Mia Siscawati, Ph.D.

University of Indonesia/CIFOR

Forest tenure is a broad concept that includes a variety of arrangements over the use of forest resources, from ownership, tenancy and a variety of mechanisms of access.

The concept of forest tenure provides space for a combination of legally or customarily defined access to forest lands and forest resources as well as arrangements to manage, use, and have control over these lands and resources (FAO, 2010).

Forest tenure not only determines who has access to what resources for how long and under what conditions but also who has control over what resources, and who has benefit from the use of those resources.

The study of access focuses on the multiple ways people gain benefits from resources.

Access retains an empirical “ ... focus on the issues of who does (and who does not) get to use what, in what ways, and when (that is, in what circumstances)” (Nealle 1998). Within this framework, access can be seen as “bundles and webs of powers that enable to gain, control, and maintain access” (Ribot and Peluso, 2003).

Different people and different institutions can hold and exercise different bundles and webs of powers. Therefore, some people, group(s) of people, and institutions control resource access while others must maintain their access through those who have control (Ribot and Peluso, 2003).

Women of different social status and classes have certain forms of relationship with forest lands and resources while performing critical roles in managing forest lands and resources.

One woman may have a variety of access to different plots of forest lands, started from her own land(s), her husband’s land(s), her conjugal land(s), her relative’s or neighbor’s land(s), as well as communal lands.

Multiple identities carried by one woman, contributed by her marital status, socio-economic class, age, occupation, and other factors will influence her positions in the daily application of forest tenure and forest governance at multiple levels, from the household, clan, and community levels.

In Indonesia, customary forest tenure systems are in conflict with the legal framework that support state control over the territorialization, zonation and management of forest lands.

The government of Indonesia adopts the colonial approach of state control over forest lands and resources through forestry laws and regulations

Through this state-supported enclosure, the Ministry of Forestry issued forestry concessions (logging, industrial timber plantations, and ecosystem restoration) mostly to private corporations. This ministry also established conservation areas managed as national park, nature reserves etc. The areas allocated for all of these homelands of indigenous peoples and local communities.

In setting up the “state forest zone” and applying state-controlled system of forest management, this regime exercised the alienation of indigenous peoples and local communities from their communal forest lands. This process continues until today.

The impacts for customary communities and other local communities, especially women and marginal groups within these communities are quite devastating

In gaining access to forest lands and forest resources, indigenous women and local women gain and maintain access to lands and forest resources through those who have control via various mechanisms, processes, and social relations.

In many cases, those with control are mostly male actors (male customary leaders, male members of the family, male neighbors, male state forest guards, etc.) that occupy different positions in relation to the lands at certain periods.

In gaining and maintain access to lands and forest resources, adat women and local women have to navigate within webs of power in the household, the clan, the community, the state, as well as the market. These processes women face various forms of gender injustice such as sub-ordination, marginalization, discrimination and stereotyping.

At the same time, these forms of gender injustice contribute to the degree to which women can gain and maintain access to lands, and in what ways and how long they can maintain that access.

On 16 May 2013 the Indonesian Constitutional Court ruled that customary forest is no longer part of the state forest. This Ruling can be seen as the recognition of customary territory.

It recognizes indigenous peoples as rights bearing subject and it fundamentally validates customary communities' position in their scattered struggle over land, resources, and territory.

The Constitutional Court Ruling was enacted in response to a judicial review submitted by the alliance of indigenous peoples of Indonesia's archipelago (Aliansi Masyarakat AdatNusantara/AMAN).

Indigenous women in many areas in Indonesia, who have lower level of education compared to their male counterparts, have very limited access to knowledge, particularly about changes of policies on forest tenure and forest governance that affect the lands they manage.

This sub-ordination contributes to the marginalization of indigenous women in various processes that happen in their own family and community. This has led to women losing access and or control of their lands, making them more vulnerable.

The Master Plan on the Acceleration of Economic Development opens more space for privatization of lands, including forest lands.

Oil palm and mining companies have been approaching indigenous peoples to release their lands

Customary leaders, their husbands and other male members of their families make decisions to release lands located within customary areas without involvement and consent of women.

The impacts for indigenous and local women are devastating