Abstract
Referring to the studies on the success of community forestry, the proponents suggest reducing the influence of the state to the people who maintain traditional institutions in forest management. However, knowledge about the interaction of formal and informal institutions in the context of changing smallholder farmers is still not fully understood. Through a phenomenological approach assessing the differences of forest conserving institutions’ performance across villages in Semende, South Sumatra, we analyze the process of how traditional institutions can survive or collapse. The main finding shows that traditional institutions gained support and legitimacy from government’s formal institutions, to enforce the rules, are able to survive until now. The key factor determining the success or failure of traditional institutions is the structure of community’s authority; whether it is based on to inherited knowledge or not. We propose a new hypothesis for the concept of local institutions that successfully manage natural resources.
Highlights
The proponents of community forestry refers to the results of studies describing the success of various communities in forest management (e.g.Lasco and Pulhin 2006; Pandit and Bevilacqua 2011)
The essence of strengths and weaknesses of the traditional institution of natural forest conservation in this study are preference values, space allocation, past experiences, and the role of local authority that are obtained by an “onion peeling” process
Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the traditional institution of natural forest conservation when facing the challenges of change from outside and inside is an important pillar for forest conservation and development
Summary
The proponents of community forestry refers to the results of studies describing the success of various communities in forest management (e.g.Lasco and Pulhin 2006; Pandit and Bevilacqua 2011). People who have interacted with the natural environment for a long time, such as Kerinci People at upland Sumatra (Helida et al 2015), Osing people at Banyuwangi East Java (Sumarmi 2015), Kanekes Sundanese traditional community (Indrawardana 2012), were reported to maintain their traditional forests successfully. According to these facts, countries are encouraged to create policies for legitimizing the rights of indigenous people on land(Hayes 2010). It is questionable whether the local institutions do not require the presence
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