Uphill Battle: Forest Rights and Restoration on Podu Landscapes in Keonjhar, Odisha

In response to the global climate emergency and biodiversity loss, environmental advocates promote ecological restoration of millions of hectares of the world’s degraded forest lands. Lands of high value to restoration are home to nearly 300 million people, including 12% of low- and middle-income country populations. In this article, I respond to calls for greater empirical investigation into the social impacts of forest landscape restoration. Through spatial and ethnographic analysis of forest restoration in Keonjhar, Odisha (India), I show that state-led afforestation efforts contradict a decade of forest tenure reform which sought to decentralize and decolonize forest governance. I explore how state-led efforts ignore (and inhibit) the continued protagonism of forest-dwelling communities in forest regeneration on their customary lands. Weaving accounts from 1992 onwards across six villages and 22 plantations, I characterize state strategies as an ‘uphill battle’: by systematically selecting shifting cultivation (podu) uplands for enclosure and tree plantation, forest agencies contribute to a lose-lose situation where neither forest restoration nor forest rights are realized. Investigating this process from colonial forest policy to the present, I leverage a critical political ecology perspective that supports calls for rights-based restoration.

Conflict transformation and collaboration in developing social forestry in Flores, Indonesia

Social movements to realize forest tenure reforms have been ongoing since the 1970s, particularly through policies under the broad umbrella of social forestry. In Indonesia, social forestry programs are initiated by the government, communities, NGOs, academics, companies, and donors, and are based on specific socio-economic and ecological interests. Weak synergies, however between programmatic implementation and stakeholder interests, triggers various forest tenure conflicts. The research examines the complexity of these conflicts, namely focusing around the approaches to conflict transformation that can lead to collaboration in realizing forest sustainability that also support interests of people living in and around forests. I employed a qualitative approach by collecting data through in-depth interviews and participatory observations in Flores in 2017 and 2020. The results show that forest tenure conflicts have occurred since the 1970s due to state forest territorialization. Conflicts culminated in the determination of state forest area boundaries through the 1984 state program entitled the “consensus-based forest land use planning” initiative. Until 2008, efforts to resolve conflicts by offering the community access rights through community forestry programs initiated by the government were rejected by NGOs and the local community. NGOs facilitated communities to demand the return of state forest land as customary forest. This conflict presented the opportunity to facilitate multi-stakeholder forestry programs through a conflict transformation approach by building long-term stakeholder collaboration. Since 2010, the collaboration between stakeholders took place through the community forest program. This study shows the need for more direct attention to studying conflict resolution under an integrated and long-term approach to conflict transformation and collaboration. Pragmatically, this study shows the importance of integrated social forestry policies that synergize various schemes initiated by stakeholders to realize forest sustainability and support local community interests.

Customary Forest Managements and Its Challenges in East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia: An Implication of Constitutional Court Decision 2012

Customary forests have not been adequately recognized in state forest management in Indonesia for a long time. However, in the last decades, several fundamental policy changes occurred, and the roles of local communities significantly recognized in forest management. The forest tenure reforms for customary communities are actively addressed after the Constitutional Court Decision (CCD) Number 35 in 2012. The objectives of this study are (1) to determine the changes in customary forest management in response to the CCD and (2) to discuss policy challenges after the CCD in East Nusa Tenggara Province. This study employed qualitative descriptive analysis methods. The result showed the different responses of customary communities related to the institutional development towards CCD. The lack of local regulations regarding customary peoples' rights still need to be solved. Besides, the claims of customary communities for customary forests overlapping with state conservation areas and other customary forests can make the problem more complicated.

PRO INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY FORESTRY POLICY: A SOLUTION

The Papuan people have always lived and interacted with the forest. The forest is a place to live where almost all of their needs are taken from the forest. Today's forest management has far-reaching impacts on increasingly marginalized communities. The purpose of this paper is to present thoughts on a community-friendly forest management model by taking into account the advantages and disadvantages when forests are managed by communities to improve their welfare. This paper generates an idea about the importance of collaborative management to increase the role of the community as a solution. Taking into account the communal nature of the forest tenure system in Papua, it is necessary to take strategic steps to protect forest resources in a targeted manner.

Empirical Study on the Effects of Technology Training on the Forest-Related Income of Rural Poverty-Stricken Households—Based on the PSM Method

The implementation of technology training is essential to promote the commercialization of research achievements, and plays a crucial role in poverty alleviation in China. Based on the microcosmic survey data of farmers in four poverty-stricken counties officially assisted by National Forestry and Grassland Administration, the effects of technology training on forest-related income of rural poverty-stricken households is analyzed by using Propensity Score Matching (PSM) method. The study found that after eliminating the deviation from the self-selection and the endogenous issues, the forestry technology training has increased the total forest-related family income and forestry production and operation income by 3.09 times and 2.82 times, respectively. The effect of technology training on income increase is remarkable. Besides, the behavior of poor farmers participating in forestry technology training is significantly affected by the following factors, such as gender, age, family size, managed forestland area, whether they held forest tenure/equity certificate, whether they joined forestry professional cooperatives, and whether they cooperated with forestry enterprises. In order to further improve the effect of technology in poverty alleviation, the following policy recommendations are proposed, including: (1) to encourage poverty-stricken households to actively participate in forestry technology training; (2) to establish a diversified system of forestry technology training; and (3) to ensure the training content is based on the actual needs of the poor.

Why do greater forest tenure rights not enthuse local communities? An early observation on the new community forestry scheme in state forests in Indonesia

The Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry recently issued a 35-year permit-based social forestry, called Izin Pemanfaatan Hutan Perhutanan Sosial (IPHPS), which was implemented in forestlands managed by the State Forest Corporation (SFC). IPHPS is a unique scheme because social forestry permits were previously granted on forestland unencumbered with rights. It provides more secure tenure rights (long-term permits), greater decision-making authority, and improved profit-sharing arrangements compared with the SFC’s co-management model. However, IPHPS has not attracted widespread interest from local communities. This paper aims to identify and to analyse factors that explain local communities’ low interest in the policy. Results show that local communities have not been attracted by the scheme because it requires them to undertake substantial investments in reforestation and make several payments to the government beyond their means. This paper highlights the specific challenges related to access mechanisms and benefits to local communities from the granted rights. Lastly, local communities were prone to manipulative persuasion by the SFC to continue the co-management model.

Forest tenure and rights: a constraint to community forest management in Cameroon and the REDD+ initiative

The link between Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, with the enhancement of forest carbon stock (REDD+) and Community Forest Management (CFM) as a necessary local action on the forest, is continuously being challenged. CFM has been a suitable option in achieving sustainable forest practices in the tropics. The factors that contribute to its success will likely contribute to the success of REDD+ programs in Cameroon. Nevertheless, the opportunity and challenges in integrating the two concepts to achieve the objectives require careful analysis, considering the challenges facing the country’s tenure system. This article makes use of an in-depth content analysis of several documents concerning the subject matter and tries to examine the extent to which forest tenure and rights are a constraint to CFM in Cameroon and the REDD+ Initiative and assess how these concepts can work together to achieve sustainable forest management and a reduction in deforestation and forest degradation. The assessment shows several bottlenecks and discrepancies concerning tenure rights in the community forest and carbon rights when it concerns incentive-based benefit-sharing mechanisms under the REDD+ process. It reveals that the state may likely maintain centralization of forest tenure if the issues are not clarified. The article concludes with a proposal of an urgent need for domestic legal reforms to secure forest protection achieve the objectives of international forest policy initiatives like REDD+.

Forest Tenure and Sustainable Forest Management: Drawing Lessons from the Literature

The quest to foster sustainable forest management (SFM) in the era of sustainable development goals has reignited the debate on forest tenure concerns. Land and forest tenure insecurity has remained a major underlying cause of deforestation in Africa, which suggests that addressing tenure issues could effectively foster sustainable forest management. Adopting theoretical literature and drawing lessons from related empirical works, this study examines the role of land and forest tenure in sustainable forest management drive. Among other things, the study discusses how land tenure promotes or inhibits sustainable forest practices. The study outlines how frustrating tenure regimes deprive the community of the needed benefits and subsequent untoward behaviour unleashed on forests. The study concludes that the idea of tenure rights and tenure security has implications on sustainable forest management and admonishes a robust tenure regime that upholds local 'people's access to and usage of forest resources without sinister machinations and subjugation of local people. The study contends that determined rights and their long-term security remain crucial in attracting the tenure holders to make a strenuous investment in SFM since investments in forestry usually are made for the long term. Among other things, the study recommends for clarity and long-term security of ownership and tenure rights regarding forest products; a need to promote capacity-building for administrators and rights holders to adopt a sustainable mindset in their exploitation of timber products; and a need to foster stakeholder participation.