Project Summary

This project is a participatory action seeking to facilitate constructive dialogue and social learning among key stakeholder groups with different interests in Papua’s forests. It will focus on constructing a clear picture of deforestation in Papua and of the role of illegal logging in the loss of forest cover in order to fully assess the claims that are being made about the “failure of decentralization” in the province.

The goal is to place the feuding factions (district/province/national) at the same conceptual and factual level of understanding the deforestation-illegal logging-decentralization problematic in Papua. This will clarify the situation for all the stakeholders and inform the debates in which they are involved. A clearer understanding of these issues will contribute towards more constructive policy dialogues between district, provincial and national stakeholders and will help reduce the potential for conflict in Papua. The project also seeks to augment the on-going initiatives to reduce illegal logging practices in Papua.

The above objectives will be accomplished by:

1. Collecting and analyzing data, through participatory action research, on forest cover and illegal logging in Papua

2. Elucidating substantive links between the extent of deforestation, contribution of illegal logging to deforestation and the role of decentralization in forest loss

3. Building the capacity of local civil society groups (NGOs, university, community fora) to carry out analyses of key forestry and district/province budget/tax data in order to systematically assess the state of district/province forestry operations, associated irregularities, and their impacts

4. Using the findings to raise district/province civil society and broader government awareness of these issues and galvanize public scrutiny/pressure in order to increase the political cost of illegalities in the forestry and therefore reduce the incentives for illegal forest activities

5. Linking civil society partners in Papua to CIFOR’s initiative to reduce illegal forestry activities by working with the Financial Transactions and Report Analysis Center (PPATK) to freeze financial assets and cut off financial services to companies and individuals involved in illegal forest activities

Project Data

Duration: July 2005

Location:  Papua - Indonesia

CIFOR team: Krystof Obidzinski & Agung Prasetyo.

Contact person:  Krystof Obidzinski at email: k.obidzinski@cgiar.org

Upcoming Events

• A multi-stakeholder workshop on the findings of the project and their implications for the illegal logging and conflict mitigation campaign in Papua, approximately December 2006

Past Events

• A multi-stakeholder consultation workshop “Illegal logging and forest conflict in Papua: beyond simplifications”, approximately in early August 2005;

• A multi-stakeholder meeting in Papua or Jakarta to present the findings of the Papua forestry baseline paper, approximately in December 2005/January 2006;

Publications

• Journal articles

• Newspaper articles;

• Edited volume of workshop papers;

• Policy briefs;