Decentralize to save the forest
Luca Tacconi, Senior Economist, Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bogor
In recent times the media has carried a number of stories about the government's reforestation program. While this is a laudable initiative, given the current governance problems affecting the management of Indonesian forests and forest land, the initiative may prove unviable.
The government intends to spend Rp 12.7 trillion to reforest 3 million hectares of degraded land over 5 years. In 2003, Rp 1.2 trillion will be spent in an attempt to replant 300,000 hectares. The program will be implemented soon even if it is not yet clear what its real goals are, how it will be implemented and monitored, and what accountability mechanisms will be put into place.
Indonesia has some 100 million hectares of forest and it loses about two million hectares every year, an area almost four times the size of Bali. Reforesting 3 million hectares over five years will have a relatively small impact on national forest cover. Over five years, on the basis of current trends some 10 million hectares of forest will be lost due to a range of causes, including illegal logging.
The benefits of a reforestation program would be mainly felt at the local level. But what are these supposed benefits? Until appropriate assessments of target degraded areas are prepared, it is impossible to say whether any benefits, such as improved watershed functions, will be derived from reforestation.
Without specific assessments of local conditions it is not even known if reforestation is the most appropriate land use of supposedly degraded lands.
Decentralization is needed to improve the management of forests and to ensure the success of any reforestation program. There is a need to make local assessments of environmental conditions, current land uses, preferred land uses, and best approaches to improving the environmental conditions and the productivity of degraded lands.
Decentralized administration, close to the local situation, would not only facilitate these assessments but are also more likely to be able to monitor progress and find more effective ways of managing forests and forest land.
The forest legislation that gives authority over forest management to the central government needs to be rewritten. It conflicts not only with the spirit of the decentralization legislation. But also with the Indonesian Constitution's recognition of the need for "broad decentralization" of functions including forestry, as noted in a recent report from the World Bank.
District and provincial governments should be given authority and clear functions relating to forest management. If this does not happen, reforestation efforts will fail, large sums of money will be wasted, and deforestation will continue unchecked.
However, authority and functions attributed to the regional governments should be matched by clear environmental standards to make them accountable to both their citizens and the central government.
Many countries, such as Turkey, Australia and the United Kingdom, have performance standards for local governments. The need to establish environmental performance reporting was recognized at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro over 10 years ago.
Local reforestation initiatives should have clear goals, be scientifically sound, and have clearly established progress indicators. They should be monitored over time, and the outcomes made available to the public.
It is not sufficient to say contractors for reforestation programs will be selected through tender. Without full transparency, contractors could win the tender and than do a terrible job at replanting and maintaining the trees. Or even worse, they could bribe public officials in order to avoid compliance with the terms of the tender.
Environmental standards for regional governance should also address the maintenance of a certain level of forest cover. If a percentage of central government funds to regional governments was tied to environmental performance, they would have an incentive to perform, and to address the illegal logging problem among other issues.
Decentralization of forest management would allow the Ministry of Forestry to redirect its efforts towards monitoring the performance of regional governments and providing them with advice and support.
If designed and implemented well, decentralization could provide a more appropriate system of checks and balances. It would also be an important step towards halting the loss of some two million hectares of forest and trillions of rupiah in revenue every year.