Local policy-making mechanisms - Forest Climate Center

Local Policy-making Mechanismscooperative? These questions must beduly considered in order to establish theappropriate norms in the regulations, aswell as to facilitate their implementation.4. District regulations must clarify the districtgovernment’s responsibility to invest localrevenues from forestry for the benefitsof villagers and local communities wholive in the area where the forest has beenexploited 31 . This emphasis will helpto ensure equitable distribution of thebenefits of locally-managed concessionsand to increase the welfare of the localcommunity.3.3.2 Areas and locations of the newsmall-scale IPHH concessionpermitsDistrict Regulation No. 13 IPHH states thatIPHHs can be issued to cooperatives as wellas to small and medium-scale businesses inpartnership with cooperatives in IndustrialTimber Plantation (HTI) areas withinproduction forests 32 . This district regulationalso states that a maximum of 100 ha will beprovided for cooperatives and a maximumof 20 ha for ‘individual’ permit applicants.These stipulations are unclear, leading to thefollowing uncertainties when it comes toimplementation:1. Uncertainty over the extent of a district’sauthority to issue permits.There is legal uncertainty about what shouldhappen if a permit application covers anarea located within two or more districts.The IPHH policy makes no provision forcases such as these, despite the fact thatnational legislation clearly states that ifa district permit application covers anarea located in more than one district,the authority for granting the permit lieswith the provincial government, namelyby giving authority to the provincialgovernor 33 . District regulations shouldset out clear rules to govern cross-districtpermit applications. This uncertainty hasthe potential to cause conflicts of authoritybetween the District of Tanjabbar and theprovincial government or neighbouringdistricts.2. The location assignment for IPHHcontradicts other regulations. Based ona decree from the Minister of Forestry inJakarta, small-scale concession permitsshould not be issued for areas alreadycovered by any other forestry permit.However, Tanjabbar’s concession policyallows IPHH concessions to be issuedon HTIs. This contradiction may lead tooverlaps and poor spatial planning as wellas to conflicts over which land-use permitsare considered legitimate on the ground.3.3.3 Enforcing district regulations(RHH, IPHH and IPHHI)The quality of legal drafting in TanjabbarDistrict’s regulations seriously limits the districtgovernment’s ability to enforce the provisionsin its own policies. In the first instance,these regulations do not clearly outline thesanctions that will be imposed or the actionsthat constitute violations of the law. Secondly,some of the sanctions defined in these policiesexceed the maximum punishments allowedunder prevailing national law. Finally, failure touse clearly defined legal terms and referencesmakes it difficult to interpret or establish howvarious sanctions should be applied or bywhom.Article 12 of District Regulation No. 13on IPHH stipulates that IPHH permit holdersare obliged to prevent forest fires withintheir IPHH concessions. Theoretically, theseobligations must be followed by ‘sanctions’when there is failure to prevent fires. However,the district regulation fails to define these‘sanctions’. Likewise, the regulation states thatpermits will be revoked if ‘a violation of lawsoccurs’ or if ‘the obligations are not fulfilledby the permit holders’, without defining permitholders’ obligations or specifying either thelaws or the type of violation that will lead tothe cancellation of a permit.Where sanctions are clearly defined, theyoften contradict national rules and regulations.For example District Regulation No. 15 on RHH16