Decentralization of Forest Administration in Indonesia, Implications ...

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Origins and Scope of Indonesia’s Decentralization Laws
(kepentingan) of the local people according to their own initiatives, based on the
people’s aspirations, and in accordance with the prevailing laws and regulations”
(Art. 1).
The regional autonomy law transfers authority to autonomous regions in “all
fields of governance, except authority in the fields of international policies, defense
and security, the judiciary, monetary and fiscal matters, [and] religion.” (Art. 7). It
also specifies that the central government should retain authority in a number of “other
fields”, defined to include “policies on national planning and national development
processes at the macro-level; fiscal balancing; systems of state administration and
state economic institutions; human resource development; and utilization of natural
resources; as well as strategic technology, conservation, and national standardization”
(Art. 7).
In delineating the parameters for decentralized governance, Law 22/1999
emphasizes the transfer of authority to districts and municipalities to a significantly
greater degree than to provinces. Article 11 states that “the authority of Districts
and Municipalities will encompass all governing authority other than the authority
exempted in Article 7” – or in other words, all areas of authority beyond those
explicitly reserved for the central government. Article 11 goes on to specify several
particular areas where authority is directly transferred to autonomous regions at the
district and municipality level:
Fields of governance that must be performed by district and municipality
shall include public works, health, education and culture, agriculture,
communication, industry and trade, capital investment, environment, land,
co-operative and manpower affairs (Art. 11).
By contrast, Law 22/1999 defines the authority of provinces as autonomous
regions in a far more circumscribed manner, with Article 9 specifying provincial
authority on three levels. First, provinces are given “authority in the field of interdistrict
and municipality governance, as well as authority in certain other fields of
governance.” 13 Second, provinces will have “authority that is not or not yet able to
be exercised by district and municipality.” Third, provinces will retain their status
as ‘administrative territories’ (wilayah administrasi) through which they will “hold
authority in areas of governance that are delegated to the Governor in his role as
representative of the [Central] Government.”
This third clause reflects a fundamental tension within the decentralization
process, as framed by Law 22/1999. Indeed, during the Soeharto era, the New
Order regime’s regional government legislation had developed “a rather complex
arrangement of parallel administrations for autonomy and deconcentrated regional
government”, which was “clearly indicative of the effort to devise counterweights
for autonomous government” (Niessen 1999). Under the New Order system of
regional governance, both provinces and districts were defined to be simultaneously
‘autonomous regions’ and ‘administrative territories’. In each case, the Head of the
Region (Kepala Daerah) – i.e. the Governor for provinces, the Bupati for districts,
and the Mayor for municipalities – was responsible to the President through the