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Governance, Decentralisation and Deforestation: The Case of Central Kalimantan Province, Indonesia

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  • Suwarno, Aritta
  • Hein, Lars
  • Sumarga, Elham

Abstract

The implementation of the decentralisation policies in Indonesia, which started in 2000, has fundamentally changed the country’s forest governance framework. This study investigates how decentralisation has influenced forest governance, and links the forest governance to deforestation rates at the district level. We measure and compare the quality of forest governance in 11 districts in Central Kalimantan province in the periods 2000-2005 and 2005-2010 and relate forest governance to deforestation rate. This study shows that decentralisation has led to marked differences in forest governance between districts and that deforestation rates is strongly related to the change of forest governance. We recommend revisiting the Indonesian forest governance framework to ensure more checks and balances in decision making, better monitoring and increased transparency, with particular support for Forest Management Units as a new tool for forest management, and government support to facilitate the design and implementation of REDD+ projects.

Suggested Citation

  • Suwarno, Aritta & Hein, Lars & Sumarga, Elham, 2015. "Governance, Decentralisation and Deforestation: The Case of Central Kalimantan Province, Indonesia," Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture, Humboldt-Universitaat zu Berlin, vol. 54(1), pages 1-24, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:qjiage:206297
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.206297
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Carr, Jamie A. & Petrokofsky, Gillian & Spracklen, Dominick V. & Lewis, Simon L. & Roe, Dilys & Trull, Nicholas & Vidal, Adriana & Wicander, Sylvia & Worthington-Hill, John & Sallu, Susannah M., 2021. "Anticipated impacts of achieving SDG targets on forests - a review," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    2. Aritta Suwarno & Meine van Noordwijk & Hans-Peter Weikard & Desi Suyamto, 2018. "Indonesia’s forest conversion moratorium assessed with an agent-based model of Land-Use Change and Ecosystem Services (LUCES)," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 211-229, February.
    3. Parkash Chander, 2018. "A Political Economy Analysis Of The Southeast Asian Haze," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 63(05), pages 1085-1100, December.

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