Decentralization of Forest Administration in Indonesia, Implications ...

Christopher Barr 21
required provincial governments to adhere to forest management classifications and
management units earlier defined by the national government’s Forestry Department.
Provincial governments were required to obtain approval from the Ministry of
Agriculture if they wished to deviate from the macro-level forest management plans
established by the Directorate General of Forestry within their jurisdictions. It is
not clear what types of sanctions the Ministry could apply in cases where provinces
failed to obtain such approval.
Although Regulation 64/1957 was designed to clarify the division of authority
between Jakarta and the provinces, it offered only a vague definition of what
constituted state-owned forestland in the Outer Islands. Beyond this, sizeable forested
areas outside Java were utilized and/or managed by local communities, which in
many cases depended on forest products for a significant portion of their livelihoods.
Many of these communities had lived in and around these forests for generations, and
they generally managed these areas according to customary, or adat, legal systems
(Fried 1995). Under the Dutch, adat legal systems had been allowed to coexist with
the colonial administration’s statutory law. This dualistic legal system was largely
perpetuated during the first two decades following Indonesia’s independence.
The Indonesian state’s uncertain legal authority to administer forests in the
Outer Islands stood in stark contrast to the state’s control over forests in Java. Having
adopted many of the laws and regulations previously used by the Dutch, Indonesia’s
post-independence government retained control over Java’s entire forest estate, which
had been so carefully demarcated by the colonial regime (Peluso 1992). Through the
Soekarno era, this proved to be an issue of growing resentment and contention in
densely populated Java. Not only were local villagers excluded from sharing in the
benefits generated by the state’s valuable teak plantations, but these plantations often
were located on some of the most productive lands that might otherwise be used for
agriculture.
The Soekarno government attempted to simplify things in 1960 by introducing
the Basic Agrarian Law (BAL, Undang-undang Pokok-pokok Pertanahan) 5/1960,
which was aimed at reconciling national and adat legal codes governing land rights
(Barber 1990). Written at the height of Soekarnoist populism and the political
influence of the Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia, PKI),
the BAL recognized adat land claims as long as they did not conflict with ‘national
interest’. Although the BAL offered few details on how conflicts between national
law and customary tenure institutions would be resolved, the BAL’s recognition of
adat rights threatened to complicate any attempt on the state’s part to exploit Outer
Island forests on a large scale. The BAL also placed stringent limitations on the
private sector’s access to land and put in place legal structures to support a populist
land-titling program.
By the early-1960s, the Soekarno government was also under considerable
pressure to raise state revenues and to generate foreign exchange earnings through the
commercial exploitation of the nation’s natural resources, including the rich forests of
the Outer Islands. To promote economic growth, the government formulated its first
7-year national development plan in 1960. 7 Forests featured prominently in this plan,
which aimed to generate US$ 52.5 million in exchange earnings from the forestry