'Traditions' of Forest Control in Java: Implications for Social Forestry and Sustainability

Ideally, social forestry programs and philosophies are intended to involve local people in the management and distribution offorest resources. In practice, the structures of social forestry programs are influenced by political, economic, and cultural factors at national and local levels. When social forestry programs entail the reallocation of access to forest resources on state lands, power relations are particu larly influential. As the case ofthe Java Social Forestry Program illus trates, powerful social forces that have historically shaped the national forest management agency and the social structures offor est-based villages have distorted social forestry ideals. When their tra ditional management tools are unable to curb deforestation and the social processes causing deforestation, forestry agencies may be per suaded to implement social forestry policies. The natures of changes in forestry programs and the orientation of social forestry are inevita bly subject to local negotiation and renegotiation. The outcomes of negotiation, however, are dependent on the structures of power rela tions both before and after implementation of new policies. * Professor Peluso teaches at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. The research on which this paper is based was carried out in Java, Indonesia and in the Echols Collection at Cornell University from October 1984 through October 1986. Additional data were collected on a short trip to the Netherlands in November 1987 and during an evaluation of the social forestry program I conducted in January 1987. The study was supported by grants from the Ford Foundation and the Cornell Southeast Asia Program. Field research in Indonesia was sponsored by the Center for Environmental Research, Gadjah Mada Univer sity, Yogyakarta, Indonesia and the State Forestry Corporation of Java. I am particularly indebted to the latter, without whose cooperation research would have been impossible. Dif ferent versions of this paper were presented at the American Sociological Association's 1988 annual meeting and the Association of Asian Studies 1989 annual meeting. I am indebted to Stephen Bunker, Jeffrey Paige, Jesse Ribot, Mark Ritchie, and William Sunderlin for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Where I have not heeded their advice, of course, I am responsible for its shortcomings. 884 NATURAL RESOURCES JOURNAL rVoL 32