Are Village Forest licences for rural development or conservation? A case study from Jambi Province, Indonesia

In Jambi Province villagers have not experienced direct benefit after receiving a
Village Forest licence. In all three villages studied, committee members have expressed their wish to relinquish the licence if they cannot perceive any benefit from it. There has been no financial or technical support and no guidance on how to manage the area. Furthermore tensions between Village Forest committee members and villagers over management of the licence are predominant in Production Forest areas and prone to elite capture. There are also issues of transparency within committee groups who are not distributing information properly and limit by default the participation of villagers, especially women. This brief fills the gap on the little research which has been done into how villages manage after receiving a license