'Traditions' of Forest Control in Java: Implications for Social Forestry and Sustainability

Ideally, social forestry programmes and philosophies are intended to involve local people in the management and distribution of forest resources. In practice, the structures of social forestry programmes are influenced by political, economic and cultural factors at national and local levels. When social forestry programmes entail the reallocation of access to forest resources on state lands, power relations are particularly influential. As the case of the Java Social Forestry Program illustrates, powerful social forces that have shaped historically the national forest management agency and the social structures of forest-based villages have distorted social forestry ideals. When their traditional management tools are unable to curb deforestation and the social processes causing deforestation, forestry agencies may be persuaded to implement social forestry policies. Changes in forestry programmes and the orientation of social forestry are inevitably subject to local negotiation and renegotiation. The outcomes of negotiation, however, are dependent on the structures of power relations both before and after implementation of new policies.