PART VI

COMMUNITY FOREST MANAGEMENT

IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

In the Philippiness forest cover has fallen from 70 percent of the land cover in 1900 to only 20 percent today, with less than 3 percent old growth forest remaining. In Indonesia, over 65 million hectares of forestland has been leased to a small group of companies. Since the 1970s, 46 million hectares have been deforested, primarily through industrial timber harvesting, plantation establishment, fire, and migrant farmers who follow logging roads into the forest. Of Vietnam's 17 million hectares of officially designated forestland, only 1.5 million is classified as being in good condition. Nearly 70 percent of Cambodia's forests have been leased to ten to twenty major logging concessions, yet the government is able to capture only 10 percent of the potential timber revenues from both legal and illegal operations.

Of all the shortcomings of the state forest management paradigm, one of the greatest consequences has been the disempowerment of highly localized, community-based systems of forest use and control. In the past century, as the role of communities in forest management has been eroded through state nationalization and industrial use, an estimated 360 million hectares, or approximately one-half of the region's forested area, has been lost. The increasing influence of government, the nationalization of forests, and the leasing of logging rights to concessionaires have all contributed to the erosion of community-based resource controls and the displacement of local systems of forest management in many parts of Southeast Asia.

Upland dwellers have been stigmatized as illegal encroachers or squatters on state land, irresponsible practitioners of slash and bum agriculture, and criminals subverting the state. National leaders, urban populations, and the dominant lowland majority often view forest dwellers and ethnic minorities as culturally backward, illiterate primitives whose only salvation lay in the abandonment of traditional lifestyles in favor of integration. As industrial logging has grown in volume and extent, local communities are often used as scapegoats for the ensuing forest loss. Swidden fanning systems are poorly understood and frequently demonized as the primary cause of deforestation. Many early upland policies and programs focus on resettling forest communities or forcing local residents to abandon long rotation agricultural practices. Today forest peoples are often among the poorest members of the society and, because of their isolation, have less access to markets, jobs, education, and health services. They are often poorly represented in political circles. Disempowered and impoverished, many forest communities are vulnerable to powerful government and private sector interests seeking to take control over their local resources.

PERSPECTIVES ON STAKEHOLDERS

While the failure to meaningfully involve communities in forest management has been identified as an important underlying cause of deforestation in Southeast Asia, as well as in other parts of the world, progress in addressing this problem has been constrained by the diverse, often conflicting perspectives of forest sector stakeholders. A brief review of the various stakeholder positions in government, international development banks, bilateral assistance agencies, private sector, the civil society, and forest-dependent communities follows. Important issues emerging in this report are summarized at the conclusion of each stakeholder discussion.

GOVERNMENT

In the past decade, Southeast Asian governments have begun to explore ways to extend greater recognition of the rights of communities over forests. The process is complex, both legally and operationally, and, as a consequence, progress in devolving rights has been slow. Few governments have been able to demonstrate the political commitment to tackle the problem of forest tenure insecurity. And where the efforts have been sincere, as in the Philippines, political changes, vested interests, and conflicting policies often undermine headway. While national governments and communities possess many legitimate objectives for forest management, such as watershed protection, biodiversity conservation, sustaining local communities, creating jobs, supplying raw materials to industry, generating hydropower, and attracting foreign exchange, inevitably some management goals take precedence over others. Sometimes, the development goals in one sector are not compatible or are in direct conflict with those from another sector. These fundamental conflicts, that are demonstrably present in national and international development policies and programs, have slowed and undermined efforts to engage communities in managing the region's natural forests.

Many government policymakers face two distinctly different forest management options: one that prioritizes macroeconomic development based on open markets and the attraction of foreign capital and another based on decentralized models of community management. While free trade and supportive foreign investment policies are widely supported by governments and development agencies, planners are also aware that achievements in macroeconomic growth needed to be balanced with the requirements of the rural poor and the environment. Throughout the 1980s, the growing voice of community activists and conservationists stressed the rights of forest-dependent peoples and the protection of the rich forest ecosystems of the region. Hundreds of millions of dollars in development assistance began flowing into Southeast Asia in the form of social forestry projects, sustainable upland development initiatives, non-timber forest product studies, community wood lot initiatives, and national protected area strategies. Based on numerous studies, pilot projects, reviews, and workshops, a clear picture of the tenuous position of forest-based communities came into focus. Initial perceptions that linked upland deforestation and poverty primarily to inappropriate swidden farming technologies and under capitalization, were found to be faulty. Development planners and project managers came to see the wisdom of NGOs and researchers who insisted that an underlying cause of deforestation was the absence of forest tenure rights and responsibilities formally granted by government to resident communities.

• While most government forest and land policies provide limited or no recognition of traditional tenure systems or indigenous forest management institutions, when governments do provide some recognition our case studies show that it enhances the stability of local groups and the natural environment. By including forest-dependent communities in the management process, opportunities for utilizing the largest stakeholder group that has the most to gain from sustainable forest management is maximized.
• Government forestry agencies are in varying stages of transition in developing the policies, attitudes, and capacities to support community forest managers, rather than attempting to directly manage the forest alone. Yet, forest departments confront a dilemma when political pressure and development agencies require they transfer their authority to local communities. In each nation, some forestry professionals are moving forward with devolution processes while others resist.
• Government recognition of the ancestral domain claims of indigenous peoples has been a significant step toward clarifying resource rights, and with appropriate supportive programs, should help stabilize upland watersheds.
• Government policies and programs that have allocated state forestlands to households that are suitable for agroforestry development have often successfully encouraged local investment.
• Attempts to resettle lowland people in upland watersheds and forest areas have frequently created conflicts with local residents and resulted in accelerating forest clearing.
• Government sponsored efforts to engage villagers in mapping local forestlands have helped clarify management territories, reducing the chance of future conflict between communities and with outside actors. Community forest mapping methodologies are being developed in the Philippines, Laos, Thailand, and Indonesia that could provide a process for nationwide public land reform, if made a national priority.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT BANKS AND BI-LATERAL AGENCIES

Development agencies are struggling to clarify their own strategies in dealing with rural communities and resource management. As this report goes to press, the World Bank is reviewing its international forest sector policy, as well as its forest program support strategies in Cambodia, Indonesia, and several other countries in Asia, with substantial input from selected NGOs. Community forestry is prominent on the agenda. Yet, while participatory management and resource conservation have gained popularity with donor agencies in recent years, donors overwhelming accept the logic and legitimacy of the state management paradigm and regard industrial logging as a necessary, if not highly desirable component.

There is growing recognition by development agencies that policy reforms and programs need to give greater emphasis to the role of forest-dependent peoples as natural resource stewards, but other strategic and operational priorities of development agencies may conflict with this goal. The $60 billion IMF loan to Indonesia, for example, discourages the clearing of additional forestland in the country but, at the same time, demands that all restrictions on oil palm plantation expansion be eliminated. The World Bank voices concerns over the conditions of forest-dependent peoples in Cambodia, but also helps government planners to run industrial logging operations more efficiently and secure a better revenue stream from large-scale extractive enterprises. While multilateral agencies are concerned about ways to enhance a recipient nation's financial position, especially after the devastating region-wide economic recession of the past two years, these short-term gains may carry significant social and environmental costs in the future.

Bilateral agencies are under pressure to demonstrate that their development investments generate local employment and income. The USAID emphasis on income generation pushed project managers to accelerate timber extraction in Lianga Bay in eastern Mindanao, resulting in overcutting of community-managed forests. The Finnida/World Bank FOMACOP project in Lao PDR is attempting to bring community forest managers into commercial timber production within two years, even though communities need time to reach consensus regarding their own forest management goals as well as to develop new skills. While many rural development projects have attempted to integrate communities into commercial timber harvesting operations, few have succeeded. For the most part, the forest requirements and use systems of local residents are not compatible with the goals of industrial logging operations. More generally, it is apparent that differences exist between the goals of development agencies and their administrative needs, and the views and capabilities of many forest-dependent communities. Even more problematic, development agencies have little capacity to encourage community forest management in the absence of a supportive legal framework. While development agencies have been successful in encouraging some Southeast Asian countries to experiment with forest policies that extend greater management rights to rural communities, ultimately donors have limited authority to shape national policies. Some important issues regarding the international development bank's and bi-lateral agency's perspective are highlighted as follows:

• Multilateral development banks have conflicting policies regarding their management approach to natural forestlands and forest-dependent peoples. Encouraging the removal of barriers to foreign investment in natural resource extraction, while financing projects to promote forest conservation and community management, are often in conflict. Greater internal policy consistency within these organizations regarding forestry sector strategies would enhance the impact and effectiveness of investments.
• Development assistance agencies operating in Southeast Asia are demonstrating increasing interest in community forest management and are shifting their emphasis from technical issues and questions of financial investments to place greater importance on forestland conflicts, tenure issues, and sectoral policy failures and needed reforms.
• Development assistance agencies are increasingly cooperating to share information and discuss modes of collaboration to help national governments transition from dominant state forest paradigms to community-based forest management strategies. Establishing ongoing mechanisms for stakeholder dialogues would facilitate information exchange and provide a better platform for collaboration.

PRIVATE SECTOR

At the same time, small operators are often quite stable and respond to domestic market demands. In such cases they may be critical links in the supply of raw materials to furniture makers, carpenters, and other industries. Due to their limited political and economic influence, small private companies involved in timber and non-timber forest production are often unable to compete with larger corporations. When national agencies crackdown on private sector timber operators, it is often the smaller companies that suffer. This appears to have occurred recently in Cambodia when several hundred small saw mills were closed. Some governments and non-governmental organizations are attempting to encourage the private sector to respond to the needs of forest-dependent peoples and have adopted more sustainable forestry practices through negotiating both mandatory and voluntary codes of conduct. In Java, the State Forest Corporation has sought and received certification from the Forest Stewardship Council after Smartwood, a private certification firm, conducted a field assessment and review. Such mechanisms may provide opportunities for stakeholders with different goals to find a basis for collaboration. Some important issues regarding the private sector's perspective are highlighted as follows:

• Transnational timber corporations, especially those that rely on migratory practices to dodge government regulations and maximize profits, are a significant threat to forest-dependent communities and the natural environment.
• Smaller wood and non-timber forest processing and marketing companies can be important components of the local economy, providing opportunities for trade. Such private sector initiatives can establish viable, long-term relations with forest-dependent communities, offering a source of investment capital, technology, and markets.

CIVIL SOCIETY

The civil society is an emerging stake-holder in the forest policy debate. A diverse group of NGOs, including conservation associations, environmental groups, media, human rights organizations, religious bodies, and many others are all increasingly engaged in the forest management dialogue. Over the past 10 years, forest management issues are becoming a growing topic of public debate in many Southeast Asian countries, as deforestation impacts not only the 100 million upland residents of the region, but an even greater number of people downstream. Inhabitants of Manila experience power shortages and brownouts while Bangkok residents march in the streets over corrupt logging practices. Thailand's leaders were forced to cancel 300 forest leases in 1989 after a public outcry, and the Philippines and Indonesia have already closed many logging concessions due, in part, to public opposition. Urban-based environmental groups have become important lobbies in Thailand and the Philippines, with similar movements evolving in neighboring countries. Some important issues regarding the civil society's perspective are highlighted as follows:

• Grassroots NGOs, university-based researchers, and the media are effectively assisting forest-dependent communities by aiding them in communicating their concerns and needs to governments and development agencies. In some cases this has involved establishing mechanisms for stakeholder dialogue and conflict mediation.
• Grassroots NGO and university-based researchers are providing an important service to communities and government by documenting community forest use practices and institutional arrangements. Empirical descriptive studies and field mapping provides an enhanced information base to facilitate the interface of formal systems of state forest management with community forest management systems.
• Urban-based conservation NGOs and the media are creating a civil society discourse regarding the importance of environmental protection and the need for sustainable management. In some cases, this movement is at odds with community forest management strategies, but in other national contexts it provides a basis for strategic political alliances.

FOREST-DEPENDENT COMMUNITIES

The case studies describe processes of networking and alliance building with neighbors, mediated dialogues with government, collaborative projects with NGOs, as well as internal community efforts to improve the sustainability of local forest use practices. While many forest communities are struggling to accommodate government, migrants, industry, and neighboring settlements they are also gaining their own, independent political voices. Recently, in March 1999, the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago (AMAN), a new organization of indigenous people based in Indonesia, met in the capitol to address the national congress airing their views on human rights and the impact of large-scale commercial plantations, logging, mining, and fishing. Over 200 participants from across Indonesia gathered to hold protests and speak to a panel of senior government officials including the Minister of Land Affairs, and high level officials from the Ministry of Forestry and the Department of Social Affairs. A brief summation of their statement was:

The AMAN statement went on to demand that the concept of state forest be eliminated and that new legislation be passed to recognize indigenous peoples' rights over natural resources in their customary lands. While few countries in Southeast Asia are currently prepared to entirely halt logging, abolish state forests, or proceed with comprehensive public land reform and the devolution of management rights to communities, it is clear that pressure for reform is building. Other types of associations and networks are being created throughout Southeast Asia to better represent the views of indigenous peoples, forest user groups, and upland residents during stakeholder dialogues. Some important issues regarding the forest-dependents communities' perspective are highlighted as follows:

• Communities place diverse values on forest environments and are interested in sustaining them for present and future generations.
• Communities are concerned over forest degradation, mounting resource pressures, and growing scarcities. The land and forest resources that support their livelihood and agricultural systems are being threatened by outside actors such as logging and mining companies, lowland migrants, government infrastructure development projects, as well as by neighboring communities.
• Communities seek to gain greater authority from government over local forest resources. Many communities are discussing how to enhance their tenure security through dialogues within the village and with neighbors. In some cases, communities are forming networks, federations, and other alliances to exchange information and represent their positions to government. Community resource organizations often draw on traditional cultural institutions, though new elements and alliances are also being developed.
• Communities are designing more intensive and restrictive rules of resource use in order to protect local forests and watersheds from overexploitation and encroachment. Regulations include prohibiting the sale of land to people from outside the village, banning commercial sale of timber from local forests, tighter bum controls, as well as restrictions on hunting.
• Communities are exploring ways to adapt agricultural and forestry related production systems to enhance income generation in ways that are sustainable and maintain the existing environment. This has led to diverse experimentation with agroforestry systems and in-situ forest manipulation for NTFP generation.

SUMMARY

The best opportunity to slow deforestation may well rest with the people who reside in the forest, and who are tied to the land by their very existence. With over 1,000 ethno-linguistic groups, Southeast Asia is a rich social mosaic of varied resource management traditions and practices. Communal irrigation associations exist in a diversity of forms, guiding the use of water in efficient and equitable ways. Myriad systems of agroforestry blend hundreds of species of trees, shrubs, climbers, and herbs in ingenious ways to maximize the use of light and space, and optimize productivity. Many swidden systems effectively balance agriculture with the larger forest environment, opening and closing small patches of canopy to create a dynamic landscape that has sustained the forest and its people for generations. In many parts of the Philippines, Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Burma, and Thailand, indigenous cultural communities retain effective leaders and active hamlet level institutions that play important roles managing water, land, and forest resources. The case studies presented in the preceding pages exemplify the rich knowledge base and long traditions of forest stewardship, and their current dynamic and adaptive strategies.

Over the last 10 to 15 years, a number of countries have begun designing new policies and programs that recognize the historic rights of indigenous communities, as well as the need of migrants for greater security for the forest upon which they depend. The social forestry pilot projects of the region in the early 1980s gradually evolved into a variety of nationwide projects. By the late 1990s, community-based forest management has become accepted as the primary strategy for uplands development in the Philippines. Vietnam continues to target households in forest stewardship programs. With a rudimentary administrative structure at the local level, planners in Lao PDR recognized that indigenous village governments provided the best option for local forest management, and ratified the Village Forest Law in 1998. In Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia, social forestry remains primarily a mix of donor-funded projects which promoters hope will eventually lead to formal government acknowledgement of community forest rights. Throughout the region, a rich body of knowledge is now surfacing regarding effective ways to support community-based forest management through new forest tenure policies, legal mechanisms, community mapping, and the dialogue process.

The supportive actions of NGOs, researchers, development programs, and government pilot projects have been critically important components in regional efforts to re-engage communities in forest management, as documented in the field experiences presented here. While there are no blueprints for involving communities as forest managers, the past ten years community forest management projects has yielded many lessons regarding strategies that facilitate participation and create strong systems of stewardship.

• The process of decision making about the disposition of the forest should be opened up to widespread participation by the most affected including women and indigenous peoples.
• Land and resource tenure arrangements should be reviewed to make them more conducive to conservation.
• Mechanisms need to be created that involve communities in monitoring what goes on in their local area.
• Local communities should be involved in all stages of planning and implementation of forestry projects.
• National and global governance structures need to be created that encourage transparency and redress corrupt practices.

In each country reviewed in this regional profile, steps are being taken to respond to the need for community engagement in forest management. Conclusions drawn from the report that may accelerate this process are as follows:

• Confront the shortcomings of the state forest management paradigm and give serious attention to public land reform on a national scale.
• Initiate a broad-based and transparent dialogue to create a clear vision and strategy for forest management. Until forest and watershed control issues are addressed, and the differing goals for management are clearly articulated and made compatible, many of the forest use strategies of local communities, governments, NGOs, development agencies, and the private sector will remain at odds.
• Develop clear legal frameworks that recognize community resource management institutions and their claim to forestlands.
• Provide governments with structural adjustment loans to repurchase logging concessions and eliminate competing claims of outsiders to forest resources, allowing forest-dependent communities to regain control of critical natural resources.
• Extend financial incentives to governments to reform forest sector policies in ways that respond to the needs of forest-dependent people.
• Provide technical and financial assistance to communities, NGOs, and governments attempting to stabilize forest resources through devolving greater resources rights and responsibilities to community groups.
• Support small private sector companies, with long term commitments to communities and local areas, through policies and programs that encourage their investment in sustainable resources production systems.
• Encourage NGOs and research institutions to facilitate stakeholder dialogues, conduct research, mediate conflicts, and develop participatory mapping programs and to train communities and government field staff in their use. The public media, NGOs, and research groups need assistance in developing monitoring programs to tract forest sector policy reforms and inform the civil society regarding progress in stabilizing the natural environment.
• Assist forest-dependent communities to develop watershed associations and federations that allow them to coordinate their activities with neighbors, reach consensus-based agreements, map their management territories, and resolve disputes.

Increasingly the role of communities in management is at the heart of national debates regarding the reform of public forest policies. Strategies to implement national community-based forest management are challenged by the reality that villages are complex social environments, often with multiple factions. Communities are dynamic. Villagers are experimenting with new modes of organizing and managing resources. While cultural traditions can foster group identity and provide continuity, they too are changing and adapting along with the larger society. It is counter productive to romanticize forest-dependent peoples, to exaggerate the capacities of their institutions, leaders, or technologies, and to overestimate their ability to sustain the regions' disappearing forests. But, they are the primary users and custodians of these endangered resources and are indeed endangered themselves. There is a critical need to clearly address the imbalances in forest resource control that have occurred in the past and to re-empower the communities of Southeast Asian as stewards of the region's forests.

Notes

1 For a detailed discussion of te Indonesian experience with state forestry see, John McCarthy, "Changing the Regime: Policy Failure, Forest Property and Reformasi in Indonesia" Development and Change, (forthcoming).

2 D. Bryant, D. Nielsen, and L. Tangley, The Last Frontier Forests (Washington, D.C,: World Resources Institute, 1997).

3 Personal communication from Charles Bailey, June 15, 1999

4 Personal communication from Tony La Vina, May 14, 1999

5 World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development, Our Forests, Our Future (Winnipeg, Canada: International Institute for Sustainable Development, 1999) p.65.

6 Ibid, p.66.

7 see John McCarthy "Changing the Regime: Policy Failure, Forest Property and Reformasi in Indonesia," Development and Change, (forthcoming) see also Mechael Dove, "So Farm From Power, So Near the Forest: A Structural Analysis of Gain and Blame in Tropical Forest Development," In C. Padoch and Nancy Peluso (eds.) Borneo in Transition: People, forests, Conservation and Development, (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press) 1996.

8 Indigenous Peoples Congress, "Statement by the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Archipelago," Jakarta, 25^th May, 1999

9 World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development, 1999

10 Ibid, p.25.

11 Personal communication from Pearmsak Makarabhirom, May 1, 1999

12 Personal communication from Romeo T. Acosta, March 23, 1999

13 Personal communication from Don Gilmour, June 30, 1999

CONTRIBUTORS

Suraya Affif is a doctoral student at the College of Natural Resources at the University of California at Berkeley. She has worked extensively with Indonesian environmental NGOs and is currently engaged in research in the Province of Aceh, Indonesia.

Karan Aquino is a Canadian CUSO volunteer and has been working with the Northern Development Foundation in Thailand since 1996. Karan has a master's degree in Development Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Claudia D'Andrea has an M.A. in Environmental Policy from the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. She is currently a doctoral student at the College of Natural Resources, University of California at Berkeley.

Jeff Campbell has a master's degree in Forestry from Yale University. He is currently a Ford Foundation program officer based in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Sara Colm has worked in Cambodia since 1992, when she helped to start the Phnom Penh Post newspaper. She has also worked as a human rights monitor and as an independent researcher, focusing on land rights, social impacts of concessions, and natural resource management issues in Cambodia's northeastern provinces.

Rachel Dechaineux is a field advisor to the IUCN Non-Timber Forest Products Project. She has extensive experience working with forest-dependent communities residing near or in protected areas.

Joost Foopes is the Chief Technical Advisor to the IUCN Non-Timber Forest Products Project. He and his counterpart have guided one of the most comprehensive studies of indigenous forest use systems in Laos.

Hubert de Foresta is a tropical forest and agroforest ecologist who has spent over a decade studying the Krui area. Dr. de Foresta is a scientist at the Research Institute for Development. He is currently on assignment with the Southeast Asia office of ICRAF in Bogor.

Jeff Fox holds a doctorate in geography from the University of Wisconsin. He has spent over twenty years studying community resource use systems in Asia. He is presently the Director of the Program on Environment at the East West Cent in Honolulu.

Doug Henderson has a broad background in natural resource management issues in Asia and the Pacific. He currently facilitates the Community Forest Management Working Group in Cambodia and advises many development agencies including the World Bank, IDRC, GTZ, and others.

Anan Kanchanapan is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Faculty of Social Science at Chiang Mai University. For over twenty years, Dr. Kanchanapan has studied systems of communal resource management in northern Thailand.

Southone Ketphanh is the National Project Coordinator of the IUCN sponsored Non-Timber Forest Product Project in the Department of Forestry in Lao PDR. Mr. Ketphanh has guided documentation teams currently studying local forest use systems in his country.

Karen E. Lawrence is the Asia Forest Network (AFN) program coordinator for Southeast Asia. She holds a master's degree in geography and spent the last five years with the Institute of Environmental Science for Social Change (ESSC) in Manila. She begins a doctoral program at Kings College, England in the fall.

Muayat Ali Muhshi is the Coordinator of the NGO Consortium for Supporting Community-based Forest Systems in Indonesia. He has played an important role in the Indonesian NGO community in building a consensus regarding policy steps that might lead to more sustainable forestry.

Mark Poffenberger is the Director of the Asia Forest Network. He holds a Ph.D. in Adult Education and Development Studies from the University of Michigan. He is currently series editor of the IUCN administered regional profile series on Community Involvement in Forest Management.

Thomas Sikor is a Ph.D. candidate at the Energy and Resources Group, University of California at Berkeley. He has conducted a number of studies in northwest Vietnam, as well as consulting for the World Bank and GTZ.

Kol Vathana is a staff member of the Department of Forestry and Wildlife of the Government of Cambodia. He is currently co-coordinator of the national Community Forest Management Working Group in Phnom Penh.

Peter Walpole, S.J. is the director of the Institute for Environmental Science for Social Change (ESSC), based in Manila, Philippines. He holds degrees in Geology and Environmental Science and is currently completing a doctorate at King's College, London, England.

LIST OF ACRONYMS

GLOSSARY OF TERMS