Local Institutional Strength of Village and Community Forests in Indonesia

Abstract

Social forestry policies are implemented by establishing and developing local institutions to organize collective action in forest management. Therefore, a strong local institution will be one of the main factors determining the successful implementation of social forestry. This study aims to identify and describe the local institutional strength of village forests and community forests as Indonesia’s two largest social forestry schemes. Data and information from various documents, structured in-depth interviews, and field observations were used to measure and analyze the local institutional strength of three village forests in Kubu Raya Regency and three community forests in Belitung Regency, Indonesia. Research results show that of the three village forests and three community forests cases, only one community forest is considered to have a strong local institution even though it has not yet reached the maximum value, both in the stability and enforcement dimensions. Three village forests and two other community forests are considered to have adequate institutional stability, albeit their institutional enforcement remains weak. Organizational structures, roles, and rules are merely paper documents that cannot be enforced or are not intended to be enforced. Several factors contributing to the local institutional strength are stability and effectiveness of roles, rules, and sanctions, local government support, community needs and interests, and benefit distribution, which interact with and influence each other. Government, researchers, and civil society organizations as social forestry facilitators, should pay more attention to these factors, so they can build and develop stronger local institutions for the success of social forestry.