Assessing the Governance Modes of Indonesia’s Forest Management Unit

AbstractDiscussions about forestry governance systems in Indonesia have always been an important area of policy and practice given the sector’s outsized role in natural resources management. In recent years, the forest management system has been intimately linked to the concept of a Forest Management Unit (FMU), which was established to conduct scientifically sound forest management practices. FMUs were created in response to the historical failures of rule-based forest management and privatization, which resulted in the emergence of the notion of professional forestry. However, forest governance systems are once again changing as a result of the aftermath of Indonesia’s Job Creation Act (a.k.a. Omnibus Law) and its derivative regulations. In this chapter, we apply a governance approach for assessing anticipated changes in the forestry sector. We understand governance as a process operationalized by actors, powers, and rules. Accordingly, we applied the lens of four governance modes in our analysis, which includes hierarchical governance, closed co-governance, open co-governance, and self-governance. FMUs assist the central government as a facilitating institution and provide a window into understanding ongoing forestry changes. Policy changes indicate that nongovernment actors are gaining increased access to permit-based forest use, thus potentially replacing the envisioned role of FMUs as key actors at the site level. Nevertheless, although forest use is increasingly being entrusted to nongovernment actors, governance will remain hierarchical, wherein the central government serves as the dominant actor enacting regulatory mechanisms and guiding actor interactions and participation. As a result, we show that previous modes of forestry sector governance are likely to endure and deepen in the post-Omnibus era.