Local policy-making mechanisms - Forest Climate Center

Sudirman, Dede Wiliam and Nely Herlinaconvened a Local Advisory Group (LAG)with policy makers including the Governor ofJambi, District Head of Tanjabbar, Head of theProvincial Forestry Office, Head of the DistrictForestry Office, Head of the Bappeda Tanjabbar,Legal Bureau of the Tanjabbar GovernmentSecretariat, District Revenue Office (Dispenda)and members of the district parliament. We heldregular meetings with our LAG, and conductedseparate one-to-one qualitative interviews withmembers and other relevant stakeholders. Inaddition to these activities we held FGDs onissues related to forestry and decentralizationwith academics, NGOs, the press and otherrelevant stakeholders (every two months in2003), Walhi and Media Jambi (Daily News)and at the Provincial Forestry Office.Using advice and access to informationgenerated by these regular contacts, secondarydata on impacts was collected from relevantgovernment records and literary reviews ofrelevant documents including legal reviews,academic papers and articles in the broadcastand print media.More importantly, our analysis of theimpacts of these policies was also basedon local participant observation, FGDs andqualitative interviews with local communitiesin the four selected villages i.e., Penyabungan,Lubuk Kambing, Lubuk Bernai and Suban,to understand the interests and needs of localpeople in relation to the new small-scale forestconcession permit system.We gathered primary data from stakeholdersat the village level to see how the policies playedout on the ground in relation to operations,permit applications and the process for grantingand allocating permits. FGDs were used as astrategy to encourage discussion and debateand flush out the different views and opinionswithin local communities. Three FGDs withvillage members took place in March and June2003. These were followed by facilitated policydialogues with village members in February,April and May 2004.Finally, we held two workshops, one atprovincial level and one at district level, in2004. The purpose of these workshops was todisseminate the results of the research and tofacilitate multi-stakeholder negotiations basedon further inputs and feedback. We hope thatthis approach will help increase policy makers’awareness and acknowledgement of localopinions on the impacts of the new policies.2.4 Stakeholder AnalysisDuring the initial stage of this research (2002–2003), we conducted a stakeholder analysisto identify the relationships and dynamicsbetween different groups.The stakeholder analysis also helped toidentify future possibilities for improvingthe local communities’ access to benefits anddecision making related to forestry in their area.A diagram was produced illustrating differentstakeholders and their forestry-based interests(Figures 2 and 3).From this stakeholder analysis we are ableto see the relative level of access to forestrybenefits enjoyed by each stakeholder; these aresummarized from highest to lowest below:- Highest, central government, forestrysector business owners, plantation sectorbusiness owners and holders of Permits toUse Timber Forest Products in PrivatelyOwned Forests (IPHHKR permit issuedby district government);- Second, district and provincialgovernments, district and provincialparliaments and local NGOs, for exampleJIC (Joint Investigation Committee)Justice, an NGO in Jambi that is influentialwith decision makers;- Third, the village administration (thevillage head), security personnel and themilitary;- Fourth, Subdistrict officials, the BPD,environmental NGOs (e.g. Walhi) anduniversities;- Lowest, village members and adat(customary) representatives, who arethe group with the least access to forestresource benefits.As for access to forestry policy making,our stakeholder map for Tanjabbar shows7