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

Abstract

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.

Integrating ecological, social and policy aspects to develop peatland restoration strategies in Orang Kayo Hitam Forest Park, Jambi, Indonesia

“…Supports by the surrounding community in conserving OKH Forest Park Unit area are important to ensure sustainability. However, to involve the community, there must be a distinct advantage they can get; for example, their living needs to be met from forest products generated from the forest park (Asmin et al 2019;Ward et al 2021;Wulandari and Kurniasih 2019).…”

“…But besides that, the community collectively also needs to develop policies at the local level to increase the sense of ownership of the OKH Forest Park. The community will participate independently (Asmin et al 2019;Avagyan et al 2017;Wulandari and Inoue 2018). Some people feel that national policies may harm their economy (Ward et al 2021); engagement with multi-stakeholders must become a priority area to study.…”

Customary Forest Managements and Its Challenges in East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia: An Implication of Constitutional Court Decision 2012

“…These two programs aim to solve the land dispute problem, which involves the community around the forest area, including customary community and indigenous people. As in another province, for instance in West Sumatera (Asmin et al, 2019), the popular schemes are hutan desa (village forest), hutan kemasyarakatan (community forest), and hutan tanaman rakyat (community plantation forest).…”

Collective Action in Waste Management: A Comparative Study of Recycling and Recovery Initiatives from Brazil, Indonesia, and Nigeria Using the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework

“…Nonetheless, the socioeconomic standard for citizens in Brazil is relatively higher than in the other two countries. In Padang, Indonesia, their culture is more open to collective actions and supports participatory action through community-based programs [68,69]. Social culture in Nigeria shows some religious and ethnic heterogeneity in general.…”