During COP 13 in Bali, the Government of Indonesia officially showed interest in REDD (Reduced Emission from Deforestation in Developing Countries) schemes, which offer financial rewards for activities that reduce CO2 emissions from clearing, converting, or degrading forests. If current emissions are multiplied with current prices for emission reduction credits, a very high value (about US$1.8 billion/year) can be calculated as an upper limit. The dollar signs in the eyes of stakeholders, however, are not necessarily beneficial in helping to see what it will take to make it work. Lack of performance rather than lack of funds may well be the primary constraint. The mechanisms will have to be realistic (dealing with the real causes and drivers), conditional (performance based), and voluntary (providing sustainable benefits along the value chain of involved stakeholders). Current forestry laws and institutions in Indonesia were not designed to deal with a benefit distribution mechanism from REDD incentives, but they will form the background for discussions on who has a right to benefit, and who has the resources and power to obstruct others from benefiting.
Tag: land policies
As clear as mud: understanding the root of conflicts and problems in Indonesia’s land tenure policy
The Ministry of Forestry (MoF) has designated 120 million ha of forest as state forest (kawasan hutan), corresponding to 62% of the total land surface of Indonesia. The MoF has legal authority to plan and regulate all forest tenure and to use its arrangement in its jurisdiction. Meanwhile, the MoF jurisdiction to designate the state forest plays its part to the confusion paradigm between state rights and customary (adat) rights on controlling forestland. The confusion derived from different perceptions about customary forest from different laws, Basic Forestry Law 1999 (BFL 1999) and Basic Agrarian Law (BAL 1960). The BFL 1999 categorized customary forest as state forest, that is state forest of which the management is delegated to customary communities. Meanwhile, the Basic Agrarian Law 1960 (BAL 1960) provide more recognition by separating the customary rights from the state, equally to other four legal rights such as the right to own (hak milik), the right to cultivate state land (hak guna usaha), the right to build and own building (hak guna bangunan), and the right to use or collect products from state or private land for a certain period (hak pakai). The government unwillingly to solve this confusion as the MoF has the justification to control all the forestland based on ecology reason such as hydrology, biodiversity and nowadays climate change. The paper argues that these ecology reasons become the foundation for the MoF to designate and control the state forest and help the environmentalis t interests to preserve threatened resources and habitats, supporting the MoF’s legitimacy to control all forest land, but contributing to the disenfranchisement of customary people to resource claims, the people’s poverty and the confusion of customary forest recognition. The more confusing, the more legitimating for the MoF.