Development of policy & institutional option
“Best bet” Land-use Systems
Country reports
Alternatives To Slash-And-Burn In Indonesia
Unique id: IDAZQYWB
Source file: D:\Projects\ASB\ASB Country and Thematic reports\Indonesia PhaseII report\Part VI VII plus annexes.xml
Authors: Thomas P. Tomich, Meine van Noordwijk, Suseno Budidarsono, Andy Gillison, Trikurnianti Kusumanto, Daniel Murdiyarso, Fred Stolle, Ahmad M. Fagi, Iswandi Anas, A.F.S. Budiman, Kenneth Chomitz, Rebecca Elmhirst, Chip Fay, Hubert de Foresta, Dennis Garrity, Danan P. Hadi, Suryo Hardiwinoto, Kurniatun Hairiah, Genevieve Michon, Nu Nu San, Cheryl Palm, Soetjipto Partoharjono, Djuber Pasaribu, Eric Penot, Robert Simanungkalit, Martua Sirait, S.M. Sitompul, F.X. Susilo, David Thomas
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This
part of the report concerns Project
Output 3.2, development of policy
interventions to facilitate the adoption of recommended land uses by (a)
reviewing and analyzing policy options and recent institutional experiences
relevant to the alternative land uses, (b) facilitating community participation
schemes in selected pilot areas, and (c) organizing national workshops and
consultations with relevant stakeholders and policymakers for policy and
institutional reforms necessary for adoption of recommended land use
alternatives.
VI.1Analysis of policy and institutional options
Many
of the forces driving deforestation and natural resource degradation arise at
the regional or national level. In particular, an inflow of migrants
facilitated by road construction and driven by lack of economic opportunity
elsewhere can swamp the effects of best-bet alternatives at the field-level.
Profitability is a necessary condition for adoption of ‘best bets’ by
smallholders, but is not sufficient
by itself as a means to slow deforestation. Indeed, precisely because these
alternative land uses are profitable,
the ‘best-bets’ could have the perverse effect of accelerating deforestation by
attracting new migrants to the forest margins. But the relative profitability
of forest conversion by smallholders it not determined solely by production
technology; it also is tied to institutions and the legal framework that
establishes, monitors and enforces boundaries of public land as well as private
property rights; to policies regarding public investment in infrastructure and
social services; and to macroeconomic policy instruments (exchange rates,
monetary and fiscal policies). The institutional and policy environment that is
necessary and sufficient for ‘best bet’ alternatives to reduce poverty and deforestation is not well understood
yet--and is a top priority of ongoing ASB research. However, it is a sure bet
that deforestation will accelerate if profitable innovations for rainfed land
uses are introduced where there is open access to forests and within an
economy-wide context of rapid population growth and stagnant opportunities
elsewhere in agriculture, industry and services.
The
key hypothesis underlying the ASB research project in
1.
At the plot
level, intensification technologies must be environmentally and
agronomically sound, socially acceptable, and financially profitable for
smallholders.
2.
At the community
level, there must be effective monitoring and enforcement of property
rights.
3.
At the provincial and national level, attention must
be given to reducing the broader forces that drive deforestation.

Figure VI.1 Forces Driving
Deforestation
The first five parts of this
report have focused on empirical measurement of relationships at the plot
level. But property rights and tenure
institutions, public investment in roads, trade policies, and macroeconomic
shocks all affect households' livelihood options and, thereby, reduce (or
intensify) forces that push migrants to forest margins; this policy and
institutional ‘environment’ also has a powerful effect on the natural resource
management decisions made by people at the forest margins. Each of these forms a component of ongoing
research and is discussed below.
The overall programme—which
is chiefly funded by the Asian Development Bank and the Ford Foundation--is
designed to determine whether intensification of agroforestry production in specific
upland settings can help Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries and
donor agencies balance environmental objectives with economic development and
poverty reduction. These issues for
policy and institutional research are nested as in Figure VI.2: each topic
corresponds to a necessary condition for the intensification hypothesis; none
is sufficient alone.
Figure VI.2 Research Framework: Decision
Tree for Smallholder Agroforestry Systems for Y

Figure VI.3 ICRAF
|
Component |
Scale |
Main Policy
Questions |
Clients |
Policy
Instruments |
Research
Methods |
Collaborators |
Sites |
|
Analysis of Land Use
Systems |
Plot |
Are productivity increases
feasible and profitable? If so, are
they agronomically sustainable? And how are changes in technology and land
use likely to affect the supply of global public goods? |
Smallholders; NARS;
ministries of agriculture, forestry, environment and finance; donor agencies. |
Public investments in
research and extension. Trade and price policies. |
Application of the policy
analysis matrix to analysis of private and social profitability, policy
distortions, & market imperfections.
Rapid assessment tools for agronomic sustainability &
biodiversity. Measurement of C stocks & GHG emissions. |
ASB Consortia in Indonesia
and Thailand; including CASER, FORDA, LATIN, Lampung University and EU
Project in Indonesia; Chiang Mai University and the Royal Forest Department
in Thailand; TSBF, CIFOR. |
Jambi and |
|
Analysis of Land Use
Systems |
Watershed / Landscape |
How do changes in patterns
of land use affect the supply of watershed functions? Specifically, what are the effects of land
cover change on: (1) sedimentation of reservoirs, (2) flooding, and (3)
seasonal water shortages? |
Local communities, local
government, NGOs, ministries of agriculture, forestry, environment, and
public works; donor agencies. |
Land use planning through
local participation. Watershed classification. Public investment in
infrastructure & other sectoral programmes. Resettlement policies. |
Tools to be developed for
rapid assessment of watershed functions. Spatial models of watershed
functions. |
ASB Consortia in |
Upper Tulang Bawang
watershed in Mae Chaem watershed in Manupali watershed on
Mindanao in the |
|
Land & Tree Tenure:
Indigenous Institutions |
Household / Community |
How do indigenous
institutions adapt to population pressure?
Do indigenous institutions establish and enforce clear resource access
and property rights? How do these
institutions affect resource management decisions? |
Local communities, local
government, NARS; NGOs; ministries of internal affairs, agriculture, and
forestry; donor agencies. |
Institutional endowments
(customary, local government, NGO). |
Econometric models. |
IFPRI and |
Various communities in the
buffer zone of Kerinci Seblat National Park in |
|
Land & Tree Tenure:
Options for Institutional Reform |
Community |
Do existing institutions and
regulations establish and enforce clear resource access and property rights? What can communities and
government do to improve institutions and regulations in order to better meet
social, economic, and environmental objectives? |
Same as above. |
Institutional reform. Land
allocation policy. Sectoral programmes. |
Process-oriented research on
institutional reform. |
LATIN, WATALA, ORSTOM, |
Krui, Buffer zone of Mt. Kitanglad Nat’l Park, Manupali watershed in
Mae Chaem watershed in |
|
National Policies: Market
Access & Infrastructure |
Provincial |
How do decisions about
location of road construction and other large government projects affect land
use change? (Bottlenecks in access to
improved germplasm may be studied later.) |
Ministries of public works,
resettlement, planning, forestry & agriculture; donor agencies. |
Infrastructure investment. Land allocation &
resettlement policies. |
GIS-based spatial econometric
models. |
World Bank Policy Research
Dept; UNESCO; BIOTROP in |
Sumatra with possibility of
extension to Kalimantan in Mae Chaem watershed in |
|
National Policies:
Macroeconomic & Trade Policies |
National |
How do macroeconomic &
trade policies affect land use change?
Do macroeconomic & trade polices create sufficient employment in
other sectors to reduce pressure on land & forest resources? |
Ministries of planning,
finance, forestry, and agriculture; donor agencies. |
Macroeconomic & trade
policies. |
CGE model with distinct
regional components for labor flow between Java & Sumatra and detailed
land use activities for lowland |
IFPRI (in leading role) and
CASER in |
Java-Sumatra labor market
interactions and their links with land use change in lowland |
Synthesis of these results is intended to yield
policy lessons relevant for the region. A participatory,
client-driven approach is intended to enhance prospects for impact on
institutional development and policy reform.
ASB research priorities are driven by the needs of two broad groups of
clients: smallholders living at the forest margins and policymakers who
influence the range of choices available to these smallholders. Just as participatory methods are used in ASB
research to understand smallholders' objectives and constraints, consultation
with policymakers also is a hallmark of this client-driven approach to policy
research. The focus of consultation is
to obtain crucial insights from policymakers about their perceptions of
problems, opportunities, and constraints, including institutional mechanisms
for policy implementation, in order to guide the iterative process of research
to identify and develop feasible policy options.
VI.2
Property rights and community participation in natural resource management
Land and tree tenure institutions --both formal and informal -- affect resource access and
property rights, and are a major determinant of incentives (and disincentives)
for sustainable resource management. But
do existing formal and informal institutions and the regulatory framework
create incentives that are compatible with sustainable resource
management? In particular, do tenure
institutions and regulations establish and enforce clear resource access and
property rights? If not, what (if
anything) can governments do to better support improve functioning of these
institutions?
Existing resource access
controls typically are inadequate to address the realities of poverty and land
pressure in
While clearer property rights
may be necessary to establish better incentives for natural resource
management, they may not be sufficient to secure sufficient environmental
benefits. For example, community
management of buffer zones of protected areas may be a more effective means of
monitoring and enforcing restrictions on forest encroachment by spontaneous
migrants ('forest squatters') and illicit logging, but little is known about
tradeoffs and complementarities among multiple goals in the implementation of
such programmes. Another working hypothesis is that devolution of management of
production forests (including logging) and/or watershed land use to local
communities could improve natural resource management compared to the status quo ante. But devolution of control by itself may not
create sufficient incentives for local communities to supply some forest
services, including abatement of externalities felt at the regional level
(flooding, siltation, smoke that impedes aviation) and global public goods
(carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation). Workable institutional mechanisms that can
clarify, monitor, and enforce responsibilities as well as rights are needed to
address such complex natural resource policy issues.
Figure VI.4 was developed collaboratively during a
regional planning workshop in 1996 to depict the interactions between the
measurements of environmental, agronomic, and socioeconomic indicators
described in Parts II-IV and which contribute to Output 3.1 of this project
combined with pilot projects at the community level (described in Part VII) and
ongoing consultations with policymakers.
As stressed above, the measurements are necessary to quantify tradeoffs
between various objectives. The
process-oriented work is necessary to discover institutional options that have
good prospects to meet the objectives of policymakers and of local people—which,
in turn, contributes to Output 3.2 of this project. Both parallel streams of activity – empirical
measurements and process-oriented research – are necessary and complementary
efforts in providing a sound basis for recommendations for policy change. These recommendations comprise the
‘deliverables’ of
Output 3.3, discussed in Part
VII.
Figure VI.4
Linking land use analysis to
community participation in resource management

VI.3 National policies and forces
driving land use change
The return of severe
financial instability in
Market access.
Market access affects opportunities for land use by smallholders and
large-scale operators and for local entrepreneurs, including those engaging in
activities linked economically to forestry and agriculture (nurseries and seed
producers, processors, traders and transport companies). Do efficient local
markets exist for products and inputs?
Investigations focus on two elements of market access – the road system
and germplasm supply – but also will endeavor to identify other important
market imperfections that may warrant further investigation.
The road system has powerful
effects on people's access to resources and marketing links that condition land
use choices in the uplands. Is transport
infrastructure (especially the road network) sufficient for marketing agroforestry
products? If transport is a bottleneck,
how will road construction change land use?
Obviously, it matters where roads are built; but ICRAF researchers work
with colleagues from the World Bank, BIOTROP, and other collaborators to learn
more about how interactions of road location and other factors (markets,
property rights, sectoral policies, biophysical characteristics) affect land
use choice in an effort to understand what determines whether a road project
will be a boon for regional development or an environmental catastrophe.
Research on the dynamics of
land use change in
And about 78% of the cases where logged forest was not yet
converted.[1] Site-specific biophysical
features are highly significant, indicating that smallholders are selective in their
choices of sites for conversion. Smallholder
conversion of logged forest is significantly more likely within 10 km of main roads,
which is consistent with a process driven by market opportunities for profitable
treecrops. However, the results of this prototype model must
be interpreted with great care. The period under study witnessed three big sources
of change in Jambi: the all-weather
Trade and macroeconomic
policies. Trade and macroeconomic
policies affect households' livelihood options and, thereby, reduce (or
intensify) forces that push migrants to forest margins; these policies also
affect resource management decisions once they get there. Similarly, for subsistence-oriented
communities who have long resided in remote forest areas, policies can affect
opportunities for them to become more integrated into national economies, which
could alter local land use patterns (and their sustainability) or shift labor
away from agriculture or forestry into other sectors of the economy. Yet despite the dramatic change that trade
and macroeconomic policies have already brought to Southeast Asia, the current
shocks sweeping the region, and further important changes that will be
forthcoming under global and regional trade agreements, the effects of these
powerful policy instruments on rural land use patterns and incentives for
forest conversion seldom have been analyzed. Are current trade and macroeconomic
policies compatible with sustainable natural resource management by
households? If not, what are the policy
reform options? Are expanding employment
opportunities in other sectors likely to take pressure off protected forest
areas? If not, is forest conservation
hopeless?
Research
on these questions in
VI.4 Ongoing policy analyses and the monetary crisis
Beginning in August 1997 and
continuing until now,
The policy analysis matrix
(PAM) technique described in Part IV provides a flexible tool for examining the
effects of
Prior
to the monetary crisis that began in
Table VI.1
Sensitivity of PAM studies to macroeconomic parameters
|
Land Use |
Rupiah 000's / ha |
US $ / ha |
||
|
|
July -- 1997 |
June -- 1998 |
July -- 1997 |
June -- 1998 |
|
Community - based forest management |
9.4 - 18 |
38 - 75 |
3.9 -
7.7 |
5.0 -
9.7 |
|
Commercial Logging |
(32) -
2,102 |
317 -
7,422 |
(13) -
876 |
41 -
964 |
|
Rubber agroforest (seedlings) |
73 |
6,743 |
30 |
741 |
|
Rubber agroforest
(clones) |
234 - 3,622 |
12,544 - 24,340 |
98 - 1,509 |
1,629 - 3,161 |
|
Rubber monoculture |
(993) |
5,114 |
(414) |
664 |
|
Oil palm monoculture |
1,479 |
2,104 |
617 |
273 |
|
Upland rice / bush fallow rotation |
(180) - 53 |
1,200 |
(75) -
(22) |
150 |
|
Monoculture cassava / imperata
cylindrica |
(314) -
224 |
3,536 -
4,038 |
(131) - 93 |
405 - 501 |
VI.5 Smoke as a symptom of underlying policy and
institutional problems
In 1994 large amounts of
smoke, caused by fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan and aggravated by El Niño,
resulted in poor visibility and air pollution for the neighboring countries of
Who is responsible for the fires in Sumatra,
Kalimantan and elsewhere in
We must be cautious in
attributing blame for the haze that shrouded the region. It has been customary to put all the blame on
smallholders. But now, thanks to
satellite images posted on the Internet, it is clear that big companies have
important roles in the problem too. At
least 3 types of fires contributed to the smoke that, together with the drought
and atmospheric conditions brought on by El Niño, created the regional problem:
Fires used as a tool to clear land;
Fires that accidentally got out of
control; and
Fires started deliberately as a weapon
in social conflict.
No one knows how many of the
fires were started to clear land or to serve as a weapon and how many were
accidental. Nor can anyone now say with certainty how much smoke is the result
of smallholders’ actions versus the actions of large companies. However,
numerous eyewitness reports are consistent with official assessments based on
remote sensing and site visits: that land clearing by large companies
apparently played a major role in the problem.
Fire as a tool. Slash-and-burn is a technique for land
clearing and conversion to other purposes. It also describes an extensive
system of agriculture that leaves land fallow after a few years of crop growing
and opens up new land for planting. Slash-and-burn is the preferred method of
land clearing in
Slash-and-burn as a land-use
system worked well for smallholders for centuries because communities regulated
the use of fires. However, when used as a technique to convert entire forests
to rubber or palm oil plantations, the amounts of smoke those fires produce can
be excessive. That is the problem this
year, as it was in 1994—too much smoke in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The objective then, is to reduce smoke emissions in critical years and during
times of the year when smoke disperses slowly because of atmospheric
conditions. Development policies for
conversion of ‘forestlands’ are linked to the smoke problems
Fire that accidentally spreads.Many local communities in
Fire as a weapon.Millions of people live in the forestland areas but
because they have no security of tenure, they can be evicted at any time to
make way for development projects. Large companies have been known to burn land
to drive out smallholders. Smallholders have been known to burn trees
established by large companies to retaliate for perceived injustices. At the
heart of this problem are conflicts over land, resulting from unclear and
insecure property rights and land allocation policies that take too little
account of established—albeit informal—local claims. Aside from contributing to
social conflict, ‘land grabs’ by large companies that displace local people
also undermine incentives at the community level to prevent report and fight
fires. If land allocation policies concentrate holdings while destroying
incentives for on-the-spot fire prevention and management by the local people,
there is a great risk that the present situation will be repeated.
It is important to note that
part of the land granted to companies is not ‘empty’ forestland but land that
has been occupied by farmers—often for centuries. These farmers have developed
their own systems of land use, which they have to give up when the company
takes over. Some companies try to accommodate farmers’ needs but others don’t,
which leads to conflict. In these conflicts, fire is a powerful weapon for both
planters and farmers.
These changes in land use
disturb pre-existing social systems. They erode traditional techniques and
social rules for fire control and increase social inequities and the perception
of these inequities in rural areas. When
lands are converted into estates, some smallholders may find jobs on the
estates; some may be allowed to retain control of a piece of the land through
the ‘nucleus estate’ scheme; some may move to other forestlands; and others
will be forced to move to crowded urban centres, becoming part of the already
large group of urban poor. Seen from
these perspectives, it is reasonable to conclude that the risks of fires can
only increase in the coming years unless social and policy issues are addressed
along with the technical causes of fire and smoke. This needs to be carried out
at 2 levels: by understanding how present policies affect smallholders and by
recognizing the wider consequences of all policies related to land allocation
and land conversion, from both an ecological and a social perspective.
Options for managing fires
and smoke. Banning fires as a land
clearing tool has been the focus of efforts to respond to the crisis but it is
not the only option for managing smoke emissions. Potential alternatives include
measures to:
Promote land clearing
techniques that do not produce smoke
Reduce land clearing or
burning during El Niño years or at other critical times
Decrease the amount of timber
that is burned
Option 1:
Ban use of fire for land clearing. Banning fires has not been effective.
Bans on burning didn’t work in 1994, the last time smoke was a regional
problem, they didn’t work this year, and they won’t work as long as fire is the
cheapest way to clear land. Until a
workable mix of regulations, incentives, and sanctions is in place for the big
companies involved, there is a risk that the brunt of enforcement may fall on a
few unlucky smallholders. This would
simply add to the burdens the drought already imposes on the rural poor,
without much prospect of an overall effect on the smoke problem now or in the
future. (The exception may be to ban
fires on peat swamps, which can smolder underground for months and produce much
more smoke per unit area than do fires that occur on upland soils.)
Option 2: Develop alternatives to unsustainable forms
of slash-and-burn agriculture. In contrast to bans on burning,
Option 3: Clear land without
burning.There are a number of land
clearing techniques that do not produce smoke. These include biological methods
to accelerate decomposition and various mechanical techniques that chip or
shred biomass, either for mulching on-site or for transport off-site for
disposal or sale. All of these ‘no-burn’ techniques are less effective and more
expensive than burning. Research may be
able to reduce the economic and technical costs of some environmentally benign
techniques such as mulching. If subsidies for adoption of these techniques are
administratively feasible, such payments may be an efficient means to reduce
smoke emissions. To determine whether subsidies for adoption of no-burn
techniques are appropriate, the social and economic costs of smoke must be
compared with the costs of alternatives.
Option 4: Burn when it does less harm. It is not feasible to regulate burning by the many
smallholders who clear plots of a hectare or so. But government permits
regulate land clearing by large companies. So, one option is to allow less
clearing in El Niño years, which can be predicted. Another option is to require
burning permits for large companies and to enforce sanctions on those that burn
without permits or burn more than specified in their permits. Selective restrictions have been used
elsewhere to prohibit burning when smoke would linger because of atmospheric
conditions. Implementation of these options would require an effective
monitoring system using remote sensing combined with on-site verification,
stiff penalties, and certain enforcement. Offering permits through an auction
could improve the efficiency of distribution among companies when rationing is
needed, but may not be socially acceptable.
Option 5: Reduce the amount of timber that is burned. Indonesian forestry policies are designed to depress
domestic prices of timber relative to world prices. Policies that depress
prices of wood products increase the ‘waste’ that must be disposed of by burning
or other means. If these policies were eased or removed, more of the wood
felled in land clearing would be sold for timber, thereby reducing the amount
that is burned. And if wood were sold instead of burned, there would be less
smoke. The attractiveness of technological alternatives to clear land without
burning discussed in Option 3—or the level of subsidies required for adoption
of these techniques—also is influenced by national policies. In addition, since conversion forests are
being planted mostly to oil palm, it is important to study alternative uses for
the vast amounts of oil palm wood that will be available in the future.
Option 6: Recognize long-standing land claims. It is important to have balanced consideration for the
community, the economy and the environment. Iinvolving members of the community in decisions that affect their
livelihoods and their tenure security would help to minimize conflicts
over land allocation, thereby reducing use of fire as a weapon.
Deeper
investigation is needed to reveal more of the facts behind these fires. But
even with the limited information at hand, it is possible to identify certain
steps that can be taken to help ensure that a catastrophe of this scale will
not be repeated.
Bans on burning may have symbolic
value but are not practical because of the higher cost of alternative land
clearing techniques. The exception would be to ban burning on peat soils.
Reducing costs of alternative techniques deserves further study. However, this
is a longer-term strategy, since widespread adoption of environmentally benign
no-burn techniques will be slow until costs fall.
Regulating burning by large
operators and introducing penalties for the effects of accidental fires also
deserves further study. BAPEDAL—the Indonesian agency charged with
environmental protection—has already made impressive efforts in this direction.
The agency has laid the foundation to develop ways to restrict burning to
periods when smoke does less harm and to impose penalties on large companies
that allow fires to get out of control. Investments in equipment and human
resources are needed to sustain and strengthen BAPEDAL’s new capacity to detect
fires, verify their causes, analyze policies and provide timely, accurate
information.
Recognizing long-standing
land claims would help minimize conflicts over land allocation.
Reducing or eliminating
restrictions that depress domestic timber prices would decrease the amount of
timber that is burned after land clearing. Among these options, this one would
be the easiest to implement and would have immediate effects.
In Part VII we report on
important action on recognition of longstanding land claims and we present
further analysis of timber export restrictions within the context of the
agreements on economic and financial policy reform between
[1] The preliminary results presented in this paragraph are subject to revision and are not for citation or quotation. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paragraph are entirely those of the researchers. They do not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent.