Social Forestry: Reviving IPLC’s Central Role in Managing Indonesia’s Forests

Indonesia has the third-largest rainforest area in the world. According to the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry:

·??????? The total forest area in Indonesia is 120.7 million ha (63.09% of the country’s total terrestrial area).

·??????? There are 83,381 villages throughout the country, of which 25,853 villages are in or around forest areas.

·??????? Unfortunately, 36.7% of forest communities live in poverty due to a lack of access to land and natural resources, education, and capital.

According to Amnesty International, although they comprise only 5% of the world’s population, Indigenous People safeguard 80% of the planet’s biodiversity. Indigenous people and local communities (IPLC) play a pivotal role in protecting and conserving the world’s rainforests. For generations, IPLC has applied traditional wisdom which respects the rainforest as their home. Rainforests are important sources of food, water, traditional medicine, and cultural amenities and protect them from natural disasters and unfavourable climate.

The question is then, if IPLC regardless of their small population, have contributed significantly to safeguarding the world’s rainforests and biodiversity, and typically live in and around forest areas with good access to forest resources, why are many of them living in poverty? This can be due to poor access to forest resources because the old paradigm of sustainable forest management in Indonesia excluded them from managing the forest and prohibited their access to forest resources.

The Government of Indonesia has recognized this issue as the disconnection between forest management and the role of IPLC (Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities) in managing the forests.

According to Andi Setyo Pambudi from the Indonesian Ministry for National Development Planning (Bappenas), “The phenomenon of sustainable forest management failure in Indonesia faces the reality of incompatible economic, social, and environmental approaches. Conventional forest management always assumes that good forests are only managed by the government through concession permit policies to large capital owners that are top-down and accompanied by a minimum condition of community involvement, which should be a key factor.” Learning from the experience, Indonesia began to see the concept of social forestry as one of the efforts in the progress of more sustainable development.

During the “Social Forestry: Community-based Sustainable Forest Management for Climate Change and Welfare” event on Monday, 4 March 2024 organized by Belantara NGO and Pakuan University in Bogor, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry’s Director General of Social Forestry and Environmental Partnership, Dr. Ir. Bambang Supriyanto, M.Sc, explained that Social forestry is part of the national government’s agrarian reform, and unlike the former forest management model which excludes village areas and IPLC from forest management, social forestry entrusts and provides access for local and customary communities to be the main actors for managing the forests. The national government’s target for accelerated distribution of the community’s legal access to social forestry management is 12.7 million ha, and achievement until 2023 was 6.4 million ha.

The social forestry program recognizes the IPLC’s central role in managing the forests and improves the community’s access to forest management through 5 schemes:

1.????? Hutan Desa (Village Forest)

2.????? Hutan Kemasyarakatan (Community-based Forest)

3.????? Hutan Tanaman Rakyat (Community Plantation Forest)

4.????? Hutan Adat (Customary Forest)

5.????? Kemitraan (Partnership)

In implementing the programs on the ground, communities are usually assisted and supervised by local NGOs that have a strong connection with stakeholders including the local and national governments, and experience in relevant issues. KKI WARSI is an NGO that has assisted IPLC in North Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, West Sumatera, Jambi, and Bengkulu in implementing social forestry programs. Rainal Daus, Vice Director of KKI WARSI said “The implementation of social forestry in Indonesia has given several benefits to the communities, such as legality assurance, social solidarity, institutionalization, better income generation, confidence to speak up about rights and interests and supporting infrastructures.”

The Forest Conservation Fund (FCF), is a Swiss-based non-profit organization, working closely with indigenous communities globally, particularly in Asia, Africa, and South America. Currently, FCF is working with 12 projects that enable indigenous or customary communities to conserve their rainforests.? This includes improving their capacity to detect threats and biodiversity monitoring through regular community patrols (and using technology), replanting forests with native plant species, and green economic development.