Nearly 100 people joined us for a fantastic panel discussion on the various land tenure options for communities to manage forests in Indonesia. FCF Board member Angel Manembu moderated this one-hour webinar, held in Indonesian with simultaneous translation into English. The video (in Indonesian) can be viewed here and the transcription in English is available here. The slides can be downloaded here.

Monalisa Pasaribu from AidEnvironment, who co-hosted this webinar with FCF, outlined the opportunity. Indonesia has over 95 million hectares of forest — most of this is zoned as forest (Kawasan Hutan), and much of it is in protected areas. But there are more than 7 million hectares of forest zoned as APL (other land use areas), which can be converted to plantations or built-up areas.

Yulia Hardini from Earthworm Foundation explained how they are working with communities to include forests in the APL estate as protected areas under the village spatial plan. Laws No. 27 (2007) concerning spatial planning and No. 6 (2014) concerning villages allow for participatory mapping and land use planning to occur at the village level, but they have not been widely tested. Earthworm will soon be publishing guidance for how to do participatory land use planning, based on their experience in Sumatra, Java, and Kalimantan.

Rodiansyah from Planet Indonesia and Imanul Huda from the People, Resources, and Conservation Foundation (PRCF) shared their experiences working with communities to set up and manage Hutan Desa (village forests) in Kalimantan and Sumatra. As Rodiansyah noted, when setting up these projects it is important to involve stakeholders in a way that is “participatory, fair for all people, sustainable and inclusive.” Imanul agreed that “you need to provide space for the younger generation and women to be involved in forest management in the village.” Several examples were shared of community-led patrols, development of sustainable forest-friendly businesses, and including local knowledge in biodiversity and wildlife monitoring, all of which have led to successful conservation outcomes in village-managed forests.

The development of social forestry in Indonesia is an exciting space, with lots of innovation. FCF’s role is to link donors to these types of projects to help the communities with operational funding for protection. If you’d like to support projects like these, do get in touch at info@fundforests.org.