Wherever we are, natural resource management activities are encouraged to promote partnerships that can provide mutual benefits to the stakeholders concerned. Therefore, the alternative to building a partnership among stakeholders is an option that is considered to represent the parties in natural resource management. The forestry sector, for example, requires working partners consisting of civil society, entrepreneurs, NGOs, and forestry practitioners to realize responsible management. The government in this case as a policy maker, of course with this partnership, will be better able to identify forestry challenges in the near future.
The mutual benefits will be creating more enjoyable initiatives by the interested parties that the partnership is complementary and is a win-win solution. In the process of mutual benefits entering to the overall process and procedure, encouraging mutually beneficial cooperation will require a gradual strengthening process to reach an agreement between the parties.
Strengthening Local Community
Strengthening local communities is still an interesting point when addressing local wisdom and respective stakeholders who are living around the operation area. In the current national development process. Local communities living around areas where development activities are taking place such as forest exploitation, mining exploration, and other multinational activities require a careful approach, especially if there are community groups that have lived there for generations.
The principle of benefit is to create justice and share benefits by considering at the rights and obligations as well as the ability of each party in managing resources. Local communities benefit from management by considering the inclusion of the private sector in their territory areas and the community believe in the use of forest products with high trust to the said private sector.
The key to mutual benefit is the trust between parties fighting for common goals.
In some cases, initiating mutual benefits, for example, the government opens proactive communication to local communities around the forest and they are able to make adequate contributions to the management plan and implementation of a forest product utilization. The contribution of local communities to forest development and operation depends on the Department or the government in assessing the local communities’ involvement.
Experience in social forestry shows that local communities who live around forests understand very well the local conditions of their own area [territory]. Village communities around the forest recognize the boundaries of their cultivated areas [garden] by utilizing landscapes and other natural signs. They can recognize these signs from the local knowledge that has been inheritted from generation to generation from their parents. If there is no management intervention from outside [external], they will meet their own needs from the gardens around where they live.
The indigenous Punan Dayak people are very familiar with the terrain of their hunting ground in the forest. The ability to recognize landscapes based on the knowledge being inheritted from their parents and grand parents. They tend to be familiar with the reality of life from their childhood, So it is not surprising that their ability to explore nature and the speed of mastering their nature and area of life is fast because they have been used to it since birth. the forest.
Adequate contribution to management can be realized in the form of participation in planning and implementation. Since forestry activities take into account social and environmental aspects in their management, management planning should be adequately adopting the aspects of the social and environmental situation. This management plan has become widely discussed and has become material for deeper consideration in the management plan.
The style of participation in the management process includes allocating their energy and thoughts for planning so that they can materialize the effectiveness of implementation and post-implementation of forest management. This form of active participation opens up opportunities for local communities to get to know forestry business activities that take into account their basic needs. However, lessons learned from management plan several incidents concerning local communities are that do not get the attention of private companies operating in their surrounding areas.
Social Forestry is one prospective alternative that has a social commitment to developing the principle of participatory forest management. In this activity, when the community group obtains a license or management permit, the group will begin to build an agreement between parties to develop its business.
In planning, it can be realized in the form of an allocation of thought power and knowledge about protected species that are local communities’ attention. In addition to species identification, it can also be in the form of identification of customary areas adjacent to the operational area of a management unit.
Balancing The Power
Evidently, there is some realistic situation where partnership activities are less balanced between partners. In profit-sharing activities for forestry products, parties who have lived in forest areas for a long time [local communities] still need knowledge and capacity building in order to be able to partner in a balanced way.
In general, when a partnership is undergoing and established between the government and local communities, the government views that community groups need to gain knowledge enrichment and theoretically [based on the government’s perspective] have not yet been able to meet the requirements to run a forestry business widely. The government has a global understanding of business and natural resource management. Several important activities related to strengthening partnerships, sharing knowledge, and exchanging information between producers, users, and practitioners are an important part of the multi-stakeholder learning process.
On the other hand, local people are very dependent on and understand the ins and outs of their environment. In terms of managing and planning, they will usually rely on the surrounding conditions and sufficiently meet their own needs.
The benefits of mutual cooperation n will result in an effective program. The program is effective due to each party contributes actively and dynamically. Therefore programs that are carried out dynamically usually develop a participatory practice.
Just a few years ago, local bamboo forests were being depleted so fast they were at risk of disappearing entirely. Change is coming about through a forest landscape restoration initiative called FLOURISH. I was fortunate to visit the sites in Nghe An Province this week. The IKI-BMU supported FLOURISH project has been helping hundreds of villagers to restore bamboo forests, develop sustainable livelihoods and play a part in slowing climate change. I witnessed a training for a collaborative of lung bamboo collectors to negotiate a partnership with a Vietnamese handicraft company. For info on FLOURISH, read more here: https://lnkd.in/dvgkgAfc
Participatory Practice
The partnership is one of the alternative solutions to managing natural resources.
The forestry partnership, for example, has been launched by MoEF as an alternative collaboration between local communities and the Ministry [in this case the government]. Many partnerships have been carried out by the Government and community and private groups to see the level of success and the either forms or styles of partnerships that need to be crafted.
Building partnerships requires a spirit of mutual support and trust in one another. Many decisive elements in the partnership process are not going well because of the dominance of one stakeholder and has reduced the spirit of sharing.
The spirit of sharing is usually reflected in each party being able to maintain their respective egos and prioritizing common goals. Partnerships built on mutual trust will make the collaboration process more effective. Several collaborative experiences between the government and local communities are built on mutual trust and confidence to encourage sustainable management.
In this case the partnership has certain levels depending on the engagement process that occurs between the government and community groups as well as other parties.
It is realized that the government will need an adequate partner as an extension of the Government’s hand to practitioners at the site level who understand the essence of sustainable development.
It is quite often the government has difficulty in reaching out to groups at the site level because of the lack of manpower who can facilitate the relationship between the government and practitioner groups. In addition, policies issued by the government are often an obstacle because of the difficulty of implementing policies at the site level due to various kinds of management challenges.
Although some parties still have some questions about the form and style of the partnership that is being developed, this is one of the processes leading to collaborative management.
The ministry also recently discussed the implementation of COP 26 from glasgow and the required actions to implement the commitments of the inter government climate change pledge
Adequate Partner
Management of natural resources, especially forests, requires adequate partners. The partners needed are those who can facilitate the relationship and interests between the parties so that each understands its functions, roles, and responsibilities. For example, the facilitation of forest management requires a comprehensive understanding of forestry’s theoretical and technical conditions. Many activities at the field level have not been fully connected with the theoretical basis that experts have developed. That is, the reality on the ground needs to be understood in depth so that the application of the theory becomes more synchronous. Most of the unsynchronized planning and implementation are due to field conditions that are not simple and more complex than originally thought.
Comprehensive Understanding of Forestry Practices
Understanding of forestry science is quite diverse. In the context of sustainability, social, economic, and environmental aspects are the main parts that need to be explained in deepening forestry science. It is not surprising that forestry science has a lot to do with social, economic, and environmental sciences which must be connected to each other.
If there are adherents of science who only consider the forestry economy, without looking at the social and environmental aspects, it is time to change that perspective.
This means that the partner understands the dynamics of managing forest resources in the area they live in.
These concerned stakeholders need to be enlightened about partnerships that can provide many benefits to them.
Most of the partnerships that have been built provide new hope that partnership management will elevate the dignity and together face the challenges of future business implementation.
A partnership among stakeholders is encouraged. It is necessary for the stakeholders to identify the needs in their area for the environmental management needed to establish harmonious interactions between stakeholders,