Strengthen forest governance to save the forests

There might be few will disagree that Indonesia’s forests have severely been depleted, but strong disagreements are there on what the underlying factors of the depletion are. Some argue it is due population explosion, illegal logging, and conversion; while greedy commercial logging is also often cited. And indeed still some many more! Perhaps each of us has own explanation on the downward trends of the forest resources.
Nonetheless, much attention has recently put on the governance and institutional aspects that the institution of government is no longer expected to have the sole control over the forests. The monopolized control of the state is thought to lead to corrupt and rent seeking behaviours which are believed to be the decisive causes of the deforestation.
As such, there have been pushes for shifts away from centrally administered and top-down regulatory policies to multi-stakeholder decision making processes, involving civil society and market institutions. However, the current access and control of forest resources in the country rarely reflect ‘negotiation processes’ among such different actors. The forest governance remains a distance prospect since regulation and formal institutional mandates mostly still give strong mandates to the (central) government on controlling the forests. A lion’s share of the forests continues to be at the state disposal, i.e. owned and used by the government.
It is not to say that non-state institutions and the civil society in general were left as spectators in the policy processes. Many local, national and international multi-stakeholder fora and networks have been created, aiming to fostering the Indonesian forest policy. They are indeed involved to various degrees, and are often consulted during the forest policy development. However, how decisions are made is a different reality that the interests on the state are mostly promoted.
Recent attempts to the ‘internationalization’ of the national forest policy through intergovernmental negotiations did not produce meaningful outcomes. A global forest convention, which was strongly advocated to regulate the national forest policy, has never been in place. In addition, the ‘coup’ for forest control by (international) NGOs through market-based instrument of forest certification and labelling do not give much cause for optimism, due the combination of factors including the limited interests of forest enterprises, and the limited signals on the promoted market incentives. It is hoped through the mechanism that behaviour of individual forest companies to be regulated by independent certification bodies. As a result, control and regulation on the forests are still largely by the state forest authority.
Decentralized forest governance has similarly produced unsatisfactory outcomes, since the lower (local) administrations are similarly corrupt that they are not accountable to both the central government and the people. As a result, some degree of control on the forests which was transferred to local administration has been taken back by the central forest authority.
Therefore, holistic reforms on Indonesian forest governance must be done in order to save the remaining forests and ensure sustainable forestry, for the future generation. The reforms should be able to create good forest governance, which is transparent, open, and informed forest policymaking process, which should be based on two foundations strong participation of civil society, and accountability and ability of those in bureaucracy.
Good governance in the forests also requires clear clarification on the relationships, the rights and responsibilities among different forest stakeholders, civil society, government institutions and even direct forest users. Scholars argue that the goal of forest conservation and management has not been met during the conflicts amongst the forest stakeholders. The crying needs to involving different stakeholders should particularly be focused on those directly and heavily affected by how the forests are used.
It is not only the clear clarification for the different nature of stakeholders; the reform should also touch the different agencies within the state, which have strong relationships with the uses of the forests, such as forest, agriculture and mining departments. It is important to harmonize their respective policy. Some other issues to promote good forest governance within the state agencies include accountable decision-makers, improved monitoring on the forest uses, and strong law enforcement.
Transitions are indeed needed due the diverse interests at different level, locally and internationally, reflecting the spectrum of stakeholders. Such transitions are also needed considering the current magnitude of forest problems. More importance, the forest sector is now facing the rapidly changing world with several emerging issues, e.g. climate change. This poses a tricky challenge as interests on and stakeholders of the forests can become even vary.