Yurdi Yasmi: Social Justice in Asia-Pacific Region – Why are Rights so Important to Ensure Benefits for Forest-Dependent People?

A critical question

After four decades of social movement and community forestry programs in the Asia-Pacific region, it is about time to ask a simple and yet critical question: will forests in the region ever provide sufficient and tangible benefits to local people? Over 400 million people in the region live in and around the forests and their livelihoods are heavily dependent on forest resources. They earn less than $2 a day. Some would argue that forests should be able to provide benefits to those people as the region has a huge forest area (740 million ha). However, reality tells us quite a different story.

Forest for people – between hope and reality

We may recall that the United Nations International Year of Forests 2011 chose the theme ‘Celebrating Forests for People,’ which was applauded by many as it brought attention to those communities living in forests. In fact, ‘forests for people’ is not a new discourse. In 1978, the World Forestry Congress in Jakarta had the same theme. Now, 35 years later, we must ask ourselves: how much progress has been made? Are local forest people now playing a more active role in forest management? Are they benefiting from forests and forestry? Around 67% of forest land in Asia is administered by government and only 25% is designated for use and/or owned by communities and Indigenous Peoples. Most of the forests designated for use or owned by local communities and Indigenous Peoples have little to no commercial value.  Moreover, the processes for obtaining titles for forest ownership or recognition of forest rights entail a number of administrative and regulatory barriers that local communities and Indigenous Peoples are ill-equipped to undertake.  For communities who have lived in these forests for generations, the inadequacy of the government to resolve land disputes and properly title and secure land rights has been a long standing injustice.

More rights, but still not enough

The picture is not entirely gloomy, though. There are signs of progress on many fronts. Not long ago, it was almost impossible to even talk openly about rights and tenure reform. Nowadays, countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Nepal, China and others are taking measures to strengthen tenure reform with promising signs of progress. Today, a quarter of the Asia’s forests are under some form of community management, a trend likely to continue. In the last two decades, communities and local people have played a key role in the rehabilitation of degraded land in China, Indonesia and Vietnam. Forest cover is increasing. Examples of good community forest management continue to grow, shoring up the argument that communities are good stewards of forests. At the same time, there are growing experiences in best practices forest management by local communities and this trend will continue to grow. There is an increased awareness of the role of forest in climate change mitigation and adaptation. Huge amount of resources have been committed to support mitigation and adaptation efforts. This is a real opportunity for our region to improve forest governance and ensure that local communities benefit from those schemes. But this is all endangered unless we, as civil society, continue to push government institutions to address the basic fundamentals of social injustice.

Answering the question – “yes, but …”

Let’s revisit the question I posed earlier. I am afraid the answer to that question is what commonly known already, “Yes forest can provide tangle benefits to the poor, but only if we do the following:”

• Strengthen rights and tenure  reform and allow access to good quality forests to local communities
• Reform forest policies and regulations, make policies less complicated and simple
• Strengthen civil society and network
• Partnership with private sector
• Support capacity building for strengthening community engagement in forest management

While state forest management has improved in the last decade, there are still a lot of issues to be addressed to make it socially and economically beneficial to local communities. Corruption, lack of transparency and accountability remain an issue in the region. Like it or not, many countries in the region are categorized at the bottom of the table of Corruption Perception Index released annually by Transparency International. Participation of wider stakeholders in public discourse still needs to be enhanced.

‘Forests for People’ will become a reality in the near future only if we provide concrete opportunities for local people in commercial forestry and enterprise development so that they can generate more income.  This is a crucial base on which future progress must be built. It means that the future of Asian forests will very much rely on how communities and local people are engaged in sustainable forest management. Community forestry, boosted by an enabling policy environment, is key to solving current and emerging challenges both at a national level and for local communities and indigenous people. Forests for People can be a reality, not just a slogan. I hope the Conference in Interlaken will continue to debate this issue and find constructive solutions that will work both for forests and communities.

*Yurdi Yasmi is a scientist and co-coordinator for the Humidtropics Central Mekong based at ICRAF in Hanoi. Before joining ICRAF, he was the Head of Research and Capacity Building at RECOFTC, in Bangkok. He had previously worked for CIFOR (Indonesia) and Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He has over 15 years of experience in forest policy and governance. The ideas presented in the blog are his own and do not represent the view of ICRAF.