Community-Based Logging and De Facto Decentralization: Illegal Logging in the Gunung Palung Area of West Kalimantan, Indonesia.

Kalimantan (Indonesia); Indonesia

This paper considers the emergence of community-based logging in West Kalimantan, Indonesia at the end of the timber boom in the mid-1990s. It begins with an overview of the relevant laws and regulations and describes community-based logging before the era reformasi that began with the ouster of President Suharto in May 1998. The paper argues that the Indonesian Selective Felling System (TPTI) both in theory and in practice has severely compromised the quality of Indonesia's natural production forests. The spatial heterogeneity of concession logging has encouraged reentry by teams of small-scale loggers who face lower operational and opportunity costs, and who have appropriated management and financial systems from the departed concessionaires. The paper then contrasts community-based logging with conventional forest management systems and critiques decentralization and illegal logging discourses. From these critiques, I suggest that the de facto decentralization described by Rhee (2000) actually began before de jure decentralization. Lastly, I describe how a misreading of the landscape of local-level power and influence led to the failure of a community forest management project undertaken during the period under consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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