This book addresses historical perspectives and contemporary challenges of the politics of forestland governance and the related sustainability crisis in Africa. It focusses on the power dynamics between key actors involved in the governance of forest-related resources either for their exploitation or with regards to biodiversity conservation policies promoted at international arenas. The book provides conceptual and empirical contributions on what happens when global sustainability agendas and the related policy instruments meet the realities of domestic politics in Africa. It reveals that several actors in forest-rich countries, especially those with limited sovereignty, have often employed complex informal strategies as the ‘weapon of the weak’ to resist the domination of the most powerful actors of global environmental politics.
In September 2013, Indonesia officially signed a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) to guarantee the legality of all timber products exported to the EU. Under the Indonesian VPA, a timber legality assurance system known as SVLK (Sistem Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu) has already been developed and has been in effect since 1 January 2013 for woodworking, wood panels, and pulp and paper. When the VPA is fully implemented, SVLK will become FLEGT legality license and will meet European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR) requirements for legal timber. The objective of this paper is to analyze the challenges of implementing SVLK in the small-scale forestry sector of Indonesia. The paper also assesses whether a mandatory approach to legality verification will be more effective in terms of assuring legality than voluntary approaches, such as certification. The analysis involved desk-based analysis of government statistics, policy documents, key stakeholder interviews, and field surveys in three major timber-producing provinces of Indonesia Central Java, East Kalimantan and Papua. The paper discusses a number of challenges facing the implementation of SVLK, among others the cost of timber legality verification, limited societal awareness of SVLK, business legality issues among small-scale enterprises, and high levels of illegality in their timber supply chains. The paper closes by presenting a detailed set of policy options to address the observed challenges.
This book discusses sustainable forest management from the perspectives of sociology, anthropology, politics, economics and policy. It examines the roles of governments, private sectors, NGOs, academics and local communities in implementing sustainable plantation forestry, which aims to supply timber for the forestry industry while at the same time reducing global warming. The book also explores the debates on sustainable forest management practices in several countries, and examines the effects of political ecology on plantation forestry as well as the impact of climate change and conservation programs. By analyzing a number of interrelated issues, it offers a valuable resource for all governments, private companies, practitioners, NGOs, academics and students studying forest management and political ecology from a social sciences perspective.
Since the collapse of Soehartos New Order regime in May 1998, Indonesias 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 Indonesias 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 Indonesias 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 Indonesias independence in 1945 to the fall of Soehartos New Order regime in 1998. The authors further examine the origins and scope of Indonesias 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 Indonesias fiscal system and describes the effects of the countrys new fiscal balancing arrangements on revenue flows from the forestry sector, and describes the dynamics of district-level timber regimes following the adoption of Indonesias 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.
Plantation forests often have a negative image. They are typically assumed to be poor substitutes for natural forests, particularly in terms of biodiversity conservation, carbon storage, provision of clean drinking water and other non-timber goods and services. Often they are monocultures that do not appear to invite people for recreation and other direct uses. Yet as this book clearly shows, they can play a vital role in the provision of ecosystem services, when compared to agriculture and other forms of land use or when natural forests have been degraded. This is the first book to examine explicitly the non-timber goods and services provided by plantation forests, including soil, water and biodiversity conservation, as well as carbon sequestration and the provision of local livelihoods. The authors show that, if we require a higher provision of ecosystem goods and services from both temperate and tropical plantations, new approaches to their management are required. These include policies, methods for valuing the services, the practices of small landholders, landscape approaches to optimise delivery of goods and services, and technical issues about how to achieve suitable solutions at the scale of forest stands. While providing original theoretical insights, the book also gives guidance for plantation managers, policy-makers, conservation practitioners and community advocates, who seek to promote or strengthen the multiple-use of forest plantations for improved benefits for society. Published with CIFOR
REDD+ must be transformational. REDD+ requires broad institutional and governance reforms, such as tenure, decentralisation, and corruption control. These reforms will enable departures from business as usual, and involve communities and forest users in making and implementing policies that a ect them. Policies must go beyond forestry. REDD+ strategies must include policies outside the forestry sector narrowly de ned, such as agriculture and energy, and better coordinate across sectors to deal with non-forest drivers of deforestation and degradation. Performance-based payments are key, yet limited. Payments based on performance directly incentivise and compensate forest owners and users. But schemes such as payments for environmental services (PES) depend on conditions, such as secure tenure, solid carbon data and transparent governance, that are often lacking and take time to change. This constraint reinforces the need for broad institutional and policy reforms. We must learn from the past. Many approaches to REDD+ now being considered are similar to previous e orts to conserve and better manage forests, often with limited success. Taking on board lessons learned from past experience will improve the prospects of REDD+ e ectiveness. National circumstances and uncertainty must be factored in. Di erent country contexts will create a variety of REDD+ models with di erent institutional and policy mixes. Uncertainties about the shape of the future global REDD+ system, national readiness and political consensus require exibility and a phased approach to REDD+ implementation.
"A decade and a half ago, lush forests with evergreen fruitbearing rambutan trees surrounded the home of Leni, a 43-year-old Iban Dayak woman and mother of two, in Jagoi Babang district of West Kalimantan province--an area her Indigenous community has inhabited for centuries. Today, they have little land to farm and no forest in which to forage after the land was cleared to make way for an oil palm plantation run by an Indonesian company."--Publisher website, viewed October 15, 2019.
REDD+ is one of the leading near-term options for global climate change mitigation. More than 300 subnational REDD+ initiatives have been launched across the tropics, responding to both the call for demonstration activities in the Bali Action Plan and the market for voluntary carbon offset credits.
This book demonstrates the challenges and opportunities of climate change actions in developing countries and primarily focuses on case studies in Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country. The most important feature of the book is its examination of multiple facets of climate change issues in Indonesia, which allows readers to understand the complexity of climate change in developing countries: the synergies and trade-offs between different climate change actions as well as between climate and development priorities. Another unique feature is that it was jointly written by Indonesian and international authors, as well as by academics and development practitioners. This book addresses questions concerning mitigation measures in major sectors with original analyses of aspects including energy subsidies, sectoral energy efficiencies in manufacturing sectors, forest concessions, energy-saving labeling schemes, policy mixes for the urban transportation sector, and the introduction of waste-to-energy technologies. The book provides first-hand knowledge and data on energy and the institutional realities in Indonesia, which are not widely and readily available to an international audience. It offers a valuable reference guide for professionals working for governments and NGOs and donor agencies in the fields of climate change and development in developing countries. This work is also a valuable resource for undergraduate and graduate students of economics and environmental and development studies, in particular those who are interested in the synergies and conflicts between climate change and development.
'This book provides an excellent overview of more than a decade of transformation in a forest landscape where the interests of local people, extractive industries and globally important biodiversity are in conflict. The studies assembled here teach us that plans and strategies are fine but, in the real world of the forest frontier, conservation must be based upon negotiation, social learning and an ability to muddle through.' Jeffrey Sayer, senior scientific adviser, Forest Conservation Programme IUCN - International Union for of Nature The devolution of control over the world's forests from national or state and provincial level governments to local control is an ongoing global trend that deeply affects all aspects of forest management, conservation of biodiversity, control over resources, wealth distribution and livelihoods. This powerful new book from leading experts provides an in-depth account of how trends towards increased local governance are shifting control over natural resource management from the state to local societies, and the implications of this control for social justice and the environment. The book is based on ten years of work by a team of researchers in Malinau, Indonesian Borneo, one of the world's richest forest areas. The first part of the book sets the larger context of decentralization's impact on power struggles between the state and society. The authors then cover in detail how the devolution process has occurred in Malinau, the policy context, struggles and conflicts and how Malinau has organized itself. The third part of the book looks at the broader issues of property relations, conflict, local governance and political participation associated with decentralization in Malinau. Importantly, it draws out the salient points for other international contexts including the important determination that 'local political alliances', especially among ethnic minorities, are taking on greater prominence and creating new opportunities to influence forest policy in the world's richest forests from the ground up. This is top-level research for academics and professionals working on forestry, natural resource management, policy and resource economics worldwide. Published with CIFOR
