Forestry Implementation Research Articles

Juridical Review of Food Estate Project Land Clearing Against Environmental Damage Judging from Government Regulation No. 23 of 2021 concerning Forestry Implementation

Juridical Review of Food Estate Project Land Clearing Against Environmental Damage Judging from Government Regulation No. 23 of 2021 concerning Forestry Implementation

The Role of Local Governments in Supporting Social Forestry Implementation in Indonesia: A Social Network Analysis and Evidence from Eastern Indonesia

Social forestry has become an integral part of Indonesia's efforts to balance economic development, conservation of natural resources, and the well-being of local communities. The Jokowi administration has made significant efforts to promote this initiative, including allocating 12.7 million hectares of state forest areas and recognizing it as an instrument to address tenure issues in forest areas through the Omnibus Law on Job Creation with getting support from various regulations by relevant ministries. However, social forestry support is needed down to the local government/regional levels (provincial, regency, and village levels). This study aims to analyze the local government’s support for implementing social forestry. We employ Social Network Analysis to identify local government entities and their relationships in implementation processes. Additionally, document analysis is used to assess the extent of local government support through their working documents. The study shows that local government support for the implementation is still limited, with its execution primarily concentrated within a few agencies. Social forestry has not yet fully become a strategy for achieving community well-being around forests, enhancing local economies, or protecting forest resources. Furthermore, stakeholders' understanding of social forestry, resource availability, and local government policies to support it remains limited. Improvements in these three aspects are necessary to ensure successful implementation at the regional levels.

Urban Green Development and Resilient Cities: A First Insight into Urban Forest Planning in Italy

The research proposes an application of a modification of the 3–30–300 rule to identify areas that require Urban Forestry implementation in small and medium-sized Roman and/or medieval urban areas. The selected case study is that of Asti in Piedmont, Italy. An open source, cross-platform desktop geographic information system is used to process geospatial datasets via qualitative analyses of electoral sections (or wards). An analysis of the number and distribution of trees around each building is performed, in addition to the calculation of tree canopy cover and distance between buildings and green spaces. Findings reveal that 64 out of 70 wards have an average of at least three trees per building and sufficient green areas of at least 0.5 hectares within 300 m of the buildings. Additionally, the tree canopy cover ranges from approximately 0.6% (lowest) to about 55% (highest) for the electoral sections. Lastly, findings suggest that the highly built-up urban fabric in these areas may significantly affect the availability and quality of green spaces. In conclusion, the case study proves the benefits of applying the 3–30–300 rule to small and medium-sized urban areas using an integrated assessment approach based on nature-based solutions and ecosystem services.

Space for mainstreaming? Learning from the implementation of urban forest strategies in metropolitan Melbourne

ABSTRACT Australia is experiencing an accelerated rate of climate-related extreme weather events, and many of the solutions to reduce the exposure to climate-risk are nature-based, governing urban forests, waterways, and stormwater. However, the governance of nature-based solutions in Australian cities is still fragmented and piecemeal, generally lacking a coherent narrative and widespread support. What is needed are institutional spaces that mainstream such solutions. In this paper, we draw on a case study of urban forestry implementation across metropolitan Melbourne, as a lens to examine the creation and evolution of such institutional spaces. We explain the functions and design characteristics of institutional spaces from the perspective of the requirements for establishing and maintaining institutional spaces and what is produced or the outcomes from institutional spaces. The mobilisation and evolution of institutional spaces are important to understand for the impact on the planning and governance of individual cities as well as the metropolitan region. Our key findings frame institutional spaces as relational, learning-oriented, collaborative, and empowering spaces that facilitate transformative agendas and actions for the mainstreaming of nature-based solutions in cities. From these findings, we identify seven recommendations for how practitioners can make the most of institutional spaces. Practitioner pointers Creating space to bridge silos, foster experimentation, and develop evidence-based policy is critical to mainstream nature-based solutions. Collaborative approaches are essential for effective institutional spaces, to participate in networking and knowledge co-production opportunities. Actors in institutional spaces facilitate mainstreaming by learning from and building on policy and practice legacies.

Synergizing Food Security With Forest Conservation: Preliminary Insights From Social Forestry Implementation In Riau, Indonesia

Amidst food security challenges faced by Indonesia, policies to address them may come at the expense of forest ecosystems. Social Forestry (SF) program provides a potential solution to synergize forest conservation and food security objectives in Indonesia by allowing local communities to manage and protect the local forests. However, there is limited evidence on how the synergy is realized within the SF implementation on the ground. The study aims to fill this knowledge gap by investigating community-based practices, efforts, and challenges in line with the pathways connecting forest conservation and food security in three SF sites in Riau, Indonesia. Relevant data are collected through stakeholder interviews, field observation, and spatial analysis; and further triangulated through literature review. While SF ecosystems at the study sites provide food and income sources and help build climate resilience for the local and indigenous communities, challenges remain in improving the value added and market access of local forest products; incentivizing forest-based food subsistence potential in line with the site-specific practices; and, in some areas, reducing the rate of forest loss. The policy implications and recommendations for improvement are provided.

Mainstreaming Smart Agroforestry for Social Forestry Implementation to Support Sustainable Development Goals in Indonesia: A Review

The increasing need for forest resources and cultivated land requires a solution in forest management to realize sustainable land use. Smart agroforestry (SAF) is a set of agriculture and silviculture knowledge and practices that is aimed at not only increasing profits and resilience for farmers but also improving environmental parameters, including climate change mitigation and adaptation, biodiversity enhancement, and soil and water conservation, while assuring sustainable landscape management. SAF, a solution for land management systems to reduce the rate of deforestation, is a smart effort to overcome the food crisis and mitigate climate change that is prospectively applied mainly in the social forestry area. Optimized forest land utilization could be achieved by implementing SAF and applying silvicultural and crop cultivation techniques to optimize productivity and meet sustainability and adaptability goals. This paper reviews the existing conditions, opportunities, and challenges in the mainstreaming of SAF in social forestry implementation to support the Sustainable Development Goals in Indonesia. Mainstreaming SAF should include policy innovation and regulation implementation, the use of appropriate technology, and compromises or trade-offs among benefits, risks, and resources. SAF is a strategy to revive the rural economy and community prosperity through the optimal use of local resources as well as a form of smart landscape and land-use management that has significant roles in soil and water conservation, bioenergy, climate change responses, and enhanced biodiversity conservation.

Towards Inclusive Indonesian Forestry: An Overview of a Spatial Planning and Agrarian Perspective

Forest area is the largest and most important part of the territory of the Republic of Indonesia but still faces many challenges, including deforestation, forest fires, peat swamp degradation and poverty of local communities due to horizontal and vertical forestry conflicts. This paper focuses on the analysis of forestry development based on spatial planning and agrarian perspective by conveying various facts. A single and centralistic authority over forest areas does not provide an effective basis for sustainable resource governance. There is a dualism of spatial and agrarian planning system namely between forest areas and non-forest areas. It should be integrated by mainstreaming inclusive collaborative management. We recommend promoting forest areas' arrangement under the control of an integrated spatial planning system for the people's greatest possible prosperity, including forestry management principles and objectives. Rationalisation of forest allocation (spatial pattern plan), which the optimum forest allocation must be viewed from the perspective of the overall spatial balance (both forest and non-forest areas, and between protected and cultivated areas) to provide land for food production, social welfare and environmental functions. Forestry implementation needs to consider the principles of economies of scale and prioritise benefits for local communities living bordering forests areas, especially for food cultivation areas. The government should commit to allocating at least 15 million ha inclusively by prioritising landless farmers and smallholder farmers. Increasing community participation in forest area utilisation and functions is pursued through increasing forest access for the community (social forestry and other schemes) without neglecting conservation functions.

Complementing The Access Theory by Collaborative Approach in Indonesia Social Forestry Context

Many previous studies examine social forestry in Indonesia from 2016-2020 which describing the factors relate to the implementation. Beyond the previous studies, this paper clustering and mapping the factors through access theory and further complement access theory by a collaborative approach in the social forestry implementation context. Qualitative desk research is used to examine 39 papers with Nvivo 12. The result shows there are two elements of the four elements of structure-relational access mechanism (SRAM) that have positive effects on social forestry implementation, while three elements of the five elements of the SRAM element give a negative effect. In turn, there are various unclustered factors which not a part of SRAM that affects social forestry implementation both positive or negative. These unclustered factors are the blank spaces of access theory which complemented by a collaborative approach, there are “participation” and “equity” which supported by “effective communication”. With a collaborative approach, the scope becomes wider that not only analyze in individual scope, but also in organizational scope, and the benefit can be seen by outside stakeholder through community contribution in social forestry implementation.

How NGO fulfill the complex scheme of social forestry: a resume of SF scheme in Indonesia

The Indonesian government shows a great commitment in allocating forests for community management through social forestry policies covering an area of 13,847,722 ha. The role of NGOs in realizing the implementation of social forestry in Indonesia cannot be ignored. They impetus the community to get legal permits in forest management, assist in preparing business plans, area management plans, and institutional management. This article explores the role of NGOs in the implementation of social forestry during the Jokowi-JK administration. We support the argument that NGOs play an important role in the implementation of social forestry, as evidenced by the achievement of permits and policies of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry recognizes that NGOs are formally involved in social forestry implementation.

Lesson Learned from Social Forestry Practice in a Forest and Climate Change Project in Kalimantan, Indonesia

Social forestry is considered as one element to support the practices of sustainable forest management in private and state forests in Indonesia. Currently, the government is promoting the five schemes of social forestry: Village Forest, Community Forest, Community-Based Plantation Forest, Customary Forest, and Partnership. An explorative study of a forest and climate change project in Kalimantan was conducted for 5 years and the experiences should be shared to learn about the strengths, threats, and strategies related to social forestry implementation. After the government has issued the new social forestry policy in 2016, nine villages were facilitated by the project and has obtained the Village Forest Licence. Most villagers preferred to participate in the Village Forest Scheme because the concept was simple and perceived by the people as easily managed. Village boundary agreement, community participation, intensive community empowerment by government or NGO were the important components for having social forestry licence from the Minister. Participatory land use planning was necessary to support the practice of sustainable social forestry, as well as local champion, villagers and local government commitment.

Mainstreaming community-based forest management in West Sumatra: Social forestry arguments, support, and implementation

Although social forestry in Indonesia is envisioned as a policy for recognizing local practices to forest management, research is still limited. This research describes conditions of social forestry policy in West Sumatra Province as a form of mainstreaming community-based forest management. This paper provides the context of social forestry arguments, its support, and subsequent implementation. The research approach is qualitative, using a case study method. Data collection was conducted through unstructured interviews, field observations, and document studies. The analysis used categorization and coding, historical analysis, document analysis, and descriptive policy analysis. The findings revealed that the arguments for social forestry schemes were based on the persistence of state forest conflicts, forest degradation and deforestation threats, as well as human resource limitations of forestry officers. The Provincial government then initiated stakeholder support, mainly from non-governmental organizations. Social forestry implementation at the site in West Sumatra thus focused on providing development assistance programs after granting management rights to local people, as well as initiating similar schemes in other villages. Our discussions considered challenges that should be addressed, including the approach to granting management rights to secure a management area, the process of developing participatory institutions, synchronizing provincial government policies to overcome forest degradation and deforestation, and initiating activities for strengthening community solidarity and agency.

Assessing the new social forestry project in Indonesia: recognition, livelihood and conservation?

Indonesia is undergoing major policy changes, seeking to expand social forestry designations from less than 1% (1.1 million hectares) to over 10% (12.7 million hectares) of the Forest Estate. Expanding designations is at once a landmark reform and a call for caution, raising questions about policy intentions, and practical concerns about legal, technical, and implementation mechanisms. Social forestry literature highlights three key tenets, namely efforts that: confer rights to local communities, support livelihoods, and achieve conservation outcomes. This paper examines social forestry implementation from a cross-section of sites in South Sulawesi by reflecting on sustained action research between 2012–2016. The approach critically juxtaposes social forestry policy intent with implementation at three different sites. Findings indicate social forestry implementation suffers from historically problematic state enclosures and flawed land administration processes, entrenched politicaleconomic interests among local actors, and lack of institutional engagement beyond the permitting process. Shortcuts to addressing entrenched conflict will only heighten tensions or further marginalize the most vulnerable, without guarantees to conservation outcomes.

First come, first served? The partial devolution of forest management promotes rights competition — from the application process for hutan desa, East Kalimantan, Indonesia

This article explores the competition over rights to land that plays out in the process of applying for formal recognition of hutan desa (village forest); a new form of community forest management in Indonesia. Despite its community rights origins, the hutan desa recognition process creates a ‘first come first served’ situation, in which the first applicant for an area of forest becomes the land use owner, but not necessarily based on their legitimate rights to the forest area. This case study of a Dayak Modang community in East Kalimantan offers a lesson for community forestry implementation in Indonesia. It highlights the need to adjust imbalances of power among actors — within and or among local communities, companies, and the various levels of government — involved in the process of securing hutan desa. The regulation implementing hutan desa must consider uneven power between actors; more adaptive process with requesting parties recognised as co-management parties is needed to achieve a just outcome for local communities.

The adequacy of community forest operational plans for estimating fuelwood supply and consumption in Nepal

ABSTRACTFuelwood derived from community forests of Nepal is critical for rural livelihoods. Supply of fuelwood is regulated through 5-year operational plans. The aim of this study was to evaluate the adequacy of operational plans in addressing the demand and supply of fuelwood in community forests of Nepal. Data was gathered from operational plans, household interviews and fuelwood supply assessment in 13 community forests of Nalma (inaccessible by road) and Taksar (accessible by road) villages in the Lamjung district. Our study revealed that per capita annual fuelwood consumption in Nalma (486 kg) was significantly higher than in Taksar (398 kg), and also significantly different combinations of fuelwood, biogas and electricity were utilised between the villages. These differences were associated with their respective distances from the main road. Community forests contributed 57 and 63% of the total fuelwood consumption in Nalma and Taksar, respectively. Of 13 community forests, nine have planned annual demand and supply of fuelwood well below our estimates of actual supply and consumption, indicating that most of the operational plans inadequately represented the prevailing demand and supply of fuelwood. In addition, the planned quantities of fuelwood demand and supply in current operational plans were markedly different and poorly linked to the previous projections, which suggest inconsistent and inadequate application of standard planning guidelines. We recommend a revision of the methods used in the preparation of these plans to determine fuelwood demand and supply in community forestry implementation.

An Analysis of Local Participation in Community Forestry: The Case of Tinto and Bimbia-Bonadikombo Community Forest, Cameroon

<p><em>Local participation in forest management remains a fundamental challenge to be solved despite the growing political and academic interest in participatory management. This study analyzed how community forestry implementation in Cameroon has affected the participation of local people using two case studies. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions were the main methods in data collection. The main findings revealed that majority of local community members (73.3%) were less informed of the purpose of community forestry. This limited participatory efforts in the implementation process. The creation and management process of the community forests were more focused on engaging influential actors rather than enabling social justice as proposed by the legislation. Marginalization of local community members, which community forestry was created to resolve was still evident. This study argues that although participatory policies are usually designed to benefit the less privileged, the outcomes most often do not match the purpose. There is need for participatory policy debates and development to go beyond theoretical formulation to crafting mechanisms and feedback systems that could ensure successful implementation and follow up. </em></p>

Social Heterogeneity and Community Forestry Processes: Reflections from Forest Users of Dhading District, Nepal

Community forestry has been characterized as a successful model of community-based forest governance in Nepal that shifts forest management and use rights to local users, often socially heterogeneous in caste, gender and wealth status. This heterogeneity forms the basis of social groups, which differ in their needs, priorities and perceptions regarding community forestry implementation processes. This paper explores the dynamics of three community forestry processes—users’ participation, institutional development, and decision-making and benefit-sharing—among forest user groups as perceived by three social groups of forest users—elite, women and disadvantaged—from eight community forests of Dhading district, Nepal, using qualitative and quantitative techniques. It is found that social groups have differing levels of perception about community forestry processes occurring in their user groups. In particular, social elites differ from women and disadvantaged members of the group in users’ participation in community forestry activities and institutional development of forest user groups. An important policy implication of the findings is that social inclusiveness is central to the effective implementation of community forestry processes, not only to safeguard its past successes but also to internalize the economic opportunities it poses through reducing deforestation and forest degradation in the future.

A data support infrastructure for Clean Development Mechanism forestry implementation: an inventory perspective from Cameroon

Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) forestry project development requires highly multi-disciplinary and multiple-source information that can be complex, cumbersome and costly to acquire. Yet developing countries in which CDM projects are created and implemented are often data poor environments and unable to meet such complex information requirements. Using Cameroon as an example, the present paper explores the structure of an enabling host country data support infrastructure for CDM forestry implementation, and also assesses the supply potential of current forestry information. Results include a conceptual data model of CDM project data needs; the list of meso- and macro-level data and information requirements (Demand analysis); and an inventory of relevant data available in Cameroon (Supply analysis). From a comparison of demand and supply, we confirm that data availability and the relevant infrastructure for data or information generation is inadequate for supporting carbon forestry at the micro, meso and macro-levels in Cameroon. The results suggest that current CDM afforestation and reforestation information demands are almost impenetrable for local communities in host countries and pose a number of cross-scale barriers to project adoption. More importantly, we identify proactive regulatory, institutional and capacity building policy strategies for forest data management improvements that could enhance biosphere carbon management uptake in poor countries. CDM forestry information research needs are also highlighted.

GIS Assessment of Land Use/Land Cover Changes Associated With Community Forestry Implementation in the Middle Hills of Nepal

This study analyzed the spatial and temporal changes in land use between 1978 and 1992 in a typical watershed covering 543 km2 in the Middle Hills of Nepal and used GIS to compare land use changes between village development committees (VDCs) with and without formally handed-over community forests during this period. The forest handover procedure followed the specifications of the national community forestry policy of Nepal. In the watershed, the total area of forested land (defined as high forest plus shrubland) declined by about 8% during the period. However, high forest increased over the study period, whereas shrubland cover declined. Between VDCs with community forests and those without, there were large differences in the rate of total forested area loss, with community forest VDCs losing less total forested area over the 14-year period. Moreover, in the group of VDCs with community forests, high forest area increased by 77%, in comparison with 13% for VDCs without community forests. Higher shrub loss in community forest VDCs was attributable to conversion into high forest via plantation establishment and natural succession. The results of this study indicate the positive impacts of Nepal's community forestry activities on the extent of forest cover.

Accelerated delivery? Rural women and water

DAVID HEMSON looks at the contradictions in the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry's implementation of its policies on water and questions the effectiveness of service delivery in rural areas

Accelerated Delivery? Rural Women and Water

DAVID HEMSON looks at the contradictions in the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry's implementation of its policies on water and questions the effectiveness of service delivery in rural areas