12 Community forestry for poverty reduction-lessons learned in Indonesia - Subarudi^[13], Maman Mansyur Idris^[14], Budiman Achmad^[15] and M. N. Iman^[16]

ABSTRACT

Community-based forest management (CBFM) in Indonesia has been practised for a long time. The International Forestry Congress held in Jakarta in 1978 with the theme "Forest for People" had triggered the further development of CBFM. CBFM as one of the social forestry programmes has a variety of models. Seven CBFM models can be recognised in Indonesia, viz. (i) self-reliance private forest, (ii) private forest assisted by the government, (iii) partnership private forest, (iv) self-reliance CBFM, (v) partnership CBFM, (vi) HKM and (vii) PMDH. These models can be viewed from different points such as: (i) land status, (ii) land-use management and (iii) social institutional system. The performance evaluation of six existing CBFM models shows that each CBFM model has its own characteristics including strengths and weaknesses, institutional system, impacts and socialization process in its field implementation. Therefore, strategies to develop CBFM in future can be done by (i) SWOT analysis in CBFM implementation, (ii) policy reform and unity, (iii) institutional capacity building, (iv) problem-solving orientation, (v) proper socialization of CBFM programmes, (vi) participatory and multistakeholders approaches, and (vii) developing of market and funding sources.

INTRODUCTION

During the last three decades, forestry development in Indonesia has faced a big problem in implementing sustainable forest management (SFM) because of external pressures and internal weakness in its field implementation of forest management system. This situation is not only happening outside Java, but also occurring in Java as a benchmark of SFM in Indonesia. The evaluation on SFM by many scientists indicated that failure in forest management is caused by several factors such as: (i) neglecting the social, economic and cultural aspects of the community, (ii) benefit sharing not distributed equally and fairly, and (iii) improper public accountability of forest management. These three factors are inter-related.

Indonesian natural forest management has changed its policy significantly over time. In the early years the policy on forest management was timber-oriented management, with more attention to logging. The policy brought in a conglomeration of forestry businesses that neglected the sustainable yield principles. This situation, however, has changed with the shifting of forest policy from exploitative orientation for economic development to forest conservation and ecosystem oriented.

In responding to the need for community prosperity and benefit distribution, the Government of Indonesia has issued a policy on forest village-community development programme (Pembangunan Masyarakat Desa Hutan-(PMDH). However, this policy failed to increase the prosperity and empower the communities living in the forest and surrounding areas. This is due to the lack of community involvement in forest management and the PMDH programme seems to be more a "sinter class" programme than a community-empowering programme.

Perum Perhutani, a state-owned company occupying 3.1 million ha, has implemented another communitybased forest management programme, the Pengelolaan Hutan Bersama Masyarakat (PHBM), in Java. The PHBM programme is not enough to increase the prosperity of communities due to illegal logging and forest encroachment. However, in some parts of Indonesia, there are a number of community forestry programmes that are successfully implemented for poverty reduction. After reviewing policies on community participation in forest management, the Ministry of Forestry has launched a social forestry programme in 2003. Social forestry is defined as a forest management system conducted in state and/or private forests with the involvement of the local community as the main actor or primary partner to increase its prosperity and achieve SFM.

HISTORY OF CBFM AS A SOCIAL FORESTRY PROGRAMME

In Indonesia, a social forestry programme has been implemented since the Mataram Kingdom in the 18th century at Alas Donoloyo on Java Island in the form of agroforestry. Meanwhile, outside Java the community has been doing shifting cultivation as a traditional and heritage forestry system (Effendi 2000).

The International Forestry Congress held in Jakarta in 1978 with the theme Forest for People triggered the intensive development of social forestry in Indonesia. After that, the government started to issue a policy on CBFM known as the Forest Concession-Village Development Programme (HPH Bina Desa) through a Forest Minister Decree (SK Menhut) No. 61/Kpts-II/1991. This HPH Bina Desa programme was later replaced by the PMDH programme through SK Menhut No. 65/Kpts-II/1995.

The government has also launched two regulations regarding CBFM, viz. (i) SK Menhut No. 318/Kpts-II/1999 regarding community participation in forest management, and (ii) SK Menhut No. 31/Kpts-II/1999 for distributing forest concessions less than 50 000 ha to the community. Both regulations cannot be implemented because they were formulated as a formal response to public reform without considering their field implementation requirements.

At present, many CBFM programmes have been implemented using community terms such as forest management conducted by the community (Pengelolaan Hutan Oleh Masyarakat (POHM)), community-based forest management (PHBM), and participative forest management with the community (Pengelolaan Hutan Partisipasi Bersama Masyarakat (PHPBM)), following the implementation of government regulation (PP) No. 34/2002.

CBFM MODELS IN INDONESIA

Community forestry is viewed as a new idea and concept. Community forestry is defined as a forest management system done by the community with the guarantee of accessibility to the forest. On the other hand, community forestry is the acknowledgement of community customary rights for the forest areas and the redefining of traditional and local forest management system, which has been practised for a long time (Rahardjo 1999). Nowadays, social forestry is often viewed the same way as CBFM which is a forest management system practised by individuals or a community on state land, community land, indigenous land or private land to provide his or their own needs through commercial exploitation (Suhardjito et al. 2000). For example, SK Menhut No. 31/2001 in Article 5 (point 2) stated that forest areas allocated as CBFM units are forest protection areas and/or production forest that have no other forestry business licenses. The forests mentioned in Article 5 are forests as living sources for the local community with potential to be managed by the community.

A discussion on CBFM definitions underlines two important points, viz. forest and community. Forest, as an area dominated by trees, includes a variety of forest types and uses (from simple to complex agroforestry systems). Community, as the main actor in every CBFM model implementation, has important roles in decisionmaking on forest management to improve its prosperity level. In this case, the CBFM is not only for producing timber as the main product but also for providing non-timber forest products (NTFPs) such as rattan, honey, silk and recreation (intangible use). CBFM models in Indonesia can be classified into three categories based on the status of land, land-use management and social institution as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Classification of CBFM models in Indonesia

LESSONS LEARNED FROM CBFM IMPLEMENTATION

Several authors have evaluated CBFM as a social forestry programme implemented either in Java or outside Java with the following results:

1. Social forestry is a good concept on paper, but the implementation is unsuccessful (Effendi 2000).

2. Social forestry in Java, especially community participation in forest management, is just for limited activity and scale (Effendi 2000).

3. The Prosperity Approach Programme in Forestry Sector in Java benefited the forestry institution, but not the farmers as programme participants (Effendi 2000).

4. The PMDH Programme was often identified inaccurately so that it could not make the community selfreliant because the people are dependent on forest concession or the timber company (Nasendi et al. 1996).

5. Evaluation of the physical-economical-social aspects of the community before and after implementation of the PMDH Programme showed no significant impact of the implementation. This result proved that the PMDH Programme was unsuccessful and should be revised in accordance with the community conditions and situations (Subarudi 2000).

Actually, there are a number of CBFM models implemented in other parts of Indonesia such as: (i) CBFM in Central Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara; (ii) CBFM in Sanggau, West Kalimantan; (iii) CBFM in Suberjaya, West Lampung; (iv) CBFM in Wonosobo, West Java; (v) CBFM in Gunung Kidul, Yogyakarta; and (vi) CBFM in Krui, Lampung (Lucas et al. 2002). The implementation experiences of these CBFM models (Table 2) can be used to guide the development of CBFM models in the future.

Table 2. Characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of several CBFMs in Indonesia

Sources: 1) Lucas et al. (2002), (2) Prahasto (2002), (3) Andayani (2003).

FUTURE STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING CBFM

1. Try to maintain the strengths and to eliminate the weaknesses of the existing CBFM models’ implementation as valuable inputs for CBFM development.

2. Review all government policies on CBFM and social forestry programmes and formulate an integrated policy that accommodates all stakeholders’ aspirations and recognizes the local community’s rights and customs.

3. Change the institutional system involved in CBFM implementation as an institutional building capacity programme. Budi Wiati (2002) describes several steps to be taken for revitalizing the institutional system, namely (i) decentralization (transfer the responsibility from the central to the local governments), (ii) devolution (transfer the authority from the central to the local governments) and (iii) paradigm change (from government-based management to community-based management).

4. Identify problems in implementing CBFM and find the solutions. Some problems in CBFM are: (i) land tenure issue, (ii) internal management conflicts, (iii) lack of skilled human resources and (iv) lack of fund.

5. Plan and implement good socialization, public consultation, training of CBFM and social forestry programme. The government could act as facilitator.

6. Use participatory and multistakeholder approaches for managing CBFM models from its planning to the controlling stages. These approaches are the main factors influencing the success of CBFM model implementation.

7. Develop domestic markets for products produced from CBFM areas and find alternative fund resources.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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