Compensatory facilities provided by logging companies such as clean water are often delayed and unsatisfactory, and promises are continually postponed
Conflict over natural resources can be a catalyst for constructive change, but needs careful management, according to Dr. Yurdi Yasmi from the Bangkok-based Regional Community Forestry Training Centre (RECOFTC).
Yurdi, whose interest in conflict and natural resource management issues includes several years research for CIFOR, says conflict emerges when a stakeholder is harmed or impaired in some way and involves far more than a mere difference of opinion.
Anxiety and frustration are the initial signs of an escalating conflict. These are generally followed by debate, lobbying and protest, with the issue sometimes capturing national or international attention.
Commodity and Conflict
Yasmi experienced conflict first hand when undertaking research for his PhD in Bulungan, East Kalimantan, when he looked into allegations that local communities suffered water and air pollution caused by logging companies. According to Yasmi, they were excluded from negotiations and denied rights to use wood from the forest for their houses and churches.
This scenario is not uncommon in forest management in Indonesia. Forest resources such as medicinal plants which local communities depend on can be instantly classified 'company property' and guarded in a military-like fashion. Compensatory facilities provided by logging companies such as clean water are often delayed and unsatisfactory, and promises are continually postponed.
"Too often people living in rich areas are poor because they have no rights," Yasmi said.
"Local government lack skills in natural resource management and they do not involve the local community, which creates frustration. Then when conflict emerges, we know it is there but we don't know what to do about it."
Yasmi said that in any transformation process, there is always a shock. He compared the escalation of conflict to a glass of water being shaken.
"When there is a shock, the water moves and it triggers people to think for improvement. But without management, the glass will fall over and the water will splash."
With the right institutions and appropriate, responsive management procedures in place, conflict can become a catalyst for constructive change, Yasmi believes. If there is governance and management that can provide a setting for negotiation among parties involved then positive social changes are achievable.
Community and Conservation
Aside from poverty, human rights and social issues, Yasmi's research shows that conflict management has many links to forest conservation and sustainability.
Traditionally, forest communities are very environmentally friendly, Yasmi said. But he believes that with today's increased competition over the control of dwindling natural resources, communities' lack of tenure now effectively discourages them from caring for the forests.
"Without clear ownership there is no incentive to preserve the forest," Yasmi said.
Because of a lack of good governance and forest management, ownership is usually unclear. There are competing claims over resources and it is usually the local communities - who know the most about the forest - who are left out of the negotiations, Yasmi said.
For conservation to be effective Yasmi believes that it must include the local community.
Yasmi is now researching conflict and natural resource management with RECOFTC, where he uses training and capacity building to assist conflict management in forests.
"I don't believe in resolving conflict from the outside," he said.
"Any external resolution will fail. External efforts can only enable the system to learn and grow through capacity building and providing training and tools, which is what RECOFTC does."
RECOFTC will hold a half day session titled "Forests and Poverty" at the Asia Pacific Forestry Week in Hanoi, Vietnam, 21-25 April 2008.
A "managed debate" will be chaired by ex-CIFOR researcher Neil Byron to demonstrate constructive and managed conflict. The session will be opened by a West Kalimantan indigenous person, followed by key note speaker Frances Seymour, Director-General, CIFOR.
Before joining RECOFTC, Dr. Yurdi Yasmi was a researcher with CIFOR's Governance programme for several years. His publications at CIFOR include: