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Social forestry program derailed by pandemic
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Two women carry pasture grass for cattle in Parangbatu village, Tuban, East Java. Residents in the village still depend on forests for their livelihoods. (Antara/Aguk Sudarmojo)
T
he COVID-19 pandemic has derailed Indonesia’s social forestry program, which grants local communities the right to manage state forests.
The Environment and Forestry Ministry has predicted that only about 400,000 hectares of state forests will be allocated to local communities under the social forestry program by the end of this year, because social restrictions are hampering the on-site verification process.
In 2018, and again in 2019, the central government issued land management permits for around 1.5 million ha of forests to local communities.
But observers say the problems plaguing the program go well beyond the sluggish permit issuance. They say that, without support from local authorities, the program will not contribute much to efforts to improve the livelihoods of people living inside and near state forests who already hold permits.
In 2014, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo pledged to hand 12.7 million ha of state forests to rural communities through five social forestry schemes: hutan kemasyarakatan (community forestry), hutan desa (village forests), hutan tanaman rakyat (community plantation forests) and hutan adat (customary forests), as well as forming partnerships for collaborative forest management.
Read also: Government vows to engage more indigenous groups in forest management
When the concept of social forestry was initiated in 1995, it was aimed at rehabilitating forest areas. The program now seeks to tackle rural poverty by establishing thousands of small and medium forest enterprises while at the same time preventing intractable land conflicts.
