Decentralization of Forest Administration in Indonesia, Implications ...

Moira Moeliono and Ahmad Dermawan 119
None of these three steps is, as yet, fully in place in Indonesia; and the attendant institutional
mechanisms within the state and within the villages are, to a great degree, dysfunctional.
It is therefore debatable whether decentralization has actually occurred or whether the
reforms associated with Indonesia’s decentralization process have generated tangible
benefits for communities living in and around forests. The downward accountability
which is a basic characteristic of democratic decentralization (Ribot 2001) is such a new
concept in Indonesia that hardly any government official knows how to implement it.
But the passing of Law 22/1999 itself certainly has had significant consequences in terms
of the way districts are governed and how forests are managed today. Nevertheless, there
are movements towards better organized decentralization, although there are signs that
these may be adapted in the usual “muddling through” manner that is often characteristic
of such reform processes in Indonesia.
One clear trend through all of this is the disconnect between official policy and
plans, on the one hand, and how such processes play out on the ground, on the other.
While this is not a new phenomenon, decentralization policies have tended to strengthen
this. National Land Law and Forestry Law have clearly and explicitly set control at the
central state level. On the ground, however, many adat and local systems have remained
in force. With decentralization, this resistance towards central state control has taken a
more open form where local communities have defied government policies and forcefully
occupied land claimed to be their own. At the same time, there are disconnects between
district government policies and what actually happens at the village or sub-village level,
where district policies often have little or no meaning.
These disconnects support the process of power shifts in the regions. The
decentralization laws did shift power to district governments. In fact, when decentralization
became law in 1999, the bupati of Manggarai (East Nusa Tenggara) for example said
gleefully that he had become king – a sentiment reflected by district heads in other parts
of Indonesia as well. When a king comes to power, however, he has to demonstrate and
strengthen his authority. To this purpose, new alliances built on business, family and/or
adat connections have developed under decentralization. Adat especially has regained
visibility. This has often taken the form of demanding and obtaining compensation for
the use of resources claimed (cf. Tokede et al. 2005).
This has led to the revival of the old debate on how to integrate adat law into state
law with adat communities supported by NGO’s demanding that their adat law be legally
recognized (DTE 2000). However the dividing line between custom and law remains
un-reconciled, and questions raised by Sonius (1981) are still relevant: How could
innovations in adat law qualify as customary law? How could one ascribe to adat law a
body of objectives and pre-existing rules if the conciliatory nature of adat justice made it
constantly necessary for adat judges to find or create new laws applicable to individual
cases? What are the consequences and implications when adat becomes formal written
law?
Mallarangeng, one of the architects of Indonesia’s regional autonomy law, argues
that with regional autonomy, adat law and adat governance could become formalized into
statutory law (DTE 2000). Regional autonomy, in principle, provides space for village
autonomy and a return to adat. However, people have not yet considered how to fit adat
into the wider government system. In many cases, the registration and cooptation of adat
leaders by the Dutch has become part of adat. Having been reared within the unitary