Facilitating agroforestry development through land and tree tenure reforms in Indonesia

This document assesses ICRAF’s 12 years of wo rk promoting land and tree tenure reform in Indonesia in order to secure and improve agrofo restry farmers’ livelihoods and environmental services. The multi-disciplinary team reviewed le gal and policy gains, livelihood improvements, vegetation changes and carried out detailed stakeholde r interviews to assess the impacts of this work. The findings are summarised below. In Krui, West Lampung, ICRAF intervened to help secure a sophisticated agroforestry system, repong damar , at risk having been included in State Forests and allocated to logging and oil palm plantations. ICRAF led a 5 year collaborative programme, in alliance with NGOs and others, researching repong damar , mobilising farmers, and engaging in polic y negotiation with government. A supportive Forestry Minister passed a decree securing 29,000 hectares as a special purpose area. However, owing to wider political changes, the la w was never applied, yet had the effect of securing the area from logging and oil palm expansion. ICRAF’s role in the decree is widely acknowledged. Repong damar continues to provide modest livelihood benefits to some 35,000 farmers and cushions the neighbouring National Park from exte nsive forest clearance. However, repong damar is under pressure from the decline of respect for custom, pressure from oil palm interests and rising populations. Farmers continue to demand more secure rights in forests than the decree offers. In Sumberjaya, West Lampung, Javanese migrants have been clearing ‘prote ction forests’ for coffee since the 1950s, leading to escalating conflicts with the Forestry Department, poverty, incendiarism, and environmental decline. Since 1998, ICRAF has promoted community forestry, through a process of research-based negotiation support, involving local government, NGOs and farmers in sustained dialogue. So far, 6 farmers’ groups have secured community forestry permits, allowing them to grow multi-strata coffee, 23 more are in the pipeline and new local government regulations have been passed to help secure longer term community forestry leases. Community forestry leases result in impressive livelihood gains, increased equity, evident improvement in farmers’ sense of responsibility for land care, fewer bribes and better relations with the Forestry Ministry. However, further reforms to simplify the system are necessary if it is to be extensively applied. Comparative studies of fa rmers in two areas of land conflict and without community forestry tenures show that they have far lower incomes and enjo y much less land security, discernible in lower land values. They may pay up to 30% of their incomes in bribes to forestry officials. The coffee frontier is the main cause of the 84% loss of forest cover in western Lampung in the past 30 years. Although greater tenure secur ity encourages multi-strata coffee, which provides better environmental services than the simple shade coffee farms typical of farmers with insecure tenure, it is not yet clear if community forestry leases can stabilise the coffee frontier. ICRAF’s field activities and legal re search have challenged the cu rrent forestry regime, whereby some 70% of Indonesia’s land area is controlled by th e Ministry of Forests to the exclusion of up to 90 million people who live in these areas. At the national level, ICRAF has emerged as a recognised centre of expertise about community livelihoods, fo rests and tenure. Through engagement in policy debates, often at the invitation of the Ministry and by working closely with civil society, other researchers and government officials, ICRAF has been able to influence improvements in community forestry regulations and secure recognition in the 1999 Forestry Law of ‘customary forests’ and ‘special purpose management areas’ as special management categories in State Forests. These have yet to be widely applied

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5716/WP14117.PDF

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