Local Stewardship: Best Bet for Saving Java's Remaining Forest Reserves

Survival of one of Java's last remaining biologically-rich natural forests will depend as much on incentives for community stewardship as it does on traditional government conservation programs, say CGIAR scientists working in the Indonesian archipelago.

Java's largest remaining block of primary forest, a 700-square kilometer reserve in the Gunung Halimun National Park, is considered crucial to safeguarding drinking water supplies in nearby Jakarta.

The area is under intense pressure from population growth and efforts to use the land for farming and government tree plantations.

"The well-being of the Park's biodiversity and watershed functions depend on the ability of local farmers to make effective use of state-managed production forests that surround the reserve," says Meine van Noordwijk, regional coordinator of the World Agroforestry Centre's Southeast Asia office.

Research has shown that supporting local people to plant fruit and other productive tree species in areas designated as production forests can provide the incentives villagers lost when access to the land was taken by the government in the 1970.

"Before the Suharto era, the Park's production forests were managed reasonably well by local people. If you look carefully, you can see where they once planted tea, coffee and fruit trees," he says.

Van Noordwijk fears, however, that unless steps are taken soon to help farmers increase productivity within the Park's production forest, and provide legal access to the land so local people have incentives to plant fruit and timber trees, it's unlikely that the natural forest reserve can be maintained.

Incentives that lead to good stewardship, Van Noordwijk adds, are most likely to result from systematic negotiations between local communities, park managers, and local government. World Agroforestry Centre is working with a variety of partners to identify the social and biophysical causes of conflicts arising over the Park's land tenure policies.

"Our objective is to use research results to help facilitate constructive dialogue based upon a scientific understanding of the problem," Van Noordwijk says. "For example, by understanding both why and how farmers plant their trees and manage the soil, we've been able to calculate the positive impacts that agroforestry has on the Park's watershed functions."

Non-Native Pine Forests

The situation in the Park is extremely fluid say officials from the Indonesian Institute for Forest and Environment, and the NGO Forest Watch International -- both of whom collaborate closely with World Agroforestry Centre.

Pine tree plantations planted during the Suharto era and recently transferred to the Park's jurisdiction have not only displaced native species, but have no value to local people and are being cut down illegally by villagers, often in collusion with forest company guards.

Without an agreement between local communities and the Park's managers that allows villagers to grow both food and tree crops, it is only a matter of time before people start moving from the pine plantations into the forest reserve.

"There are a number of things that can be done to reverse the situation," says Tree Domestication Specialist James Roshetko. "The first is to develop extension methods and technologies that help farmers improve the productivity of naturalized and indigenous tree species. The second is to demonstrate how better management of trees translates into cash."

Roshetko, who holds a joint appointment with the World Agroforestry Centre and Winrock International, is testing extension methods in a project with farmers in Nangung, a sub-district of some 15,000 households that sits directly on the park's southern border.

"We look at the commodity chain all the way from production to the consumer," Roshetko says. "The objective is to help farmers understand the demands of the markets, avoid its pitfalls, and capitalize on its strengths."

Farmers in Nangung say they don't manage their trees intensively because they lack markets, Roshetko notes, a notion strongly seconded by local farm leaders. The project, which is financed by the United States Agency for International Development, includes training for farm leaders and NGO staff, identification of priority tree species, development of profit-boosting management practices, as well rapid market appraisals.

Deal Halts Evictions

Questions remain, however, as to who actually has the right to develop the Park's production areas. Farmers claim, for example, that they are the traditional stewards of the land and had access before the Suharto regime, but were never given official title. Government foresters, however, are skeptical of the claims and are unsure if local communities can adequately care for the land.

"What we've learned through research is that the interests of local people and the government's need to maintain the integrity of the watershed frequently coincide," says Chip Fay, ICRAF Forest Policy Analyst.

Fay is an expert in "negotiation support." He helps equip local communities with the information to find common ground with powerful government agencies. "One of the principals of negotiation support is to use science-based research results to eliminate preconceptions and help the negotiating parties deal with the social and biological reality on the ground," Fay says.

Studies conducted by World Agroforestry Centre in Lampung demonstrated that the government's argument that coffee production leads to sedimentation and silting of nearby rivers were often without basis. As it turned out, farmers are willing to grow tree species acceptable to the government, but would only do so if they had assurances that they would not be evicted." Fay's research is supported by the UK's Department for International Development (DfID). Fay adds that 15 similar efforts are now underway and that he and his colleagues are working to reduce the time required to broker an agreement from the 18 months required in the Lampung settlement, to just 2 or 3 months.

"Right now we're collaborating with the Indonesian Institute for Forest and Environment to document the history of the land in the Halimun reserve and reassure Park officials that tree farming is not going to have an adverse affect on the watershed.

Systematic support for the negotiation process, Fay adds, begins at the local level to correct misconceptions and solve problems as close to the source as possible. Central government should only be encouraged to enter the process when all other options have been exhausted. World Agroforestry Centre enriches the dialogue, he says, by providing research result that target the social and biological questions being addressed by the negotiators.

Indonesian Forests in Decline

"The need to deepen the science of negotiation support and to scale-up its application is extremely urgent, adds Dennis Garrity, Director General, World Agroforestry Centre.

Garrity, who spent more than a decade working in Indonesia, notes that Indonesian and World Bank officials recently reported that the health of the country's forests was far worse than previously thought and that if deforestation continues at current rates, Indonesia will soon cease to be a major supplier of wood products.