Forest as a Cultural Resource to Function as a School of Democracy: Challenges for Collaborative Forest Governance in West Kutai District of East Kalimantan
Makoto Inoue (University of Tokyo)
In West Kutai District, a working group for district forest management (hereinafter KK-PKD) was established in 2000 as an advisory body when the first governor was elected. The group consisted of various stakeholders such as government officials, representatives of the local people, scholars, private company, and NGOs, which can be regarded as “multi-stakeholder approach”. The group proposed 52 actions plans in 2001, which should be implemented within 10 years; drafted the local ordinance for district forest management in 2002; and drafted the local ordinance for implementation of community forestry program in 2003. Now the district should go on to the next step, or implementation of these programs and action plans.
The efforts made by the governor and forest service of West Kutai District of East Kalimantan was admirable, because the establishment of policy-making system with multi-stakeholders approach was quite rare in the region where abundant forests with high commercial value still existed. Usually in other regions and countries, such system was established after the bulk of forests have deteriorated.
The system of West Kutai District could be regarded as Collaborative Forest Governance (CFG), which is a democratic system to use and manage the local forest through collaboration among local people, businesses, citizens, NGOs/NPOs, and administrative authorities. The author proposes two principles such as “open localism” and “involvement principle” in order to ensure CFG. In order to establish reliable CFG, some problems should be tackled. We could find out a brand new value of the forest. Now forest, as a cultural resource, just started.
