Abstract
Southeast Asia has long promoted social forestry (SF) in conservation areas, fallow forests, tree plantations, areas in timber concessions and locally managed agro-forest systems, with the engagement of diverse actors and objectives. SF has evolved from early aims of empowerment and devolution of rights advocated by global reform movements, and is now reframed in the market ideal as a win–win–win endeavor for sustainable forest management, climate change mitigation and robust entrepreneurial livelihoods. Southeast Asian states have formulated numerous standardized SF programs and policies that are often linked to broader development goals and priorities, but which have not always been a ‘win’ for local communities in falling short to provide full tenure rights. Civil society organizations that have provided grounded perspectives on environmental justice and rights have also converged with states on entrepreneurship and market-based solutions. Meanwhile, the private sector actor that is seen as key to these solutions is conspicuously absent within the SF policy space. Within this space of diverse and at times contradictory objectives, whose interests do SF policies serve? We examine the social forestry assemblage to investigate the different discourses, interests and agendas in the implementation of SF schemes in Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Malaysian state of Sabah. The formal SF schemes involve shifting or reinforcing old discourses around forest problems and possible solutions, territorialization processes that can lead to inequities in the exclusion of rights, participation and access, and risks exacerbating contestations and inequities in claims to forest land and resources.
Highlights
Southeast Asia is currently pushing forward a revived social forestry1 agenda
We describe the three case studies high lighting in particular the problem and solutions identification, actors, interests and agenda setting within the social forestry assemblages in Indonesia, Vietnam and Sabah
Social forestry was later re-assembled and entangled with the initiatives of agrarian reform in Indonesia, sustainable forest management (SFM) in Sabah and PES and REDD+ narratives in Vietnam, with the underlying narrative that entrepreneurship and fair access to markets is the equitable solution towards economic empow erment and prosperity
Summary
Southeast Asia is currently pushing forward a revived social forestry agenda. Indonesia has set a target of 12.7 million hectares (mil ha) of forest, approximately 10% of the state forest estate, to be managed under various formal social forestry schemes by 2019, and official sta tistics suggest that the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MOEF) has allocated permits for 3.4 mil ha as of September 2019. Formal social forestry schemes with their specific objectives and implementation models are being implemented in rural forested regions where demography and livelihoods are rapidly transforming with increased mobility and migration (Kelley et al 2019; Peluso and Pur wanto 2018), increased cultivation of cash crops and rising non-farm incomes (Rigg 2003), changing perceptions and expectations on communal versus individual tenure (Fisher et al 2018, Moeliono et al 2016) and changing perceptions of the roles and values of ecosystem services from forests (Pham et al 2012) Against this backdrop of change, we draw on the notion of assemblage that builds on framings in forestry (Li 2007, Nel 2017, Astuti and McGregor 2017) to tease out the different actors and their interests, and the ways in how the material and discursive shape their interactions in case studies from Indonesia, Vietnam and the Malaysian state of Sabah. Complexities around the dynamism and pluralism of social and political institutions, interests and power relations governing forest access and control (Leach 2002) are typically buried and simplified under layers of bureaucratic gover nance and expectations for the potential of social forestry
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