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illage Law No. 6/2014 substantially strengthens the position of villages in the government hierarchy. Villages are no longer in a subordinate position under (sub) district government, but self-governing entities, like small states that have clear boundaries of jurisdiction and authority over the community and natural resources.

Villages have rights and responsibilities to manage and administer the needs and interests within their areas of jurisdiction. Therefore, the village has been acknowledged as a unique entity, with social and cultural values and local wisdom embedded in its origins (principle of recognition).

The role of villages in development has changed substantially, as villages should now engage in fulfilling their own needs. The role of supra-village government at the sub-district and district level is now to support and strengthen villages and no longer to rule over or get directly involved in internal village matters (principle of subsidiary).

The Home Ministry has, through Decree No. 44/2016, assigned district administrations to identify and define village authority based on their origin and to be defined as regency regulations. It is important to highlight that village authority is not only related to the development of the village economy, but also covers the sustainable management of natural resources and the protection of the environment.

How is this new paradigm of village self-governance received by conservationists considering the presently suboptimal management of natural resources in the country, which cause “routine” annual environmental disasters and forest fires?

The destruction and degradation of the country’s natural resources, such as land use change, rampant encroachment on forest areas, land and forest fires, peatland degradation etc. cannot be solved without improving natural resource governance at the grassroots level.

The risk is that the management of natural resources will become a battle field of village governance. Therefore, natural resource management at the village level can only be successful if the villages’ technical capacity of natural resource management is substantially strengthened.

Understanding the poor capacity of most village governments in the country, efforts by all parties, including NGOs, are much needed to help village governments expand their knowledge on all aspects of natural resource management, including the protection of forests and avoiding environmental disasters and how to use the enormous village funding to better manage natural resources.

The central government needs to assist village communities and village governments intensively to strengthen their institutional setup, their negotiation skills and awareness on the importance of village development based on strengthening natural infrastructure through the protection of the remaining natural resources and forests as major assets of the villages.

Forest village facilitators need to be equipped with forest conservation knowledge to work together with villagers on forest protection and management. Indeed knowledgeable village governments can be the last guardian to defend the remaining forests and restore the country’s complex ecosystems.

Forest conservation is regulated in Law No. 5/1990, which is now under revision. The revision of the conservation law needs to include an article that defines the roles and responsibilities of village regimes, so that all forest conservation activities can be managed optimally and become key drivers of village development while at the same time countering village development that degrades the forest resources.

Village government is also important for the private sector. Only capable villages can provide strong and lasting support to land-based private investment within their area of jurisdiction and in the surroundings.

It is time for the private sector to change its mindset. Villages should no longer be seen as only an object for charity programs, but should be empowered in such a way that they can be included in mutually beneficial business partnerships.

Private sector actors need to redesign their corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs to improve the capacity of village governments as a key prerequisite for business opportunities and sustainability. This could begin with assigning roles to village governments.

For instance, companies engaged palm oil and industrial forest plantations could start to collaborate with village governments to jointly manage parts of their concession areas allocated as high conservation value (HCV) areas. Village governments could be entrusted with managing or supplying one of their business components etc.

Governments of villages with areas on state forest land or in concession areas, such as natural forest concessions, oil palm or industrial forest plantation, could define scopes of local authority that can support forest resource conservation in and around their areas of jurisdiction.

On the other hand, the central government needs to simplify the licensing process for village forests and strengthen village facilitation, so that the legal status of the remaining forested villages is changed to village forests, before it is converted to other land uses.

A change in mindset and active steps are required to strengthen villages, as the last fortress to improve the protection and sustainable management of the country’s natural resources.
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Edi Purwanto is the director of the Tropenbos International Indonesia Program, while Soren Moestrup is a senior adviser at the department of geosciences and natural resource management, forest, nature and biomass at the University of Copenhagen.