for land that the Orang Asli are currently residing on, nor will it be anywhere near the size of their traditional territories. This is the issue at stake. The Orang Asli want the traditional territories in which they are residing to be either gazetted as permanent reserves, or else that some form of permanent title be issued to it. The state governments, however, see relocation to another site as a precondition for the granting of land titles —in individual names, not communally. The policy of the JHEOA, we were told by Hj Ikram, was to give Orang Asli land titles under the National Land Code “just like other individuals in Malaysia”. It should be noted that, although there are some Orang Asli who want individual titles, there are also those who do not as this will undermine their traditional rights to their communal territories. Also, with individual land titles, individual lots would be fixed in size and number, and their total area would invariably be smaller than what they are asserting traditional rights over. The community will also face problems with fixed-sized lots as it will not be able to cope with expanding households, in contrast to the traditional land tenure system which had the advantage of a relatively large traditional territory to fall back on. ORANG ASLI – RIGHTS, PROBLEMS & SOLUTIONS 35