Decentralization of Forest Administration in Indonesia, Implications ...

Preface
Indonesia is currently entering a new era of governance. After more than three
decades of being under a highly centralized system, the central government has
issued several important pieces of legislation aimed at transferring authority to
the provincial and district governments, and at allowing resource-rich regions to
retain a larger share of the fiscal revenues generated within their jurisdictions. The
foundations for decentralizing Indonesia’s highly centralized governance system
were laid out in Law No. 22/1999 on Regional Governance and Law No. 25/1999
on Fiscal Balancing between the Central and Regional Governments, both of which
were issued in May 1999.
Since the late 1990s, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)
has realized the importance of decentralization issues as they relate to forestry in
Indonesia. Several research projects carried out since 1997 have shown the increasing
role of regional government in decision-making regarding forests. Based on these
observations, CIFOR decided to carry out specific studies on decentralization in
Indonesia.
The first wave of research was carried out in 2000 under the topic
“Decentralization of policy making and management affecting the forests of
Indonesia”. The research was undertaken in nine districts in four provinces---Riau,
West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan and East Kalimantan; and was mainly focused
on documenting the changes during the transition period before decentralization
was formally implemented in Indonesia. Since 2002, additional research has been
carried out under the theme, “Can decentralization work for forests and the poor?”,
which applied policy action research intended to help inform policy decision making.
In addition to the abovementioned provinces, the research was also carried out in
South Sulawesi, Jambi and Papua. CIFOR research has involved working with multistakeholder
networks in gathering and sharing detailed social, legal, economic and
ecological analyses of the impacts of decentralization on forestry and the poor.
Each of the chapters in this book is structured to focus on processes that have
occurred at the district and, to a lesser extent, the provincial levels. In the meantime,
more general information on the history of forest administration and forestry sector
development in Indonesia is provided, as well as significant national policy and legalregulatory
reforms associated with decentralization. This book attempts to describe
in general what has been taking place in Indonesia since 1999, based mainly on case
studies developed by CIFOR and its partners over the last seven years. The book
highlights the historical background preceding formal decentralization in Indonesia
as well as discussing key issues in which decentralization delivers impacts on forests
and providing some lessons learned.
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