Farmer Tree Planting Barriers to Sustainable Forest Management - Smallholder Tree Growing for Rural Development and Environmental Services - page 417

Likewise, the Indonesian constitution places the control (not ownership) of natural
resources in the hands of the State and states that these must be managed for the ben-
efit of the Indonesian people. Authority for the establishment of a permanent forest
estate is given to the Ministry of Forestry and 70 percent of the archipelago's land
base (114 million hectares) is regulated by forestry and restricted for forest protec-
tion, rehabilitation or production. Delineation is to be carried out with the participa-
tion of local government and local people and the final stage of gazettement is a legal
step taken by the Minister of Forestry. There is extreme political sensitivity when
linking the term 'ownership' with forest lands (Kusters et al. 2007). The result is a
regulatory framework that inhibits community agroforestry in large areas. In fact,
however, only 10 percent of the State Forest has completed the process of gazette-
ment, and the legal basis of the designation as state forestland of the remaining area
can be (and is) contested (Contreras-Hermosilla and Fay 2005). Considerable parts of
Indonesia's closed canopy forest are actually agroforests planted by local people.
Such agroforest provide approximately 70 percent of the total amount of rubber pro-
duced in the country (on about 2.5 M ha of land), at least 80 percent of the damar
resin, roughly 80 to 90 percent of the various marketed fruits as well as important
quantities of export tree crops such as cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, coffee and candlenut
(Michon and de Foresta 1995). In Sumatra alone, about 4 million hectares have been
converted by local people into various kinds of agroforests (Michon and Bompard
1987). According to the forestry regulatory framework, these land use systems are
illegal within the State Forest since they are considered agricultural activities. Cases
of forced evictions and the destruction of these agroforestry systems by forestry offi-
cials (with assistance from the military) are well documented (Fay et al. 2000).
Forestry officials often justify their actions as being in defense of “forest functions”
(Kusworo 2000), without specifying what these functions are or proving that these
functions are deficient in the actual land use. Proof of forest functions is based on the
existence of a landuse type defined as forests. Exclusion by definition is thus the
main threat to the contributions agroforestry can make to sustainable forest manage-
ment, directly related to criterion 7 of the Montreal process. Improvements in this sit-
uation will require a 'negotiation support system' that is based on critical examination
of claims on real environmental service function, along with recognition of the vari-
ous stakeholder interests (Van Noordwijk et al. 2001b).

20.3 Bottleneck 2: Access to Good Planting Material

Scientists and extension services general make decisions regarding which species
are tested and promoted (Franzel et al. 2002). In this context, Tolentino (Chapter 15,
this volume) refers to “the popularity of exotic tree species” like Gmelina arborea
that dominate plantation forestry and tree farming in the Philippines which is in
strong contrast to the low-level domestication of indigenous tree species (ITS) for
timber production by smallholder tree farmers. In Southeast Asia the production
and dissemination of quality tree seed is most often controlled by the formal tree