1.1 The Panel Meetings
1.2 Panel One: Sustainable Use and Equity

2.1 Session One: Sustainable Use and Equity
2.2 Trade and Environment
2.3 Institutional, Legal, and Political Recommendations

3.1 Commissioners Trip
3.2 Panelists Trip

4.1 Reservations Regarding the Site Visit
4.2 Transparent Review:
4.3 Regional Representation:
4.4 Funding Sources

6.0 Specific Comments Regarding the Site Visit

6.1 Commissioner Concerns
6.2 Meeting with Local Groups
6.3 Recommendations:
   (1) Community Managed Forests
   (2) Tenure and land use versus access

1.0 Background

After the Earth Summit in Rio de Janiero, a special organizing committee was set up to establish an independent global commission addressing the problems of the deteriorating status of the world's forests. The idea for an independent commission developed out of a proposal from Ambassador Ola Ullsten of Sweden at the Global Forest Meeting held in Bandung, Indonesia in 1992. The goal of the Commission is to examine the use of the world's forests in the context of sustainable development. The WCFSD was launched by the InterAction Council of Former Heads of State in June 1995. A series of five regional Public Hearings are to be held around the world to identify the regional and international institutional, legal, and policy reforms that will lead to more equitable and sustainable forest management. The first of these five hearings was recently held in Jakarta, Indonesia for the Asia region. The next regional meeting will be held in Winnipeg, Canada, September 29 through October 5, 1996, and will address the problems of forests and sustainable development in North America and Mexico, the NAFTA region. Subsequent meetings will be held for the Latin American region, in Georgetown, Guyana in early December; the African region, either in the Congo Basin or the Dry Zone countries of Africa in early 1997; and in Russia for the European region in mid 1997. The following is a report by the Sustainable Development Institute which had the opportunity to attend the first Asia regional hearing and meeting.

The Commission is formed of twenty-two members from different geographic regions and with a range of experiences in science, policy, advocacy, and law. Co-chairs Ambassador Ola Ullsten, former Prime Minister of Sweden, and Dr. Emil Salim, former Minister of Population and Environment of Indonesia, and Chair of the Indonesian Biodiversity Foundation, organized the meeting to work in parallel and in collaboration with the United Nations' Inter-governmental Panel on Forests (IPF). The Commission is to function as an independent think-tank rather than a negotiating body. The Commission has established a Science Council and Policy Advisory Group to oversee the technical and policy aspects of its work. Each hearing will also seek the input of the major "stakeholder" groups in the region who can guide the Commissioners based on their research and field expertise. The Secretariat of the Commission will produce interim reports on each regional hearing that will be open to critique and suggestions both on the World Wide Web through the International Institute for Sustainable Development, based in Winnipeg, Canada, and through any written input submitted to the Secretariat. The aim of the Commission throughout these hearings will be to review alternative regional and global institutional mechanisms that could ensure a more widely representative and participatory forum for country, regional and global forest policy dialogue and more transparent mechanisms for monitoring of global forest change. A Final Report, "Shaping Sustainable Forest Conservation and Development in the 21st Century," is to be published in 1998.

The Commission has established Working Panels which will carry through the five regional hearings covering three main topics: Sustainable, Equitable Use and Management of the Forests; Trade and Environment; Financial Mechanisms, International Agreements and the Role of International Institutions. The each Panel was to include approximately fifteen people, both regional and international "stakeholder" representatives of forest dependent communities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), forest farmers, government, business interests, global environmental and trade policy leaders. Rapporteurs were assigned to each working panel as well as chairs who are Commissioners. Representing the Sustainable Development Institute, Claudia D'Andrea sat on Panel One addressing the Sustainable, Equitable Use and Management of the Forests.

1.1 The Panel Meetings

1.2 Panel One: Sustainable Use and Equity (back to contents)

The Panels met the first day to review the document prepared by the Commission and again the following morning prior to the start of the Public Hearings which began by addressing questions of Sustainable Use and Equity (Panel One). The format and goals of each of the panels were not initially clarified which caused some complaints. The term "stakeholder" was applied indiscriminately to anyone concerned with forests or forestry; including forest dwellers, migrant laborers, shifting agriculturalists, forest "preservers" (or policy and advocacy NGOs), researchers, governments, and industry. Among those also present were the program officer of the Ford Foundation, India who championed collaborative forestry management and a senior representative of the Asian Development Bank's Social Dimension Unit who demonstrated genuine interest in the NGOs' concerns.

This term, "stakeholder," was a source of confusion for the Asian NGOs in particular who consider stakeholders to be those people living in the forest and generally those adversely affected by forest development. Since all "stakeholders" had equal presence in each of the panels, the meeting offered an opportunity to achieve some resolution of the classic, long-standing conflicts over forest resources. The large size of the panels and the lack of a clear process for arriving at some sort of conclusions contributed to a sense of frustration initially. Furthermore, to a large degree, industry was more heavily represented in the second panel on Trade and Environment, and NGOs concerned about equity figured more prominently in the former panel, making conflict less pronounced in both of these panels. At the same time, Panel Three on Financial Mechanisms dealing with some crucial aspects of financial incentives in the involvement of local communities as well as the international agreements and institutions was a smaller group. More flexible or self-assignment to Panels might have alleviated this problem.

Confusion ensued about identifying and reaching a consensus on the salient issues. The first evening was meant to be an "interactive panel" but the parameters for discussion were not made clear and the meeting disintegrated into a series of proposals to reorganize the stakeholder groups and direct panel meetings toward their background papers. The question remained, was the goal of the panels to identify priorities and jettison the more complicated issues, or was the panel meant to add contour to the existing framework, so that the Commissioners could then seek to include all the issues raised in its final report? In the end it was agreed to continue as laid out by the Commission's original work plan.

Many of those present felt that the Commissioners should have taken a more active role in explaining their goals and how we as Panelists could help them achieve these goals. A plenary session with an explanation of how the Commissioners hoped to benefit from the Panelists' discussions would have been very helpful. It was frustrating for the Panelists not to see any tangible outcome from the Panel meetings. Time might have been set aside for the Panelists to reach a consensus on the salient issues which consequently could have better fed into the hearings. As it stood there were no strong mechanisms for the panels to feed into the hearing itself.

Nonetheless, bringing these "stakeholders" together as equals marked an unprecedented opportunity, enabling them to raise the issues which are important to them in a forum which is destined to make an impact in the way that forests and forestry issues are thought about. The list of issues grew considerably from the initial matrix that had been compiled by the Commission Secretariat.

The background paper prepared for Panel One by Niel Byron, assistant Director-General of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) provided an excellent starting point for our purposes at SDI to promote the role of communities in managing forests sustainably. In his paper, Byron proposes two aspects of forest management that the Commission has the mandate and the capacity to address. Drawing on the work of Mark Poffenberger and others, he questions whether the current technical and administrative fixes - creation of national parks, reforestation of degraded land, community or agroforestry schemes - will be enough to reverse the trend of the past few decades. He suggests that a more fundamental restructuring of income, wealth, and power at local, national, and international levels is ultimately required. This was a recurring theme throughout the Panel One Meeting and the Hearing.

Secondly, Byron's paper emphasizes a bottom-up the policy approach calling for decision making at the household and community level as a first step in designing broader interventions to address the political economy of deforestation. Together with the Asia Forest Network, SDI would suggest to the Commission that by emphazsizing the practical benefits that might be accrued by the release of degraded lands and protected forest land for community co-management, the Commission could help vest communities with rights to protect and benefit from natural forests. Successes with this community management would in turn strengthen the commitment to designing effective policy interventions at the national and international levels.

2.0 The Public Hearing (back to contents)

2.1 Session One: Sustainable Use and Equity (back to contents)

The Minister of Forestry of Indonesia, Mr. H.E. Djamaludin Suryohadkusomo, and Emil Salim Co-Chair of the Commission presided at the opening of the Public Hearing. The proceedings began with a summary of the issues raised by Panel One on Sustainable Use and Equity presented by Mr. Swaminathan, Director of the Center for Research on Sustainable Agricultural and Rural Development, former President of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and Moderator for Panel One. Then came statements from the indigenous peoples and NGO groups, mainly from Indonesia, on issues of equity and sustainable use.

The inequality of power among the stakeholders from Indonesia was strikingly apparent during this first session of the hearing and served to underscore a problem the Commission faces in a number of forest rich countries. The few Indonesian NGOs representing the interests of indigenous peoples, forest laborers, forest dwellers, and advocacy groups, were greatly outnumbered by the overwhelming presence of those representing the forest industry. NGO representatives delivered a number of powerful statements alleging serious human rights abuses associated with logging and mining activities in many parts of Indonesia. Statements highlighted the plight of forest farmers, plantation workers, and workers in the plywood industry. These statements were countered by Indonesian businessmen; students; foresters responding that this hearing was not the appropriate forum for a discussion of human rights. The public airing of this conflict was not directed into a useful format for resolution.

Statements were also delivered by the Amungme people of Irian Jaya; the Dayak Bentian people of East Kalimantan; the people of Flores; the people of Yamdena Island; in addition to the comments read by NGO representatives. The time limit of three minutes did pose a constraint for these people speaking through interpreters from their local language to Indonesian to English. Although much was lost in translation, the Commissioners were moved by the urgency of their messages. In general, the statements conveyed that the problems of forests and of sustainable and equitable use are exacerbated by the serious lack of civil and political rights.

2.2 Trade and Environment (back to contents)

The following day the hearing addressed issues of Trade and Environment. During this session, the room was sharply divided into two camps, the timber industry and the non-governmental organizations. As one of the Commissioners, Kamla Chowdry, Chair of the Society for the Promotion of Wastelands Development, in India, explained it, the conflict will never be resolved because the two camps are not talking to one another. She put it terms of their markedly different views: (1) On the one hand, there are those who are talking about cubic meters of wood harvested; regrowth rates; and international taxation structures; and (2) On the other hand are the people who are upset that the honey they traditionally collected has become increasingly scarce since the timber industry moved in; and their daily well-being is suffering. The two categories of uses are fundamentally different. The timber industry seeks to solve the problem of the latter by absorbing the labor as timber plantation workers. However, looking at the larger picture, the symptoms of the second group are indicative of larger ills in the ecosystem and the economy. This aspect of the conflict was not drawn out for discussion, but I would suggest should be studied for the Commission's report.

The session focused on the Indonesian timber industry rather than more generally about forest products trade in Asia. The debate offered some sophisticated arguments between the polarized opposites of the forest industry and the non-governmental "forest preservers". Unfortunately, this left little time for hearing about some of the interesting models in sustainable forestry practices from around the Asia region such as the forest plantations in New Zealand, or for the discussion of alternative approaches to restoring degraded land or according usufruct rights to forests where it could be helpful to the local economy and the local ecology through co-management.

2.3 Institutional, Legal, and Political Recommendations (back to contents)

The last session of the second day was intended to link the two sets of issues of the previous day's and morning's sessions providing a chance to identify institutional, legal and political steps that could be taken to move toward more sustainable forest management. There was a sense that this session had a more practical output than other sessions. Perhaps that was also due to a more regional focus and an emphasis on specific recommendations for legal and institutional policy solutions. More attention could have been paid to addressing the financial incentive mechanisms for local communities in sustainable and equitable use, the use of international agreements in furthering forestry policy and the role of international institutions in monitoring national government responses through a global forest convention or something similar. These were the issues of Panel Three and it appears that many of the policy, legal, and institutional solutions may be furthered through that Panel over the course of the five regional hearings. At the end of each statement, the Co-Chairs requested written copies despite the fact that there were rapporteurs recording the process which is perfectly reasonable and for the most part easily done. Some participants in the hearing were concerned that if they did not pass in a written statement their statement would go unnoted. Efforts should be made to facilitate the preparation of written statements in the future hearings or to record the oral presentations with more detail.

3.0 Field Visit

3.1 Commissioners Trip (back to contents)

On the following day, the Commissioners and Panelists set off for East Kalimantan to view the ITCI timber concession belonging to the well renowned timber king of Asia, Bob Hasan, who footed the bill for the trip. The Panelists and Commissioners were separated and given strikingly different tours of the concession. The Commissioners were flown in helicopters to the showcase plantation estate, nurseries, and village development activities; and given a lengthy explanation of the scientific research going into the study of plantation reforestation techniques by the Tropenbos forest researcher Willy Smitz.

3.2 Panelists Trip (back to contents)

In contrast, the Panelists were given taken to the lowest grade and lowest priority reforestation plots which were incidentally logged over, and they viewed some dwellings that were called a "village". They were also given a tour of the Mahakam River, the main thoroughfare for the majority of the timber coming out of East Kalimantan and a key industrial zone for the plywood industry. This tour of the Mahakam demonstrated the absolute lack of planning that has gone into the expansion of the plywood industry. In the last hours before departing Kalimantan, the Panelists were allowed a fifteen minute meeting with Willy Smitz who was only willing to entertain five questions.

4.0 Panelists General Concerns

4.1 Reservations Regarding the Site Visit (back to contents)

The Panelists expressed to the Commission that they had grave reservations about the whole trip. First, the management of the ITCI concession is not indicative of Indonesian concession management as a whole. According to foresters from respected institutions like the International Institute for Environment and Development and the World Resources Institute, the amount of investment that goes into the maintaining the showcase plantation viewed by the Commissioners is not sustainable. Viewing these plantations without balancing the visit with meetings with forest policy researchers that have studied the economics of the plantation and the impact on the local economy in detail was a missed opportunity.

Second, the Panelists felt the Commission may have jeopardized its integrity and independence in the eyes of some groups whose support could have greatly enhanced the weight of the Commission in the global forest policy arena. Clearly, the Panelists were displeased to be separated from the Commissioners who could have benefitted from their expert knowledge. They were further displeased that the planned meeting of Panelists and Commissioners in the field did not take place reportedly due to weather and time constraints. Other forest specialists from CIFOR and ICRAF (International Center for Research on Agroforestry) were also not with the Commissioners. Many of the Commissioners themselves are experts in forest matters themselves but there were few who are as familiar with the case of ITCI as some of the Panelists are. Upon return to Jakarta, the Commissioners invited the Panelists to a special meeting to discuss the field trip and our alternative views. Some of those observations follow.

4.2 Transparent Review: (back to contents)

Overall the Panelists expressed concern about the approach the Commission has taken to the hearing and are anxious that there should be a clear process for the review of the statements and of the interim report that will follow from this hearing as well as the final report from the Commission. We recommended that the final document draft should be widely circulated for comment. This should not be an expensive process and would greatly enhance the credibility of the Commission as a whole. The Commission has stated that it encourages input and it strives to conduct its research in an open and transparent manner.

4.3 Regional Representation: (back to contents)

The Panelists felt that the structure of the hearing should be modified in future sessions. In particular, it is lamentable that the public hearing failed to include a wider regional representation especially from some of the countries which are major sources of controversy in forestry such as China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Cambodia, and Burma. Stronger efforts should be made in the future to ensure wider representation. For the next hearings in Winnipeg and Georgetown, the Sustainable Development Institute encourages the invitation of key figures who are actively engaged in community forestry in Mexico and in the Andean countries.

Because there were so few indigenous people and practioners from other countries, there was criticism that the Public Hearing became essentially for Indonesia. I would argue that the situation in Indonesia is not unlike the situation in some of the neighboring countries and the Commissioners should look into how indicative the experiences of indigenous peoples in Indonesia is of the Asia Region as a whole. Then, the Commissioners would be able to substantiate findings with data that matches or is parallel with the situations in other countries across Asia.

4.4 Funding Sources (back to contents)

Many of the Commissioners and Panelists were disappointed that so few indigenous peoples and so few Asian NGOs could be present at the hearing for lack of sufficient funding. The Indonesian Biodiversity Foundation hosting the meeting solicited funds from the Asia Development Bank and the Government of Indonesia and Bob Hasan. Because of the sensitivity over funding sources and the nature of the forest policy debate among NGOs in Asia, it would have been wise to make some efforts to balance the visit to the ITCI concession with alternative views. For example, it would not have been difficult to bring the Commissioners to meet with some of the local indigenous Dayak people affected by Bob Hasan's logging concession or neighboring concessions, and to meet with some of the non-governmental organizations that have been documenting some of the serious abuses of indigenous people's basic human rights in East Kalimantan.

Efforts should be made to ensure that the Commission does not risk losing the support of key NGOs for the process of the regional hearings. The participation of Indonesian NGOs like WALHI was extremely valuable because of the extensive work they have done on forest policy analysis; taxation structures; and economic analyses of income lost from logging companies that are cutting corners on the forestry regulations. Presentation of these findings during the hearing would have been useful in underscoring the importance of their work, but given the nature of Indonesian political life, public expose of private industry cannot take place. Walhi was able to present some of this in the private meeting between the Commissioner and Panelists and has made this information available to the Commission.

This raises another point that seemed to emerge through the Commission Meeting indicating the importance of such a forum. Several times non-governmental Panelists from the Commonwealth, New Zealand, Japan, Norway, and U.S.A., raised the point that collusion between corrupt politicians and corrupt industry seems to be at the root of the problem in rapid deforestation in the North and South. This was raised by Panelists who have studied these problems extensively around the globe. It was refreshing to hear these problems discussed openly. In no other international forum can these issues be raised. This indicates another valuable role that the WCFSD can play. One hopes that the WCFSD will raise this question in its final report or in some form.

5.0 Independent Certification (back to contents)

Another area of exploration for the Commission is the matter of third party independent timber certification. The issue of certification was raised repeatedly in all sessions. Bob Hasan also announced that he is a great proponent of certification. However, several countries desire certification on their own terms. Indonesia, Canada, and New Zealand are among those interested in establishing their own standards and criteria for timber plantation schemes. While the Commission proposes to support accelerated adoption of independent certification schemes it suggests that they should be "appropriate to local circumstances and acceptable to national governments". Perhaps this language is misleading. What is important as we see it is for certification to comply with an internationally recognized process which is truly independent. The prospect for establishing third party independent certification is one of the best methods for improving the practices of timber industry and creating sustainable forestry management. Such a process already exists. Internationally recognized, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), founded in 1993, has a growing membership worldwide. Many experts in the global forest policy arena believe that the FSC is the only genuine vehicle supporting independent certification at the international level. The Commission should make some note of these efforts to see that certification is a reliable means for guaranteeing sustainable sources of timber.

6.0 Specific Comments Regarding the Site Visit

6.1 Commissioner Concerns (back to contents)

One of the Commissioners raised a question about the validity of drawing any conclusions from the things that they saw in less than two days in Kalimantan that would apply to the Asian situation as a whole. Who are the beneficiaries of the sort of operations we saw? Collusion between civilian and military elite ensures the profits. This Commissioner said they saw a showcase village which was very nice, with children singing and then they saw a film which stated, among other things, that ITCI makes 100 million dollars in yearly profits and that the local people are the beneficiaries of the company's profits. This is most certainly not the case, as evidence showed that even the showcase village was lacking electricity and water and the people are at a very low standard of living. So, he asked, where are the profits going?

Another of his concerns was that there is such a high reliance on nurseries on the ITCI concession. He felt there should be more reliance on natural regeneration. It also concerned him that wildlife was not mentioned once during the entire visit, a clear indication to him that no thought as to the loss of wildlife habitat is being given in the planning of the land use on the concession. According to the ITCI staff, illegal logging is widespread, and the ill effects on the environment are due to the rampant illegal logging of surrounding locals. He asked, how can we as Commissioners be expected to believe these anecdotal accounts? He also asks, how can that sort of information be used at all? He also mentioned the need to know about the taxation system that is in place which would indicate the extent to which all the plantation activities are subsidized. He emphasized that it is not a level playing field. Then, he urged the other Commissioners to consider some of the other information that is needed, for example, they need to consider value-added jobs and local wealth. He said that they haven't seen the total picture and it is impossible to draw valid conclusions from the one-sided visit.

6.2 Meeting with Local Group (back to contents)

Meanwhile, although this is entirely anecdotal, a small group of the Panelists were able to meet with a local Dayak leader through a non-governmental organization based in East Kalimantan. We collected a chronology of the events associated with coercive efforts being undertaken to remove these indigenous peoples from their traditional land. According to this chronology, abductions, torture, and death threats were among the alleged measures used on the local people by military and paramilitary security forces apparently hired by the logging concession interested in starting a commercial plantation. This case is being investigated by the national Legal Aid Institute, the most powerful non-governmental human rights group in Indonesia. The interview was recorded by a BBC reporter on videotape. A meeting like this in the field with the Commission might have provided the other side of the picture seen by the Commissioners at ITCI.

6.3 Recommendations (back to contents)

The Panelists from the World Resources Institute based in Washington, D.C. and Manila proposed that given that this was a public hearing, we should be cognizant of the way in which evidence has been presented. There are certain rules of procedure and rules of evidence that should be respected in a court of law. Conflict of interest can throw evidence out of court. WRI would have the evidence shown the Commissioners thrown out because it offered no chance of rebuttal.

SDI feels that based on the accounts and backgrounds of key Commissioners that they are capable of determining one-sided information. While we agree that by Commission risks jeopardizing its appearance of impartiality by visiting the ITCI concession in the way they did, we believe that its integrity is intact in intending to produce something that is valuable to the global forest policy arena. Therefore, we believe that the Commission should take very careful note of the imbalance they were given in East Kalimantan.

Because the Commission is a non-governmental think tank on sustainable forestry issues, it is appropriate that certain issues that are not ordinarily addressed by inter-governmental panels could be examined by the Commission. By doing so the role of the Commission would become invaluable. Such issues include those identified by the Panelists: transparency in all forestry operations; corruption, in particular collusion between corrupt politicians and corrupt forest industry; spatial and land use planning on and around concessions. Then there are the issues that we at the Sustainable Development Institute feel is especially important to address:

(1) Community Managed Forests (back to contents)

Community managed forests should be promoted by the Commission with the recognition that communities cannot take over without some technical assistance. We would like to see the Commission supporting a transition to community owned and managed forests. We will be able to contribute a study of the role of local communities in managing forests sustainably. We are currently studying the policy trends of major donor agencies and this may also be helpful to the work of the Commission. The Co-Chairs of the Commission proposed that the Sustainable Development Institute draft the section of their final report on community forestry. This might be a place for us to use the Commission as a vehicle for our mission and for the Commission to have direct input from us on what we think is a valuable contribution in the field of Forests and Sustainable Development Policy.

(2) Tenure and land use versus access (back to contents)

Communities living in around forests, who are forest dependent need access to the forests for certain non-timber forest products that sustain their local needs. Access is not a goal in and of itself but should be a first step in slowly transferring the management of logged over forests to the local people to manage and regenerate. There are a score of issues involved here in discussing tenurial rights and communal land. Furthermore, in the absence of community structures, such rights of access can be counterproductive to forest conservation. Ultimately this issue needs to be addressed by the Commission in the final report. For a more complete discussion of the nature of our concerns about forest people's place in the forest policy dialogue see the article, "Hidden Faces in the Forest" in the Spring 1996 Issue of the SAIS Review distributed at the Commission Meeting. This article is authored by Roger Stone, Director and President of the Sustainable Development Institute, and Mark Poffenberger, Research Fellow at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies of the University of California at Berkeley and Director of the Asia Sustainable Forest Network.

Conclusion (back to contents)

The Sustainable Development Institute is pleased to see that the ideas of both SDI and of the Asia Forest Network have been widely adopted by the Commission as reflected in the Interim Report on the Outcome of the Asia Region Public Hearing where the Commission stated that inadequate attention has been given to the spontaneous forest conservation and tree planting activities that are being carried out by local communities and smaller farmers using their own resources and to the potential for further involvement of the private sector in triggering smallholder tree farming. The Commission goes on to say that international donor agencies should seek to support the local efforts of millions of rural people in the Asia region particularly in the management and restoration of degraded public forests lands and in the accelerated introduction of agroforestry farming systems. These are precisely the steps that we feel the Commission can take to foster a transition in the management and ownership of public forest lands.

We have begun to see that we can make a useful contribution to the global forest policy arena in the context of our project studying the gap between policy and practice among the major donor agencies, by examining the relationship between funding sources and methods, and success with community forestry. We have been invited to attend the upcoming meetings of the Commission in Winnipeg and Georgetown, and hope to make a useful contribution in the discussion of financial mechanisms and incentives for local communities to manage forests sustainably.

We hope that the distribution of this report furthers the understanding of our goals to support the role of communities in the ownership and management of their own forests. In particular we hope that by distributing this report, we can draw attention from the international donor and NGO communities to the importance of grassroots efforts in Asia and Latin America where people are managing forests sustainably at the village level. We plan to continue to be involved in the process of the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development and contribute to the Commission as our findings evolve as we study the trends of major donor agency projects that support the role of communities and look at the funding sources and methods of successful community forestry projects. We look forward to providing our continued input and critique of the process and seeing through the Commission's support for the empowerment of local communities and their involvement in the management and conservation of public forest lands.

The Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), a non-governmental, non-profit organization funded through the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, has been studying the trends in policy among the major donor agencies, including the World Bank, that support the role of communities in managing forests and natural resources. SDI identified a number of the newer projects that have a major community forestry component and emphasize village level development. We selected the newer projects because they also should reflect the participatory policies introduced in recent years by donor agencies and we are interested to see how these policies are being implemented on the ground. SDI's main purpose is to improve the understanding of the pivotal role of local communities in sustaining environmental quality and economic development. Thus the participatory policy of these major donors is of particular interest to us.

I paid a ten day visit to India, in February 1996, to gain a sense of what is happening at the village level in the state of Madhya Pradesh where a statewide World Bank Project has adopted Joint Forest Management to combat increasing crisis of forest resource degradation.

National parks, wildlife reserves and other types of protected areas are a crucial means of conserving biological diversity. Local communities living within or adjacent to these areas have been excluded from the management plans in the past. The ensuing conflict of interest between the local people and the typically underfunded park management has caused people to question this traditional approach to conservation. In recent years, there has been a growing recognition that the management plans for protected area systems must include local people. This shift in approach has come from the discovery that the park management cannot work through policing by the park staff alone. Without attention to the underlying causes for continued exploitation of forest resources by local communities, the protected area systems will ultimately be diminished to a point of no return.

In tropical Southeast Asian protected areas, where the local communities are relying on the forests as a source of livelihood, removing access to the forest by setting park boundaries cannot succeed in eliminating forest exploitation without the creation of alternative income generation. Apart from the fact that the national park staff cannot police the hundreds of thousands of hectares of park, there is a need for regional and spatial planning in these areas where park systems have been set aside. Thus the concept of integrated conservation and development projects applies to the local and regional level, and attempts to find a balance between the needs for the conservation of biodiversity and economic development.

The Kerinci Seblat National Park is one of the largest reserves in Indonesia, spanning four provinces across the southern part of Sumatra. The area was identified in the 1980's as an important area for wildlife and biodiversity. Much of the area had been set aside from Dutch colonial times. In the past fifty years since independence, settlers have been pouring into the richly forested area from all over Sumatra and from Java. In the mid-1980's, the World Wide Fund for Nature together with the Indonesian government, set aside this area to become a national park. In 1988 WWF established an office worked with the provincial, regional and local government to develop park boundaries. In 1992, due to increasing encroachment, the boundaries were redrawn. By this time, the site had been proposed to become a World Bank and Global Environment Facility pilot project for the integrated conservation and development project concept.

In the state of Orissa, in Eastern India, village-based forest protection committees are taking matters of forest management and conservation into their own hands. This community forest protection in Orissa is fundamentally a decentralized grassroots movement initiated by small villages to protect local natural forests from further degradation. In many places in Orissa, communities, on their own accord, are forging unions or federations representing hundreds of villages to protect and regenerate forests, and even push for policy reforms. Orissa may have the most progressive forest policy of any Indian state; yet, inconsistencies in state forest policy and incentives for forest commercialization present obstacles for practical implementation of sound and equitable management. The vitality of these village-based movements demonstrates that implementation of sound forest management practices by forest communities is leading the policy transformation in this region; it is the forest department that needs to catch up with the local communities managing forests and not vice versa.

In a recent visit to the vast state of Orissa, Claudia D'Andrea, Program Associate of the Sustainable Development Institute investigated the rising phenomenon of the formation of unions or federations by visiting with four non-governmental organizations involved at various levels with some of the communities organizing themselves into very large federations. Ms. D'Andrea visited the grassroots organization People's Institute for Participatory Action Research (PIPAR) active in the Dhenkanal district of Orissa with the highest number of forest protection committees in the state; the Bhubaneshwar-based Regional Centre for Development Cooperation (RCDC) active in Western Orissa and the neighboring state of Eastern Madhya Pradesh; Vasundhara Institute, a forestry sector support organization active at both policy level and on the ground near to the state's capital; and OXFAM (India) Trust, which works all over the state but supports some activities of the Movement for Trees and Living Beings, known as BOJBP, one of the oldest and most conservation-oriented of the federation movements.

After the Earth Summit in Rio de Janiero, a special organizing committee was set up to establish an independent global commission addressing the problems of the deteriorating status of the world's forests. The idea for an independent commission developed out of a proposal from Ambassador Ola Ullsten of Sweden at the Global Forest Meeting held in Bandung, Indonesia in 1992. The goal of the Commission is to examine the use of the world's forests in the context of sustainable development. The WCFSD was launched by the InterAction Council of Former Heads of State in June 1995. A series of five regional Public Hearings are to be held around the world to identify the regional and international institutional, legal, and policy reforms that will lead to more equitable and sustainable forest management. The first of these five hearings was recently held in Jakarta, Indonesia for the Asia region. The next regional meeting will be held in Winnipeg, Canada, September 29 through October 5, 1996, and will address the problems of forests and sustainable development in North America and Mexico, the NAFTA region. Subsequent meetings will be held for the Latin American region, in Georgetown, Guyana in early December; the African region, either in the Congo Basin or the Dry Zone countries of Africa in early 1997; and in Russia for the European region in mid 1997. The following is a report by the Sustainable Development Institute which had the opportunity to attend the first Asia regional hearing and meeting.

The World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development (WCFSD) is an independent body of experts that was established after the Earth Summit of June 1992 to examine the problems of the deteriorating status of the world's forests. The Commission is holding five regional public hearings around the world to hear the views of different "stakeholder" groups on these issues. The Secretariat and the Commission will produce interim reports, and a final report will be issued in mid-1997.

The North American hearing was the second of the five regional hearings, following the model of the 1980's Brundtland Commission, planned by the WCFSD. The Sustainable Development Institute was invited to attend all meetings and speaking events along with the panel of experts. The Commission aimed to examine three areas: the sustainable use and management of forests; trade and export of forest-related products, and financial mechanisms and instruments needed for sustainable development.

The North America hearing focused on Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The abundance of Canadian stakeholders tended to dominate the hearing and detracted from the concerns over forests and sustainable development in Mexico and the U.S.. However, despite the smaller numbers of Mexicans and U.S. participants, an overwhelming message emerged that greater local and community-based control over forest resources may lead to wiser and more sustainable use and management of forests. Less decisive conclusions were reached on the other two areas of focus.

It was the intent of the Commissioners to have the participants address several questions in each panel that might indicate areas where international agreements might be strengthened, or recommendations might be formulated for the development of wiser use of diminishing global forest resources.

The WCFSD is concerned that progress is not being made in stopping forest loss and degradation due to a variety of realities on the ground that are frequently not discussed at international forest meetings. Thus the Commission has attempted to examine problems of forests and sustainable development not being addressed in the major global forest policy fora such as the UNCSD's IPF; Montreal, Helsinki, & Tarapoto Processes; the COP to the Convention on Biodiversity; and ITTO; At each of the regional hearings, the Commission has raised four basic questions:

• How much and what type of forest should be managed and protected?
• How should forests be managed and protected?
• By whom should they be managed and protected? and
• For whose benefits?

On behalf of the IUCN, I attended the 15th Commonwealth Forestry Conference in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe from 12-17 May 1997. My primary goal was to gain an understanding of the direction of the Commonwealth Forestry Conference. Additionally, it was an opportunity to broaden the membership of the working group on Community Involvement in Forest Management (WG-CIFM) and further the network of practitioners in the development of specific recommendations for community forestry policy. This community forestry policy project is being run through an electronic conference of the working group on CIFM and the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), a Washington-based NGO with a policy research project focusing on community forestry. The recommendations and results of this electronic conference will be directed to a number of international and independent bodies, including the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development (WCFSD).

Overview

In the complex world of international forestry, often what transpires in the field is barely reflective of what has been designed on paper. Whether site-specific donor-backed projects, national government attempts to reform institutional and sector policies, or local community-generated protection activities, even the best-intentioned efforts to achieve more sustainable and equitable management of the world's forests fail miserably to realize their goals. For the growing number of people concerned with forest protection, particularly in the tropics, a key factor to sustainable management is the full involvement of forest dwelling peoples and those living near forest areas in the planning and implementation of forest management schemes. Not surprisingly, perspectives abound on what actually constitutes "local participation" in forest management processes, running the gamut from sporadic "consultations" with local communities by donor agency staff to extensive engagement of local community ideas and activities throughout the life of a given project.

As part of SDI's attempt to conduct a "comparative analysis" of forest management policies designed by the chief international lending agencies - World Bank, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) - and forest management practices on the ground that depend on local community participation, I have examined institutional policies, countless project reports and evaluations, and spoken with agency staff and consultants to gain some insight into the links and gaps between policy and practice. While what has emerged is a disjointed, rather unclear picture of how donor policies concerning forest management and local community participation have translated into reality, some notable shifts in policy thinking and trends have appeared.

Generally, there is increasing language in some donor agency portfolios about the need to incorporate local communities and NGOs into forest and protected area management plans. The World Bank and USAID seem to have made the greatest strides in this area, with the ADB having recently formulated an official forest policy (3/95), and the IDB only just beginning to consider lending for environmental projects.

(In March 1997, the Sustainable Development Institute and sent e-mail queries to some 150 people, from twenty-six countries, with a professional interest in promoting the idea of community forest management. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) kindly agreed to provide SDI with the e-mail addresses of its Working Group on Community Involvement in Forest Management, a multi-stakeholder network facilitated by IUCN. We asked for suggestions and comments about the kinds of national and international level actions and policy shifts that could best strengthen current moves toward greater local control over forests. On the basis of the many useful responses received, we have modified and sharpened the inventory of ideas we initially circulated.)

What follows is a new draft statement on community forestry's importance and needs. Before putting this document in final form, we once again invite your reactions.)

Communities and Forests: Strengthening the Field

Roger D. Stone and Claudia D'Andrea
July, 1998

Overview

In March 1997, the Sustainable Development Institute sent email queries to some 150 people, from twenty-six countries, with a professional interest in promoting the idea of community forest management. The World Conservation Union (IUCN) kindly agreed to provide SDI with the email addresses of the Working Group on Community Involvement in Forest Management, a multistakeholder network facilitated by IUCN. We asked for suggestions and comments about the kinds of national and international level actions and policy shifts that could best strengthen current moves toward greater local control over forests.

On the basis of the many useful responses received, we modified and sharpened the skeleton inventory of ideas we initially circulated.  To the extent possible, the recommendations for actions that follow represent the collective opinion of our respondents.  While they were most generous with their time and thoughts, however, these people were not asked to help form the analysis that backs up the recommendations. For these sections of the paper, the authors are solely responsible.