Indonesia

Productive and profitable forests have long encouraged decision makers in the country to prioritize economic growth over local rights. 

Indonesia is widely known for its vast swaths of tropical rainforest, but less known for the 80 million people who depend on them — roughly equivalent to the entire population of Vietnam. Community-based forest management has existed in Indonesia for hundreds of years, but efforts to mainstream it in national forestry policy have only recently begun.

Unfortunately, these efforts have faced enormous challenges. Indonesia's profitable commercial forestry sector has long encouraged the government to prioritize economic growth and state revenue over forest conservation and the rights and livelihoods of forest-dependent people. This has led to devastating forest loss, conflicts over land use and ownership, and violation of customary rights.

Today, around 700,000 hectares of forest is lost annually as a result of poor governance, illegal logging, land clearance, deliberate and uncontrolled fires, and conversion to other uses.

The rise of REDD+ and new payments systems for forests may change the reasons why the country's forests are valuable, but the high monetary stakes may continue to steal attention from local people's rights and livelihood security.

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Community forestry in IndonesiaChallenges for Indonesia

RECOFTC's Work in Indonesia

RECOFTC has been directly involved in Indonesia since 1998, in response to requests by the Ford Foundation and other donors. Since that time, we have taught nearly 300 Indonesian nationals through international training courses and have held dozens of national-level workshops and training events. More recently, RECOFTC has been supporting forest users in South Sulawesi, including the country's first officially recognized Village Forest in Bantaeng.

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Our Work in IndonesiaForest Governance Learning Group