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MANAGEMENT OF FOREST AREAS IN INDONESIA FOLLOWING FOREST POLICY DECENTRALISATION

By Retno Maryani

The forest conditions in Indonesia are largely shaped by natural causes such as fire and drought, by management practices and by policy incentives. The three causes together induce changes in the country's forest cover. Several studies suggest that complex patterns exist between causal changes, agents of changes and levels of causation (Sunderlin and Resosudarmo, 1996; Kaimowitz and Angelsen, 1998; Geist and Lambin, 2001). While it is important to identify the cause and agent of forest changes, the institutional arrangements play important roles in shaping behaviour of the agent and vice versa, which further affect the condition of forests in Indonesia.

Decentralisation
Forest policy decentralisation creates new institutional arrangements which differ from centralisation. Building on the work done by Kissling-Naf and Bisang (2001), we identify four major elements of an institutional arrangement:

• The framework of state constitution and formal regulations.
• Policy designs or the policy instruments that reflect the strategy through which goals and objectives are pursued.
• Management structures or the way tasks and authority are distributed and in which democratic decision and participation are encouraged.
• Property, disposal and use rights that regulate society's interactions with forest resources.

Each element of the arrangement has certain functions and differs in nature according to the use of forest resources. Any adjustment of external orders therefore simultaneously affects the goals set by actors as well as their strategies to achieve these goals, hence the actions of people.

Before-and-after comparison
In our study, we compare two different settings of institutional arrangements before and after forest policy decentralisation. We present preliminary findings from field observations combined with related reports on ongoing forestry activities and forest conditions in a selected district in the East Kalimantan province. The aim of the analysis is to explain the interactions between institutional arrangements and the behaviour of people under different settings and forest conditions. It is hoped that the elements which benefit forest policy decentralisation can be identified in order to enhance sustainable tropical forest use, in particular for the benefits of local people.

References:
Colfer, C.J.P. and Resosudarmo, I.A.P. (2002). Which way forward? People, forests and policy making in Indonesia. Washington: Resources for the Future.
Kaimowitz, D. and A. Angelsen (1998). Economic models of tropical deforestation A review. Bogor: CIFOR.
Geist H.J. and Lambin, E.. (2001). What drives tropical deforestation? A meta-analysis of proximate causes of deforestation based on subnational case study evidence. LUCC Report Series No. 4.
http://www.geo.ucl.ac.be/LUCC/lucc.html
Kissling-Naf and Bisang (2001). Rethinking recent changes of forest regimes in Europe through property-rights theory and policy analysis. Journal of Forest Policy and Economics 3: 99-111.
Sunderlin, W.D. and Resosudarmo, I.A.P. (1996).Rates and causes of deforestation in Indonesia: Towards a resolution of the ambiguities. CIFOR Occasional Paper No.9. Bogor: CIFOR, Indonesia.

Further information:
Retno Maryani
Ministry of Forestry Indonesia / Forest and Nature Conservation Policy Group, Wageningen University
Droevendaalsesteeg 3a, Building 100,
6708 PB Wageningen
The Netherlands
E-mail: retno.maryani@wur.nl

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