Jakarta, Ekuatorial – Despite of announced commitment to increase community based forests, government has yet to establish any assistance programs to implement the policy, said a member of civil society, in Jakarta, on Monday (30/3).

In the 2015-19 Middle Term National Development Plan (RPJMN), Indonesian government had targeted 12.7 million hectares of forest areas to be allocated for social forests, such as village forest (hutan desa), community forest (hutan kemasyarakatan), community timber plantation (hutan tanaman rakyat), customary forest (hutan adat), and partnership (kemitraan).

“It’s a very ambitious [target] but I am very pessimistic that it will be achieved if they [the government] implement same work pattern,” said Hasbi Berliani, Partnership’s program manager of sustainable environment governance.

Furthermore, Berliani said no government assistance in the field, lengthy permit issuance process, and limited funding were some of the obstacles needed to tackle to develop any of these schemes.

“Most of these schemes are either developed by civil society or by donors. They are the ones assisting people in the process, in the field, to get permits,” he said. “But, we have yet to see any government assistance in the ground to develop these schemes. There are very limited budget from regional governments to develop these schemes.”

Nevertheless, Chalid Muhammad of HuMa (Community and Ecological Based Society for Law Reform), said that if 12.7 million hectares of forest can be fully optimized and implemented seriously, then it can contribute to the country’s target for 7 percent economic growth.

“We [civil society] was actually disappointed because it [12.7 million hectares] is below our demand of 40 million hectares of forest [accessible to people],” said Muhammad. “But, we have assurance from the minister [of environment and forestry] that it was the minimum target.”

He cited that there were 34,997 villages located inside forest areas.

Meanwhile, Joko Pramono of social forestry development directorate of ministry environment and forestry, said the ministry was currently re-organizing its structure due to the merger between environment ministry and forestry ministry.

“But, we [the ministry] acknowledge these requests and we are handling it. There has been increased attention towards issues on social forestry, such as customary forests,” said Pramono. “For 2016, the ministry had allocated Rp 3 trillion (US$ 229 million) for social forestry development. In addition, the target to achieve 12.7 million hectares allocated for social forestry schemes. It means the ministry is acknowledging it.”

To achieve the target, he said, they will try to identify which areas potential to implement the target and set up directorates which will handle the schemes. Fidelis E. Satriastanti

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