Village forests (hutan desa): empowerment, business or burden?

Main messages:
- Legalizing local community governance through Hutan
Desa (Village Forest) permits can secure communal rights
and protect the resource against outsiders. However,
administrative procedures often take precedence over
verification of conditions. Thus not all Hutan Desa permits
that are formally approved are, in fact, clear and clean in
terms of land status and rights’ holders.
- Granting Hutan Desa status without proper verification of
village boundaries or considering local rights and traditions
can lead to conflict between customary and administrative
institutions.
- Assigning village enterprises to manage village forests assumes
that the village forests are to be managed as an enterprise for
profit. This might be a conflict of interest between government
doing business and overseeing good governance of forests.
-Designating a village enterprise to manage a forest does
not automatically make a Hutan Desa permit a profitable enterprise as not all village forests can, or should, be managed for economic purposes only.