An Innovative Policy For Rural Development? Rethinking Barriers to Rural Communities Earning Their Living from Forests in Indonesia
Abstract: The government
of Indonesia (GoI) has trialed a number
of community forestry schemes, ranging from collaborative management to
long-term forest management rights handed to local communities, and implements
them in state forest land. This policy shift toward community forestry in
Indonesia shows an emerging signal on acknowledgement on the ability of local
forest users to manage forest resources sustainably,and gives the people
opportunities to benefit from the resources and eventually improve their daily
life. With so much of promises community forestry brings, this paper primarily
asks why the program is yet to meet the high expectation of rural development,
tackling the pervasive rural poverty. It aims to identify,analyze and address
key constraints of rural communities in exercising their rights which are
conside red as key factors to improve their live lihood and alleviate rural
poverty. That the government-initiated community forestry schemes fall short of
the initial targets in terms of the extent of state forest land areas managed
by to forest communities to a large extent is explained bythe regulatory
barriers of tenurial uncertainties and the complexlicensing procedures. Those
coupled by the limited capacityas technical assistance rarely provided by
government institutions appear to impede local people to secure better
livelihood.
Keywords: community forestry,
livelihood, rural communities, poverty alleviation, regulatory barriers
Penulis: Ahmad Maryudi
Kode Jurnal: jpkehutanandd140173