It takes a lot of courage to ask someone what they really think of you, because you might not like the answer. But that is what CIFOR’s Petrus Gunarso did in a survey to evaluate the "benefits or use" of CIFOR to villagers in Malinau, East Kalimantan.

The most interesting thing was the sheer range of responses from the survey’s 52 participants. These varied from CIFOR has "expanded our thinking" to CIFOR “is all talk".

Having just taken over the position of Malinau Research Forest (MRF) Coordinator, no doubt Gunarso was surprised to be told “CIFOR is all talk”. But he says overall he is delighted with the results.

"I think MRF is one of the most exciting forest projects in Indonesia, if not in the world. It is a living laboratory of all that happens on a bio-physical, social and economic scale in the world’s tropical forests. That is why it is so important to assess community attitudes to the research CIFOR is doing there. And the results look pretty good," Gunarso said

CIFOR’s work in Malinau ranges from researching reduced impact logging and biodiversity through to community mapping of forestry resources, assessing the impact of decentralization on forests and measuring the nutrition and diets of people in remote villages.

Common to all this research is the need for close liaison with local communities. CIFOR has been holding workshops for the communities in the Malinau watershed every year since the Indonesia government designated the area as a research forest in 1996.

According to Lini Wollenberg, a social scientist at CIFOR "The workshops bring together communities from the 27 villages in the watershed to build a common understanding of natural resource management. At each workshop we also try to bring in representatives from the government. In fact, one of the highlights is always the dialogue between communities and government."

At the most recent workshop in March 2003 Gunarso asked the 52 community participants to evaluate the "benefits or use" of CIFOR. The results point to ways in which CIFOR might be helpful in having impact in other village-level efforts. "They also indicate the actual impact of CIFOR's work in Malinau," Wollenberg said.

On the positive side, eleven of the villagers thought CIFOR had "expanded our thinking”, “helped us understand conditions elsewhere”, “increased our information and experience”, “improved our human resources” and “provided feedback about our situation."

Nine felt CIFOR had helped their community advance and develop by providing valuable advice and explanations. They felt this was important in improving relations between villages, reducing conflict and building bridges between communities and government.

Community members also listed their disappointments. Two people claimed CIFOR's work had not reached their villages. There was also the suggestion that CIFOR's work was all "discussion" and failed to offer any leadership in the decisions needed to overcome local disagreements.

"Overall it was a very useful exercise that gives us an honest appraisal of how the villagers see us," said Gunarso, “This feedback will be very useful in planning how CIFOR works with local communities in the future.”

Yvan Biot, Program Coordinator of the Multistakeholder Forestry Programme from DfID, one of CIFOR’s key MRF donors, was also impressed, saying the survey was “very exciting!” and that it “really puts research at the service of community.” Biot said it was now important to gradually convince Indonesian research institutions of the benefit of using similar approaches to science.