Adaptive collaborative management of community forests in Asia ...

Chapter 4: Improving Forest Quality and Livelihoods in Indonesia • 127
and reorientation of values, potentially making management and decisionmaking
institutions more responsive.
Nevertheless, the potential of ACM in Indonesia should be seen in
perspective and expectations not be exaggerated. The considerable
transaction costs involved in ACM and the need for adequate institutional
capacities for implementing it should be carefully assessed and matched
against present policy and institutional conditions. We are just beginning
to better understand the essence of learning in social encounters in forest
management, and the possible ways in which such learning affects forest
quality and human-well being. The ACM experience shared here has
shaped opportunities for further exploration and action, for the betterment
of both forests and people.
Endnotes
1 The author thanks the Asian Development Bank for its financial support
to the ACM first-phase research in Indonesia and to the District Governments of
Bungo (Jambi) and of Pasir for their cooperation during the research. She further
wishes to thank CIFOR’s partners, YGB, PSHK-ODA, and PADI, for their continued
support and collaboration. The hospitality of the communities of Baru Pelepat, Rantau
Layung and Rantau Buta, which shared valuable time with the team during the action
research, is greatly appreciated. The author also thanks Linda Yuliani at CIFOR for
her coordinating support to ACM Indonesia; Stepi Hakim, who was responsible for
the Pasir site; and Yayan Indriatmoko and Hasantoha Adnan, both at CIFOR, for their
assistance and collegiality. Furthermore, she highly values the critical comments of an
earlier draft of this chapter provided by the anonymous reviewers.
2 Besides the author, team members were (in alphabetical order) Hasantoha
Adnan, Stepi Hakim, Yayan Indriatmoko, and Linda Yuliani –all affiliated with
CIFOR—and staff of three local NGOs, Yayasan Gita Buana, Pusat Studi Hukum dan
Otonomi Daerah and Yayasan Padi.
3 CIFOR field researchers were a zoologist, a social scientist-agriculturalist,
anthropologists and ecologists.
4 In Jambi these were Yayasan Gita Buana (an NGO focusing on environment
and development) and Pusat Studi Hukum dan Kebijakan Otonomi Daerah (an NGO
concerned with policies and decentralisation). In East Kalimantan this was PADI (an
NGO dealing with environment and community development).
5 Based on context studies: De Boer et al. 2002; Hakim (2001a,b,c); Hakim
and Hamdani (2000); Hakim et al. (2001); Hartanto et al. (2001); Indriatmoko and
Kusumanto (2001); Kusumanto (2000a,b; 2001a,b,c); Kusumanto and Indriatmoko
(2001).
6 The diversity of population can be traced to the official placement of
some groups under a 1997 government resettlement project, and the spontaneous