Contribution of Forestry to Poverty Alleviation - APFNet

As of 2010, MoF was able to issue 22 community plantation forest licenses covering a total of 9,045.89
ha, 107 community forest licenses covering a total of 415,153 ha and village forest business licenses
covering 113,354 ha.
Commercial and Industrial Forestry
Production forestry, processing industries and plantations (large scale operations)
Forestry in general is said to have contributed to national and regional development through logging
roads that made access to remote areas possible, job opportunities and increase in regional government
and community income (MoF 2006). However, there have been critical problems associated with the
dynamic growth of the forestry sector with regard to the poverty situation of communities in and around
forests. While large-scale capital-intensive operations have been relatively able to generate short-run
financial returns, “there is little evidence for poverty alleviation” (WB 2006).
The appropriation of forest communities’ lands and resources for large-scale timber interests and the
lack of recognition of the customary communities’ rights adversely affected the people’s livelihoods,
economic opportunities and tenure security (Jarvie et al. 2003 in Contreras-Hermosilla and Fay 2005).
Rural communities which depended on forest resources for their livelihoods associated the entry and
operations of timber concessions and plantations with abuses and deterioration of community condition
(Contreras-Hermosilla and Fay 2005). The people would still manage to utilize forest resources to meet
their livelihood needs, but usually amid ensuing conflicts (Kayoi et. al. 2006). Or else, they would be
forced to seek other forms of livelihood when activities of large-scale agri-businesses and logging
companies encroached into substantial land areas. In Kaimana and Mapia in Papua, the shift away from
a nomadic way of living (pinda-pinda) with hunting and gathering as the livelihood strategy occurred
very fast after the logging company arrived in the area (Soriaga and Walpole 2009). Often, local people
could be denied access to grasslands they can cultivate for food crops on the basis of the classification
of those lands as forest zones to be used for timber plantations (Contreras-Hermosilla and Fay 2005).
In many cases, overlapping land claims and management regimes over the same area in the context of
legal uncertainties and inconsistencies have led to conflict between communities and companies or local
governments. Among the common reasons for local communities’ complaints about forestry and forest
utilization are (i) loss of forests that serve as sources of NWFPs; (ii) pollution of rivers and reduced
fish stocks due to logging waste; (iii) community development approaches not based on local people’s
needs; (iv) the limiting of communication to those between company representatives and community
elites, while not involving the broader set of community stakeholders; and (v) decreased community
land (Eriantono 2010). Interrelated factors leading to intractable conflicts include: (i) communities’
loss of forest area and living space on lands licensed as concession areas; (ii) restriction of community
activities in concession areas, particularly shifting cultivation and the collection of NWFPs; (iii) lack
of communication between communities and companies leading to misunderstanding and distrust
between the two groups; (iv) minimum benefits from the companies for local communities (wages and
employment provision as companies prefer to recruit migrant/external workers); (v) encroachment into
local communities’ traditionally protected and sacred sites; and (vi) deforestation and its impacts on the
rural agro-ecosystem, such as erosion and increased river pollution (Sardjono 2004c in Simorangkir
and Sadjono 2006).
Owing to the unequal distribution of benefits, affected local communities received little share—if
any—of the benefits from their forests. Moreover, little policy effort has been made to “invest revenues
in human, financial, physical, or natural assets for the long term” (Kayoi et. al. 2006). The long-term
impacts of the degraded state of the forests and natural resources to the poverty situation are being
acknowledged in terms of reduced resource base and unsustainable livelihood; lack of access to clean
water; environmental disasters (floods, droughts and landslides); forestry-related crimes (e.g., illegal
logging and timber smuggling); as well as competition over resources, conflicts and weakening social
cohesion.
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