Social Forestry is an option to promote sustainable forest management implemented in state-owned forest areas or private forests/customary forests where the local community or customary law community is the main actor to improve their welfare.
Social forestry is an important component of sustainable forest management. The socio-cultural role in forest development encourages fairer management in terms of benefit sharing. This role will involve village communities around the forest that have been managing the area in question for generations.
Appropriate practicality Social Forestry within the frame of Sound Forests Management will play an important role as providers of materials for sustainable life, maintaining and storing carbon emissions, and other environmental services. Thus, it is appropriate to increase and expand mitigation-based community activities through effective policies, strategies, and incentives.
Social forestry can contribute to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emission levels to support Indonesia's Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) target in 2030. Therefore, the government must include social forestry in the scenario of achieving the NDC.
The contribution of social forestry is through efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation, and forest degradation, and increase carbon stocks. In short, social forestry is the implementation of a community-based climate project program (REDD+) at the site scale.
The social forestry policy officially started after the issuance of Minister of Environment and Forestry Regulation No 83 of 2016 concerning Social Forestry. The policy is designed to realize equitable access to land and natural resources, support aspects of people's livelihoods as well as for the sustainability of forest resources.
The realization of social forestry as of September 2020 has reached 4.2 million hectares out of an allocation of 12.7 million hectares. Through social forestry, communities also have a stake and participate in climate change mitigation, especially in the land use, land use change, and forestry sectors.
The following are activities relevant to community-based approach mitigation:
(1) Increasing public awareness of sound forest management to lead to appropriate forest management in order to reduce the global warming problem; Global warming is a global phenomenon that is triggered by human activities, especially those related to the use of fossil materials and land use change activities. This activity produces more and more gases in the atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide (CO2) through a process called the greenhouse effect. The term greenhouse effect (greenhouse effect) is a term that is quite closely related to global warming.
(2) Emphasizing the acceleration of deforestation and degradation that stimulates increased carbon emissions;
(3) Increase the resilience of forests and their ecosystems for long-term mitigation developments;
(4) Increasing reforestation activities (reforestation);
(5) Promote sustainable forest management;
(6) Increasing biodiversity and forest conservation
Community participation has been recognized as an additional element but essential to reverse the worldwide trend of exponential increase in disaster occurrence of any loss from small- and medium-scale disasters, build a culture of safety, and ensure sustainable development for all. Positive impact affirms the validity of the community-based approaches to climate change mitigation, notwithstanding the difficulties, complexities, and challenges faced to initiate, sustain and replicate.
The formation of communities in the context of strengthening institutional capacity is part of adaptation efforts in dealing with the impacts of climate change. Indonesia recognizes the large role of multi-stakeholders in controlling climate change.
One of the programs developed to forge multi-stakeholder partnerships in controlling climate change from various levels starting from the National to the site level is the Climate Village Program (ProKlim).
Government-led ProKlim has been developed since 2012 and continues to be strengthened as a strategic climate change control program.
In the context of National Development, a program was established to support the mitigation efforts. Indonesia's commitment to take an active role in controlling the rate of increase in the earth's temperature must be transformed into activities with stakeholders in a more strategic and intelligent approach than usual.
The Climate Village Program (ProKlim), which was established as a national movement for community-based climate change control, is one of the government's strategic steps in grounding the global issue of climate change into joint action at the local level.
For the first time, Social Forestry is contained in Law Number 11 of 2020 concerning Job Creation, which states that the use of Protection Forest and Production Forest can be carried out through Social Forestry, which is further regulated in PP No. 23/2021 concerning Implementation of Forestry and Minister of Environment and Forestry No. 9/2021 concerning Social Forestry Management.
President Joko Widodo in COP 26 said that Social Forestry has a big role in realizing Climate Change through forest conservation and the livelihoods of local communities considering that millions of people depend on forests for their lives.
Contribution of Social Forestry management practices to support Climate Change in mitigation and adaptation activities through (1) Reducing emissions from deforestation; (2) Reducing emissions from forest degradation; (2) Conservation of forest carbon stocks; (4) Sustainable forest management; (5) Increasing forest carbon stocks.
Legal Access for Social Forestry
Therefore Legal access to the management of the community's forest areas is made in five management schemes, as follow
(1) The Village Forest Scheme (HD) for state forests whose management rights are given to village institutions for village welfare.
(2) A community forest (HKm), is recognized as a state forest whose utilization is aimed at the empowerment of local communities.
(3) Community Plantation Forests (HTR/IPHPS), are plantation forests in production forests developed by community groups to increase the potential and quality of production forests by applying silviculture in order to ensure the preservation of forest resources.
(4) Customary Forest (HA), where this forest is a forest that is within the territory of a customary forest community.
(5) The final scheme is the Forestry Partnership, in which there is a cooperation between local communities and forest managers, holders of business permits for forest utilization, forest services, lease-to-use permits for forest areas, or holders of business permits for primary forest product industries.