Decentralization of forest administration in Indonesia: implications for forest sustainability, economic development and community livelihoods

By C. Barr, I. Resosudarmo, A. Dermawan, J. McCarthy, M. Moeliono, B. Setiono. 2006

209 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Since the collapse of Soeharto's New Order regime in May 1998, Indonesia's national, provincial, and district governments have engaged in an intense struggle over how authority and the power embedded in it, should be shared. How this ongoing struggle over authority in the forestry sector will ultimately play out is of considerable significance due to the important role that Indonesia's forests play in supporting rural livelihoods, generating economic revenues, and providing environmental services. This book examines the process of forestry sector decentralization that has occurred in post-Soeharto Indonesia, and assesses the implications of more recent efforts by the national government to recentralize administrative authority over forest resources. It aims to describe the dynamics of decentralization in the forestry sector, to document major changes that occurred as district governments assumed a greater role in administering forest resources, and to assess what the ongoing struggle among Indonesia's national, provincial, and district governments is likely to mean for forest sustainability, economic development at multiple levels, and rural livelihoods. Drawing from primary research conducted by numerous scientists both at CIFOR and its many Indonesian and international partner institutions since 2000, this book sketches the sectoral context for current governmental reforms by tracing forestry development and the changing structure of forest administration from Indonesia's independence in 1945 to the fall of Soeharto's New Order regime in 1998. The authors further examine the origins and scope of Indonesia's decentralization laws in order to describe the legal-regulatory framework within which decentralization has been implemented both at the macro-level and specifically within the forestry sector. This book also analyses the decentralization of Indonesia's fiscal system and describes the effects of the country's new fiscal balancing arrangements on revenue flows from the forestry sector, and describes the dynamics of district-level timber regimes following the adoption of Indonesia's decentralization laws. Finally, this book also examines the real and anticipated effects of decentralization on land tenure and livelihood security for communities living in and around forested areas, and summarizes major findings and options for possible interventions to strengthen the forestry reform efforts currently underway in Indonesia.

Subfields: Ecology, Global and Planetary Change

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a87979e0f07e99b3a39fc3d53777ddb3c23c6f39

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology

1. S. Schwarze
2. L. Feintrenie
3. P. Levang
4. M. Qaim
5. Hermanto Siregar

In Global and Planetary Change

1. S. Schwarze
2. M. Qaim
3. Hermanto Siregar

Citations in the corpus

• Research, part of a Special Feature on Public policies and management of rural forests: lasting alliance or fool's dialogue? Are Local People Conservationists? Analysis of Transition Dynamics from Agroforests to Monoculture Plantations in Indonesia (2010, background): “This shift introduced a dispersal of responsibilities for forests to lower levels of governance, but land tenure and forest status remain unclear in both the legislation and the field (Legowo and Takahashi 2003, Barr et al. 2006).”