What is success? Gaps and trade-offs in assessing the performance of traditional social forestry systems in Indonesia

Despite the growing interest in social forestry, how much do we understand the social, economic and environmental outcomes and the conditions that enable SF to perform? In this article, we use a content analysis of literature on existing traditional SF practiced throughout Indonesia. It examines the outcomes of these systems and the conditions that enabled or hindered these outcomes to understand possible causal relations and changing dynamics between these conditions and SF performance. We discuss the gaps in how SF is assessed and understood in the literature to understand the important aspects of traditional SF that are not captured or that are lost when the diverse traditional systems are converted into other land uses. It aims to understand the potential trade-offs in the State’s push for formalizing SF if these aspects continue to be ignored.Peer reviewe

The role of social forestry in achieving NDC targets: Study cases of Lampung and DI Yogyakarta

Social Forestry (SF) in Indonesia has emerged as a keystone strategy for Sustainable Forest Management. By allocating 12.7 million ha of forest to be managed by local communities, the government has set in motion an ambitious plan for SF to reduce poverty, empower local people, and improve forest conditions. More recently, SF is framed for its opportunity to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation. This study focused on examining the contribution of SF to the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) goals in Yogyakarta and Lampung. By analyzing spatial data of SF areas and land cover changes using ArcView 10.8, the study assessed the carbon stock potential in SF areas. Carbon stock calculations were based on the 2022 National Forest Reference Level (FRL) for the periods before and after SF implementation. The finding of the study indicated that the carbon stock of SF areas in Yogyakarta and Lampung ranged from 9,214,381 to 9,923,420 ton CO2eq prior to SF, while the current carbon stock ranges from 8,703,489 to 9,393,706 ton CO2eq, representing a decrease (around 5.4%) rather than an increase. Overall, the changes in carbon stock were relatively small and localized, and the magnitude of the increase was insufficient to offset the overall decrease. To achieve the objectives of SF, such as meeting emission targets and achieving sustainable land use, it is crucial to carefully manage forest edges and fragmented forests, as they can contribute to carbon stock losses. Additionally, further studies and research are needed to improve the accuracy of carbon stock calculations, particularly for non-forest categories, which have higher uncertainty in the reference level

REDD+ and Green Growth : Synergies or discord in Vietnam and Indonesia

Shifting global development discourses – Implications for forests and livelihoods: Special Issue (Supplement 1, December 2017)Green Growth (GG) has emerged as a global narrative, replacing to some extent and integrating earlier sustainable development narratives, while Reducing Emissions through avoiding Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) has developed as major item in climate change negotiations. GG and REDD+ are both considered important strategies and are often seen as synergistic in achieving major changes in economic, regulatory and governance frameworks. Of concern, however, is that GG is sometimes seen as greenwashing of economic activities (which could include forest conversion to other land uses) by an oversimplified presentation of win-win solutions without challenging the actual root causes of unsustainable growth. How GG and REDD+ can contribute to transformational change in policy and practice depends on the relationship between these narratives, especially whether their adoption in national level policies manifests synergies or discord. In this paper, we will answer this question through analysing: (1) how the two narratives have unfolded in Vietnam and Indonesia and to what extent REDD+ and GG rhetoric include concrete policy objectives; (2) what issues policy actors perceive as challenges for their implementation. A comparative, mixed methods approach was employed to analyze how REDD+ and GG are framed in national policy documents. This analysis was supported by data from interviews with policy actors in both countries in two points of time, 2011/12 and 2015/16. The findings highlight the challenges for implementation of both REDD+ and GG as individual policy programmes, and the dilution of the REDD+ agenda and decision makers’ confusion about a GG strategy when these narratives are joined and translated by decision makers. Actors still perceive development and environmental objectives as a zero-sum struggle, favouring a development narrative that might lead to neither REDD+ nor green policy action. We conclude that REDD+ and GG can go hand in hand, if there is action to tackle deforestation and degradation.Peer reviewe

Interactive Landuse Planning in Indonesian Rain-Forest Landscapes: Reconnecting Plans to Practice

Indonesia’s 1999–2004 decentralization reforms created opportunities for land-use planning that reflected local conditions and local people’s needs. We report on seven years of work in the District of Malinau in Indonesian Borneo that attempted to reconnect government land-use plans to local people’s values, priorities, and practices. Four principles are proposed to support more interactive planning between government and local land users: Support local groups to make their local knowledge, experience, and aspirations more visible in formal land-use planning and decision making; create channels of communication, feedback, and transparency to support the adaptive capacities and accountability of district leadership and institutions; use system frameworks to understand the drivers of change and resulting scenarios and trade-offs; and link analysis and intervention across multiple levels, from the local land user to the district and national levels. We describe the application of these principles in Malinau and the resulting challenges

Development and equity : A gendered inquiry in a swidden landscape

Market-driven development is transforming swidden landscapes and having different impacts along intersections of gender, age and class. In Kapuas Hulu, West Kalimantan, Indonesia, Dayak communities practicing swidden agriculture are making choices on maintaining traditional land use systems, and engaging in rubber, oil palm and conservation (REDD + ) in their livelihood strategies. Although REDD + has been heralded as an alternative to oil palm as a sustainable development option, it is still far from full implementation. Meanwhile, oil palm has become a reality, with large scale plantations that offer job opportunities and produce new sources of prestige, but create contestations around traditional land use systems. We employ the gender asset agriculture project (GAAP) framework and apply an intersectional lens to highlight power relations underlying gendered differences in land, labor and social capital in this process of transformation. Our findings suggest that market interventions produce major changes for men and women, young and old, land cultivators and wage earners. This has created new opportunities for some and new risks for others, with those having power to access diverse types of knowledge, ranging from inheritance rights to market information and job opportunities, best able to exploit such opportunities.Peer reviewe

Social Forestry - why and for whom? : A comparison of policies in Vietnam and Indonesia

Community forestry or social forestry (henceforth referred collectively as SF) programs have become new modes of forest management empowering local managers and hence, allowing integration of diverse local practices and support of local livelihoods. Implementation of these initiatives, however, face multiple challenges. State-prescribed community programs, for example, will remain isolated efforts if changes in the overall economic and social governance frameworks, including the devolution of rights to local users is lacking. Financial sustainability of these measures remains often uncertain and equity issues inherent to groups and communities formed for SF, can be exacerbated. In this article, we pose the question: Whose interests do SF policies serve? The effectiveness of SF would depend on the motivations and aims for a decentralization of forest governance to the community. In order to understand the underlying motivations behind the governments’ push for SF, we examine national policies in Vietnam and Indonesia, changes in their policies over time and the shift in discourses influencing how SF has evolved. Vietnam and Indonesia are at different sides of the spectrum in democratic ambitions and forest abundance, and present an intriguing comparison in the recent regional push towards SF in Southeast Asia. We discuss the different interpretations of SF in these two countries and how SF programs are implemented. Our results show that governments, influenced by global discourse, are attempting to regulate SF through formal definitions and regulations. Communities on the other hand, might resist by adopting, adapting or rejecting formal schemes. In this tension, SF, in general adopted to serve the interest of local people, in practice SF has not fulfilled its promise.Peer reviewe

The forest frontier in the Global South : Climate change policies and the promise of development and equity

Halting forest loss and achieving sustainable development in an equitable manner require state, non-state actors, and entire societies in the Global North and South to tackle deeply established patterns of inequality and power relations embedded in forest frontiers. Forest and climate governance in the Global South can provide an avenue for the transformational change needed—yet, does it? We analyse the politics and power in four cases of mitigation, adaptation, and development arenas. We use a political economy lens to explore the transformations taking place when climate policy meets specific forest frontiers in the Global South, where international, national and local institutions, interests, ideas, and information are at play. We argue that lasting and equitable outcomes will require a strong discursive shift within dominant institutions and among policy actors to redress policies that place responsibilities and burdens on local people in the Global South, while benefits from deforestation and maladaptation are taken elsewhere. What is missing is a shared transformational objective and priority to keep forests standing among all those involved from afar in the major forest frontiers in the tropics.Peer reviewe

Analyzing REDD+ as an experiment of transformative climate governance : Insights from Indonesia

Analyzing REDD plus as an experiment of transformative climate governance: Insights from IndonesiaThis paper contributes to an emerging body of literature on policy experimentation and governance transformation processes. We use the example of REDD+ as consisting of policy experiments in an emerging domestic policy domain to understand obstacles to transformations in forest and climate governance. We ask two interlinked questions: to what extent did the establishment of the REDD + Agency challenge 'business as usual' in Indonesia's forest and climate policy arena?; and what does this mean for a transformation away from policies and governance that enable deforestation and forest degradation? We draw on the transformation literature to better understand the role of REDD+ to achieve a transformative shift in climate governance. As an experiment of transformative climate governance, the study of REDD + provides important insights for other forest or climate programs. Our analysis shows that the REDD + Agency was successful in some extend in introducing an alternative governance mechanism and in shaking the governance structures but we also note that some of the key actors thought that greater ownership was achieved when the REDD+ Agency was dissolved and the mandate was returned to the ministries. We conclude that policy experimenting is a process, and while the creation of novel policies and their experimentation is important, also their assimilation may lead to new opportunities.Peer reviewe

REDD plus in Indonesia : A new mode of governance or just another project?

Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), was adopted in Indonesia with an ambitious vision to promote a new mode of governance for Indonesia's forest, replacing a mode of ‘projectification’. Projectification, as described by Li (2016), is understood as a process through which plans for systematic long-term change collapse into incremental, simplified technical solutions. These proposals often fail to address complex socio-economic problems and political-economic contexts, allowing large-scale deforestation drivers to persist. We analyze whether Indonesia is on track toward transformational change or is conversely locked into projectification. We construct our analysis using results from a long-term study comprising surveys in 2012, 2015, and 2019 analyzing the evolving role of REDD+ in Indonesian forest governance. Combining qualitative and quantitative analysis, we examine changes in (i) discursive practices and policy beliefs; (ii) institutions and power relations; and (iii) informal networking relationships. Our findings show that despite high hopes and some promising developments, REDD+ has not yet succeeded in creating transformational change. Ideas of REDD+ remain focused on efficiency and technical aspects of implementation and do not question business as usual and the current political economic conditions favoring deforestation. The changing structure of the REDD+ policy network and exchanges between actors and groups over time suggest government actors and large funding organizations are becoming increasingly dominant, potentially indicating a return to established patterns of project-based governance.Peer reviewe