Involving researchers from Australia’s Charles Sturt University (CSU), Indonesia’s Forest Research and Development Agency (FORDA), WWF Indonesia and CIFOR, the project will examine ways to optimize relations between small-scale forestry growers and timber processing companies in Indonesia and Australia. If forestry is to achieve its full potential - particularly meeting the needs of poor farmers - we need to understand the core ingredients of beneficial partnerships, how they differ and under what circumstances they are suitable.

According to CIFOR socio-economist Ani Adiwinata Nawir, who is developing the project with the project's Australian partners, the trade relationship between growers and companies influences the benefits derived from commercial forestry, and how these benefits are distributed.

“Rural communities in Indonesia use a range of strategies with companies, governments, market brokers and others to utilize forests so they meet multiple benefits,” Nawir said, “However, the ability to meet these multiple benefits varies considerably between partnerships.”

Achieving sustainable forest management while also meeting the social, technical and economic goals of the partners involves crucial and complex issues. According to ACIAR’s Heather Crompton, it is important to identify the factors that determine the success or failure of community and business forestry partnerships in Indonesia and Australia.

“We also need to recognize that what may work in Australia may not work in Indonesia. And what works in one part of Australia may not apply to other areas in Australia,” Crompton said.

Nawir shares the same view. “The principles of beneficial partnerships could apply for other types of community forestry partnerships, but limitations exist on how the preliminary research findings in western Indonesia apply to eastern Indonesia,” Nawir said.

“For instance, commercial forestry companies in eastern Indonesia still focus on harvesting from native forests with little investment in plantation development. But in western Indonesia the focus is on pulpwood species and these are not suited to the climate and geography of eastern Indonesia.”

Nawir says new partnership arrangements need to be developed that match the socio-economic and business characteristics of the communities, companies and other potential groups in eastern Indonesia.

Where few or no commercial forestry companies operate, as in much of eastern Indonesia and the Murray-Darling Basin in Australia, governments are formalising sharing agreements with rural communities. The aim is to develop mutually beneficial forestry arrangements, often as a means of paying communities for the environmental services their forestry activities deliver.

For example, as part of the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry’s support for community forestry management, communities are negotiating partnerships with the District’s Watershed Management Team or with Ministry staff.

Similar to Indonesia, governments in Australia are exploring partnership mechanisms with farmers and landholders to increase the adoption of farm forestry and generate environmental services and economic benefits.

According to CSU’s Digby Race, “A trial program in Victoria is paying landholders for biodiversity credits, as a mechanism for encouraging farmers with native vegetation to enhance its environmental qualities, yet continue to meet the aspirations of private landholders.”

Research on how to develop effective partnerships is relevant to Indonesia and Australia, where government policies increasingly emphasise the role of village communities in forestry for improving natural resource management and rural economic growth.

The ACIAR project marks the first attempt to really try and analyse if existing partnerships are effective and equitable. The project is likely to focus on partnerships in Sulawesi, Nusa Tenggara and southeast Australia, and will raise awareness about the value of community partnerships for growers, industrial companies and governments.

Some of the questions to be addressed include: What policies are needed to enhance community partnerships? How can forestry community partnerships be modified to more fairly share their benefits? What capacity building is required so different stakeholders can better contribute to partnerships? What is required to calculate detailed cost-benefit sharing agreements?

Answering these questions will help a wide range of commercial partnerships reach their potential and deliver social, economic and environmental benefits to small-scale growers and village communities.

Any failure to develop beneficial forestry partnerships is most likely affect poor farmers, who already have few opportunities for diversifying their land use and improving their livelihoods.

The ACIAR project will combine the research capabilities and expertise of the Indonesian Forestry Research and Development Agency (FORDA) - Sulawesi, CIFOR, WWF Indonesia in western Nusa Tenggara, and in Australia - CSU, the Australian National University (ANU), and the Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Production Forestry. AN, GC.