Governance Challenges in an Eastern Indonesian Forest Landscape

Forest Policy and Economics, 2019

We propose an approach to studying the effectiveness of governance arrangements to deal with complexity in forest landscapes. Using a landscape approach and standard performance audit procedures, we (1) describe the interactions among multiple sectoral actors (2) evaluate the effectiveness of governance arrangements to deal with complexity in a forest landscape, and (3) suggest recommendations for more effective multi sectoral forest landscape governance. We conducted a pilot effectiveness audit in the Sendang (Sembilang Lalan Dangku) landscape of South Sumatra, Indonesia. Conservation activities in Sembilang and Dangku need to be reconciled with developments in Lalan; a new feeder port, an established oil processing facility, and expanding oil palm plantations. We found that two sets of governance settings coexist in Sendang. By regulations, governance arrangements are highly centralised around the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. Yet, in implementation, government authorities and their influence are not as stipulated; companies bypass the regulations, informal patronage arrangements have a major influence on outcomes, and there is no effective intermediary institution to liaise with all governance actors. We suggest three possible strategies to rationalise the regulatory framework for more effective implementation. (1) Align the regulations to more closely match implementation (2) invest in additional resources, budgetary, human, technological, and law enforcement (3) a hybrid of the first two with some additional resources and some regulatory changes because major change is expensive and time-consuming. To determine the most appropriate strategy, another audit on the efficiency and economy of each option is required. This research will contribute to alternative mechanism for mitigating conflicts among multi sector governance actors as well as to the body of knowledge. licenses to use forest resources all need to collaborate to achieve a fair system of utilisation (Nagendra and Ostrom, 2012). Rules and regulations (Meidinger, 2006) as well as effective intermediary institutions, described by Ostrom (1990) as nested enterprises, have to reconcile differences between multiple governance actors including businesses, communities and NGOs (Sahide et al., 2016). Effective governance is achieved when synergistic rules and regulations promote mutually respectful interactions among governance actors in achieving their different goals (Agrawal et al., 2008; Lambin et al., 2014). Forest and land regulations in Indonesia, however, are determined by multiple authorities and regulatory bodies, each of which has complex complementary or antagonistic relationships towards the

Springer eBooks, 2023

Discussions about forestry governance systems in Indonesia have always been an important area of policy and practice given the sector's outsized role in natural resources management. In recent years, the forest management system has been intimately linked to the concept of a Forest Management Unit (FMU), which was established to conduct scientifically sound forest management practices. FMUs were created in response to the historical failures of rule-based forest management and privatization, which resulted in the emergence of the notion of professional forestry. However, forest governance systems are once again changing as a result of the aftermath of Indonesia's Job Creation Act (a.k.a. Omnibus Law) and its derivative regulations. In this chapter, we apply a governance approach for assessing anticipated changes in the forestry sector. We understand governance as a process operationalized by actors, powers, and rules. Accordingly, we applied the lens of four governance modes in our analysis, which includes hierarchical governance, closed co-governance, open co-governance, and self-governance. FMUs assist the central government as a facilitating institution and provide a window into understanding ongoing forestry changes. Policy changes indicate that nongovernment actors are gaining increased access to permit-based forest use, thus potentially

Ecology and Society, 2014

Students of social-ecological systems have emphasized the need for effective cross-scale governance. We theorized that discursive barriers, particularly between technical and traditional practices, can act as a barrier to cross-scale collaboration. We analyzed the effects of discursive divides on collaboration on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) policy development in Central Kalimantan, an Indonesian province on the island of Borneo selected in 2010 to pilot subnational REDD+ policy. We argue that the complexities of bridging local land management practices and technical approaches to greenhouse gas emissions reduction and carbon offsetting create barriers to cross-scale collaboration. We tested these hypotheses using an exponential random graph model of collaboration among 36 organizations active in REDD+ policy in the province. We found that discursive divides were associated with a decreased probability of collaboration between organizations and that organizations headquartered outside the province were less likely to collaborate with organizations headquartered in the province. We conclude that bridging discursive communities presents a chicken-and-egg problem for cross-scale governance of social-ecological systems. In precisely the situations where it is most important, when bridging transnational standards with local knowledge and land management practices, it is the most difficult.

Center for International …, 2005

vii 1. Introduction 1.1 Background and research 1.2 Research objectives 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Research methods 1.5 Research locations 2. Forestry Sector Policy in Sintang District before and after Decentralization 2.1 Forestry sector policy before decentralization 2.2 Forestry sector policy after decentralization 3. The New Forest Management Regime: The Case of 100-ha HPHHs in Sintang District 3.1 The introduction of small-scale community-based 100-ha HPHH permits 3.2 Decree No. 19/1999-implementation and irregularities 4. Case Study: Small-scale Community-based 100-ha HPHH Permits in Sayan Subdistrict 4.1 Forest regions and forestry activities before and after decentralization 4.2 Stakeholder roles in small-scale community-based 100-ha HPHH permit activities 4.3 The economic impact of small-scale community-based 100-ha HPHH permits 4.4 Increased access brings inevitable social conflict and disagreements to the fore 5. Discussion and Debate 5.1 Forest resources: on the verge of extinction? 5.2 Community involvement: appearance vs. reality 5.3 Towards good forest governance-a mission impossible? 6. Conclusions and Recommendations 6.1 Conclusions 6.2 Recommendations 7. Endnotes 8. Bibliography 9. Annex 1. Key Informants Contents iv Glossary BPD Badan Perwakilan Desa, Village Representative Assembly (village-level legislative body) vi in the five locations: Hasanuddin University (UNHAS), Tanjungpura University (UNTAN), Papua University (UNIPA), the Study Center for Regional Autonomy Law and Policy (PSHK-ODA), Yayasan Konservasi Borneo and Yayasan Pionir Bulungan. We would also like to thank the district governments, village communities and other local stakeholders in the areas where the research was conducted. Special thanks go to the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry's Agency for Forestry Research and Development, FORDA.

The ability of communities to use and manage forests and other natural resources in a sustainable manner has received much interest from various scholars, policymakers, donor agencies, and non-government organisations. With regards to the management of forests and natural resources by customary communities in Indonesia, there are two opposing views of the customary institutions, or adat, and management practices. Some perceive adat institutions and management practices as weak, inert, and incapable of responding to changing economic and social conditions. Others see adat institutions as politically dynamic and innovative in their response to changing circumstances. This paper examines the strategies and processes used by adat leaders in Kerinci, Central Sumatra, to adapt and transform their customary forest institutions in response to the national government's policies for increased forest conservation. These policies were instituted by the creation of the Kerinci-Seblat National Park, accompanied by regulations defining forest areas and controlling people's access to natural resources within the park and the buffer zone. Drawing on key concepts in legal pluralism, institutional change, and theories of power, the paper illustrates the ways in which the adat leaders reshaped adat institutions and engaged with powerful external actors to claim authority and management rights over the forests. The conclusions point to need for policymakers, scholars, and practitioners to move beyond typecasting adat institutions and focus instead on the strategic ways in which adat leaders and communities engage with local governments and external actors to redefine both customary and formal institutions of forest control and management.

2014

Forest landscape restoration includes both the planning and implementation of measures to restore degraded forests within the perspective of the wider landscape. Governing forest landscape restoration requires fundamental considerations about the conceptualisation of forested landscapes and the types of restoration measures to be taken, and about who should be engaged in the governance process. A variety of governance approaches to forest landscape restoration exist, differing in both the nature of the object to be governed and the mode of governance. This paper analyses the nature and governance of restoration in three cases of forest landscape restoration in Indonesia. In each of these cases, both the original aim for restoration and the initiators of the process differ. The cases also differ in how deeply embedded they are in formal spatial planning mechanisms at the various political scales. Nonetheless, the cases show similar trends. All cases show a dynamic process of mobilising the landscape's stakeholders, plus a flexible process of crafting institutional space for conflict management, negotiation and decision making at the landscape level. As a result, the landscape focus changed over time from reserved forests to forested mosaic lands. The cases illustrate that the governance of forest landscape restoration should not be based on strict design criteria, but rather on a flexible governance approach that stimulates the creation of novel public-private institutional arrangements at the landscape level.

Forest and Society

After the implementation of Law Number 23/2014 on Regional Government in Indonesia, the authority for forest management rests with the central and provincial governments. This study aims to (1) assess forest governance performance after the implementation of this law, (2) analyse the institutional aspects of forest governance after the implementation of this law and (3) formulate strategies to strengthen forest governance institutions. This study finds that although Law Number 23/2014 has been implemented in North Sumatra Province, the forestry sector remains centralistic; the characteristics of forest resources have not changed (these continue to be common pool resources) and the behaviour of the actors lacks synergy. In this scenario, the performance of forest governance has not improved significantly, as indicated by the incomplete designation of forest areas; the number of Kesatuan Pengelolaan Hutan that have not implemented the Badan Layanan Umum Daerah scheme; the low rights o...

Land Use Policy, 2021

Journal of Human Rights, Culture and Legal System

There is an increasing awareness that indigenous communities hold a key role in sustainable forest management in Indonesia. However, this awareness did not necessarily come with sufficient legal acknowledgement of the rights of indigenous people to have autonomy over customary forest. This research aims to fill this gap through an understanding of the socio-political development that led to the policy institutionalization of the customary forest. The findings show that discourses on indigeneity, human rights, agrarian reform, social justice, and sustainability advocated by a coalition of Civil Society Organization (CSOs), dominated the political arrangements of both policies. The exchange of resources such as expertise, network, and participatory mapping among the CSOs helped to overshadow the counternarrative of competing policy actors. This thesis contends that a mature discourse coalition was a major factor that empowered the CSOs to advocate their discourses and to convince ot...

Transitional government that is experiencing a shift from a decentralized system to a re-centralization system will have major consequences for the bureaucratic system in managing social forestry schemes, especially community forestry in Indonesia. Therefore, this article analyzes how actors (in this case, local institutions) use their authority in managing community forests, as well as how regulations as bureaucratic ties have implications for wider forest planting schemes at the local level. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of local institutions in community forest management with a centralized system. The method used in this research is semi-structured interviews, observations, and Focus Group Discussion (FGD). Research findings suggest that Ostrom's (1990) design principles can provide a useful analytical framework to explore the role of local institutions as actors and the capacity of natural resource governance structures for centralized community forest resource management. Although in general, the centralization policy has a strong role in determining the direction of community forest management in Indonesia, this has an impact not only on the stagnation of the social forestry program but also creating unclear roles for local institutions. This paper contributes to the identification of forest governance in a decentralized system, as well as how the eight design principles serve as strong institutional characteristics for managing shared resources.