Managing Conflicts Over State-Forestland Through Soft Systems Methodology: The Case of Benakat Research Forest, South Sumatra

• There are plenty of Indonesian forest areas lied in condition of not being governed and neglected. It was initially perceived as conflicting area due to government vagueness to deal with other stakeholder preferences on appropriate land-use for those
resources.

• A well-known approach to systems design that focuses on explicating different perspectives is Soft Systems Methodology (SSM). It has been used widely and successfully in many complicate problem situations.

• Nevertheless, both Indonesian researchers and practitioners were still unfamiliar with SSM. Moreover in the case of forest management, SSM was considered as complicated and timeconsuming approach. However, it is not always true.