From Hunter to Protector: The Invention and Reinvention of the Nuri Talaud

This article describes the ways in which the Nuri Talaud, a small colorful bird located on an island at the northern reaches of Indonesia, first became a hunted commodity and evolved into a thriving protected species. Told from the life history of Om Zaka, a local hunter turned bird conservationist, this article describes the background that shaped the shifting values placed on the Nuri Talaud. The bird initially gained value as a symbol of the state through its selection for inclusion in Indonesia’s national theme park. As a result of its newfound prominence, local hunters emerged to systematically hunt the bird for sale through a network of international species trade. Nearly facing extinction, various actors and initiatives came together to protect the Nuri Talaud. This paper shows the ways in which a species can be targeted to almost extinction, and the processes that can take shape to ensure its protection

The power in the interview: A practical guide for identifying the critical role of actor interests in environment research

In policy discussions of sensitive and complex issues, particularly in the field of forestry and natural resources, interests play an integral role, but are often a challenging component to contextualize, understand, and study. For various reasons related to factors of influence and authority, actors often do not want their interests uncovered by either competitors or even by non-partisan researchers. Nevertheless, identifying such interests continue to be a critical task for the research community, particularly if we are to better understand the broader effects, effectiveness, or shortcomings of policy. In this short policy brief, we provide a practical guide for researchers to capture and incorporate actor interests as part of their empirical evidence through the interview process. Following an empirical-analytical approach, we first distinguish interests of two different types, the formal and informal. Thereafter, our guide lays out an approach consisting of four distinct phases, namely: i) deciding on the interview format, ii) creating situational settings for the interview, iii) preparing interview guides; and iv) triangulating the interview. In each phase, we underline the importance of a culture of generosity and positivity directed toward the interviewees, comfortably engaging them to describe factors and scenarios in rich detail, while also encouraging respondents to express their values and feelings toward both the area of study and other actors across policy networks.Actor interests are always a sensitive issue in policies related to the environment, which are often purposefully hidden by actors, and commonly overlooked by research;We develop a practical guide based on a set of principles for researchers to use when approaching interviews, which will help to more effectively understand and contextualize actor interests, and can ensure more robust findings about policies related to the environment and natural resources;This guide lays out four distinct phases for approaching the complex and sensitive issue of actor interests for data collection using interviews, namely through the way researchers i) structure interview formats, ii) set up situational settings, iii) approach the preparation and delivery of guiding questions, and iv) triangulate the interview

Introduction to the special section: Agrarian transformation in Thailand - Commodities, landscapes, and livelihoods

This is an introduction and review for a special section on agrarian transformation in Thailand. The article seeks to guide greater attention toward issues affecting rural Thai landscapes and livelihoods. Through the examination of specific commodities across various geographies, the paper seeks to refocus research towards decision making processes among rural communities. The research draws on field study cases that follow various aspects of particular commodities, including rubber, pomelo, tomato, cassava, and furthermore, incorporates complementary research in Forest and Society on coffee, ginger, jujube, and agrotourism in Thailand. Through the factors shaping engagement with these agricultural commodities, we examine issues including labor, soil fertility, contract farming arrangements, drought resistant crops, climate change, and others. In this way we seek to draw attention to the complex dynamics taking place on the Thai rural landscape and the factors that are reshaping land relations. Through initiating a research network on similar research approaches we identify and envision broader opportunities for helping to re-imagine future possibility in rural Thailand

Territorializing spatial data: Controlling land through One Map projects in Indonesia and Myanmar

Once confined to paper, national cartographic projects increasingly play out through spatial data infrastructures such as software programs and smartphones. Across the Global South, foreign donor-funded digital platforms emphasize transparency, accountability and data sharing while echoing colonial projects that consolidated statebased territorial knowledge. This article brings political geography scholarship on state and counter-mapping together with new work on the political ecology of data to highlight a contemporary dimension of territorialization, one in which state actors seek to consolidate and authorize national geospatial information onto digital platforms. We call attention to the role of data infrastructures in contemporary resource control, arguing that territorializing data both extends state territorialization onto digital platforms and, paradoxically, provides new avenues for non-state actors to claim land. Drawing on interviews, document review, and long-term fieldwork, we compare the origins, institutionalization and realization of Indonesia and Myanmar’s ‘One Map’ projects. Both projects aimed to create a government-managed online spatial data platform, building on national mapping and management traditions while responding to new international incentives, such as climate change mitigation in Indonesia and good democratic governance in Myanmar. While both projects encountered technical difficulties and evolved during implementation, different national histories and political trajectories resulted in the embrace and expansion of the program in Indonesia but reluctant participation and eventual crisis in Myanmar. Together, these cases show how spatial data infrastructures can both extend state control over space and offer opportunities for contesting or reimagining land and nation, even as such infrastructures remain embedded in local power relations

Creating Commons: Reflections on Creating Natural Resource Management Regimes in South Sulawesi, Indonesia

Thirteen years ago, PAYOPAYO Peasant School Network, an Indonesian community organizing network based in Sulawesi, facilitated Participatory Action Research (PAR) that eventually culminated in a creation of a common resource management regime around an irrigation system for agricultural use in Tompobulu, a village within a national park in upland South Sulawesi. This note from the field presents a reflection on collective action experiences of a community in building the commons in 2008 to 2009, and revisits the extent to which the commons has been managed, how management regimes changed over time, and how it survives as a commons today. The initial factors allowing for establishment of the commons, understood here as a social practice toward common goals, were a shared need for water (local needs & conditions), and the success to make use of the irrigation commons as a means to initiate other collective actions. Drawing from concerted engagement and analysis conducted in 2021, this note revisits the key factors and highlights different ways the commons continues to persist, namely due to the distinct benefits felt by participants, the existence of institutions that regulate the use and maintenance of the commons, the existence of a monitoring system among members, participation of members in formulating and modifying the rules, and the recognition of National Park authorities on the commons and its rules

Conservation Policy, Indigeneity, and Changing Traditional Hunting Practices in West Papua

Regional governments are increasingly developing conservation policy initiatives that are framed alongside the empowerment of Indigenous Peoples. This paper examines the case of Tambrauw, West Papua, that set out to establish one of the first ever Conservation Regencies in Indonesia. To understand the implications of conservation policy developments, we explored from an environmental justice perspective the ways that one of the most important forest-based activities of local communities – hunting – has changed in recent years. Data was collected using qualitative methods of participatory observation and interviews between 2015-2018 across three Tambrauw districts. The study shows how policy changes are increasing clashes between local hunters and conservation officials. This has implications for broader issues of conservation policy and local livelihoods, and sheds light on the more recent trend of foregrounding Indigenous identity in forest management. Although on the face of it the emergence of conservation regencies represents a trend in downscaling authority to empower local communities, findings shows that place-based and more locally responsive policies need to be established to address emerging conflicts that can also meet broader conservation outcomes

The politics, economies, and ecologies of Indonesia’s third generation of social forestry: An introduction to the special section

Although Indonesia is experiencing one of the most complex transformations of social forestry policy in the world, there is a need to step back and more closely examine the politics, ecologies, and economies that provide context for its implementation. This introduction offers a synthesis of the collection of special section submissions in Forest and Society. We begin by navigating the current social forestry moment by presenting a heuristic for identifying the discourses underpinning the rapid expansion in support of social forestry schemes. These perspectives are fragmented across four continuously contested discourses: community-first, legal-first, conservation-first, and development-first. We then contextualize the historical developments that brought social forestry into its current form by laying out a genealogy of its antecedents across three distinct generations. These three generations of social forestry are roughly aligned with the overall political changes that have taken place in Indonesia, each of which engaged in their own mechanisms for defining and administering social forestry. The first generation roughly follows the period of New Order rule; a second generation began as the regime unraveled, resulting in a period of reform and restructuring of the political system. At this time, new legal frameworks were introduced, followed by the development of new implementation mechanisms. We argue that social forestry has entered a third distinct period that is characterized by the expanding interests of numerous stakeholders to formalize permitting schemes. This third generation presents new possibilities for redefining land management on Indonesia’s vast national forests. The contributions to this special issue shed new light on the overall implications of these changes. We divide the findings across submissions, covering broad topical engagement on the economies, ecologies, and politics at different governing scales. From these findings we suggest a course for future research, and identify key policy challenges for the future of social forestry and for Indonesia

The politics of numbers and additionality governing the national Payment for Forest Environmental Services scheme in Vietnam: A case study from Son La province

Payments for forest environmental services (PFES) is a major breakthrough policy in the Vietnamese forestry sector because it contributes 25% of the total investments in the forestry sector and serves as the first market-based instrument employed to protect forests. However, there is little empirical evidence of its effectiveness. Is the policy meeting the core objectives of improving forest cover and forest quality and is it also achieving its claims of supporting local livelihoods? This paper analyses the environmental, social, and economic impacts of PFES in Son La province, the longest standing implementation of a PFES scheme in Vietnam. Our study uses a sampling method that incorporates pre-matching and a before-after-control-intervention approach. Data was collected from government statistics, remote sensing analysis, focus group discussions involving 236 people, surveys with a total of 240 households, and key informant interviews with 45 people. Our findings show that additionality of PFES in Son La is controversial and depends on who collects the data and what data is used to evaluate the impacts of PFES. Data collection is also politicized to serve central, provincial and district government interests. Evidence shows that PFES has provided little additional income to individual villagers to protect forests in Son La. However, total PFES revenue paid to communities generates significant income for village communities. Moreover, not all villagers can receive continuous payments from PFES, meaning that PFES has not become a stable source of income, rendering the permanence of PFES limited. Improving monitoring and evaluation policies coupled with transparent, inclusive, independent mechanisms are essential to providing a more accurate reflection of impacts from PFES in Vietnam

Placing the Commoning First: Getting Beyond the Patronage Trap in Natural Resource Decentralization Policies

Research on the commons have been an inspiration for initiatives on natural resource decentralization over the past three decades. Researchers are increasingly recognizing however, that these commons initiatives are mostly failing to support rights, improve livelihoods, and conserve natural resources. These “commons projects,” defined as approaches that claim to devolve natural resource governance to local institutions, have their origins in various formulations of theories of the commons but are usually interpreted and applied by states and donor organizations. This paper identifies and analyzes deficiencies in theories of the commons through the slight but significant refocusing on perspectives of commoning. We found that commons scholarship lacks a grounding in power relations, and furthermore, tends to portray commons-governing groups as homogenous communities enacting long-established practices. Conversely, a commoning perspective provides a more dynamic and relational approach, and thus distinctly centers political dimensions of collective practices among diverse groups of citizens. We also extend this argument by showing that a fundamental shift in understanding commoning will help advocate for, and anticipate what commoners can actually do in regions of the Global South undergoing widespread enclosures in the face of powerful informal patronage networks controlled by state power actors and interests

Uprooting the Mosalaki: Changing institutions and livelihood impacts at Kelimutu National Park

Studies on interactions between national parks and Indigenous Peoples in Indonesia have gained much attention in recent years, which mainly examine eviction, boundary disputes, and remediation. This research focuses on changing institutions since the establishment of Kelimutu National Park, foregrounding socio-cultural and livelihood impacts over time. This study involves in-depth interviews, FGDs, and observations from April to May 2019 and revisiting in November 2021. Findings highlight changing traditional institutions (Mosalaki) uprooted by the formal National Park governing authority. Such transitions also shift governing authority over natural resources access and control in ways that negatively affect the livelihoods of the Lio people of Kelimutu