Partnership between communities and acacia pulp plantation in South Sumatra

Activities

1. Initiation

A household survey was carried out in Rambang Dangku subdistrict in July and August 2005 to assess household livelihood options and strategies. Rambang Dangku is a subdistrict of Muara Enim district, where MHP’s base camp is located and the community-company problem frequently rises. Figure 1 illustrates what the communities want from MHP.

Figure 1. What do the communities want from MHP? (Levang and Edo 2005)

For stakeholder identification we used the ‘Who Counts’ matrix as proposed by Colfer et al. (1999). The ‘Who Counts’ matrix approach is basically a ‘scoring’ technique where the score ranges between 1 (high) and 5 (low). The score indicates the level of importance, as perceived by the various stakeholders, of different management criteria. The median scores for each column are computed across the bottom of Table 1. The cut-off point for the study, which defined ‘Who Counts’, is a median score of 3 or less.

Table 1. Stakeholder identification using ‘Who Counts’ matrix

Table 2 shows that MHP, the community of Rambang Dangku (both Desa Dalam and Desa Luar), Gunung Megang and local governments are the primary stakeholders, while central government and nongovernmental organization (NGO) are not. The central government still holds power to set up forest industries, including requests for partnership with local communities. It has nothing to do, however, with the way the partnership is implemented in the field. In the autonomy era since 1998, local government has more power than central government in controlling forestry operations. The only NGO that operated in the area is Yayasan Kaffah, led by Dr. Fahrurrozy, the former head of South Sumatra Planning Agency (BAPPEDA), who also acted as advisor to the top management of MHP. This NGO had been conducting training sessions on agricultural practices. Nevertheless the NGO did not touch the issue of real partnership on acacia plantations. Furthermore, the NGO executed the contract provided by MHP.

The LPF team conducted intensive bilateral communications with each stakeholder to enable stakeholders to articulate their interests freely. Table 2 shows their goals, strategies and rationalities, as defined by Boltanski and Thévenot (2006).

Table 2. Goals, strategies and rationalities of stakeholders

The different goals, strategies and rationalities have produced high tension between MHP and local communities. Meanwhile the relation between MHP and the local government of Muara Enim is quite good due to mutual benefits between company growth and government’s legal and illegal incomes. Both of them hold the rationality of ‘fame’. They maintain their good names by using personal relationships to solve problems.

We carried out a workshop in April 2005 to formalize dialogue among the identified stakeholders. The workshop had more than 60 participants representing various stakeholders, i.e., local communities, MHP, local governments, parliament members, community organizations and the LPF team. The workshop opened with a keynote address delivered by the head of Muara Enim district, followed by remarks from representatives of MHP, BAPPEDA and local communities. Speakers reaffirmed their goals and interests as shown in Table 3. This event marked the first time that all stakeholders came together and articulated their goals and interests in front of the others. They also communicated their actions for achieving the goals and affirmed they would do their best to avoid violent conflicts. On the second day of the workshop stakeholders agreed to establishing a forum. After debate the forum was named Sebahu Sejalan, which is an acronym for Serasan Membangun Hutan Sekundang Sejahtera Berkelanjutan (‘together we establish forest for sustainable well-being’). The forum, with headquarters in Muara Enim district, may institute branches in villages as needed.

2. Intervention

To implement the plan the forum Sebahu Sejalan conducted a series of FGDs, consultations and negotiations. We started with Desa Dalam, followed by Desa Luar, Gunung Megang and MHP. The facilitation aimed at articulating community aspirations regarding the partnership with MHP. The facilitation focussed on the achievement of the previously agreed short- and medium-term goals. The communities, however, seldom prioritized the latter two medium-term goals of extension of the MHR area and its benefit, and improvement of market access for community products.

2.1. Discourse on Partnership by Desa Dalam

Through facilitation, Desa Dalam listed issues and proposed solutions to reduce conflict between MHP and local communities as well as conflict between Desa Dalam and Desa Luar (Table 3). The first issue was ‘transparency’ of budgeting and financing the forest plantation. So far, MHP had not informed communities of all activities related to the forest plantation operation. These operations may allow MHBM members to obtain contracts for planting, weeding, harvesting etc. MHBM management also has to be transparent to its members. In other words, MHP and MHBM inform all communities about the operational plan (rencana operasi, RO).

Table 3. Issues and proposed solutions from Desa Dalam

At the heart of the second issue is the amount of production and management fees. The mechanism to distribute the production fee must be clearly agreed upon and regulated by community members. The management fee, which is 1% of all contracts of forest operation, goes to MHBM management at village and subdistrict levels. Although management fee distribution was decided upon, it is still difficult to deliver it to the MHBM groups.

Issue number 3 is the new agreement for the third rotation of acacia. The communities shall have strong bargaining power to negotiate with MHP. All community aspirations shall be included in the new agreement. For the new agreement, the community wants to increase the production fee to Rp. 20,000 per cubic metre.

2.2. Discourse on Partnership by Desa Luar

Desa Luar also wanted ‘transparency’. Desa Luar wanted MHBM to have constitution and rules (AD/ART) to execute its program. It also specially wanted to get back 25% of land under MHBM to become rubber, oil palm and other plantations for the nine villages. The history of the land shall be acknowledged, although mapping the land is difficult because of overlapping claims and dynamics of land occupation.

For the new agreement, Desa Luar wanted to increase the management and production fees to 20% of the profit for each cubic metre of acacia logs. It also wanted MHP to develop agriculture and plantation, to absorb employment, to participate in social and cultural events and to improve human resources. The good relations between MHBM Desa and MHBM subdistrict are to be maintained. Each decision-making process in MHBM subdistrict shall be participated in by MHBM village, so that MHBM village can communicate the decision-making process to communities. MHBM task execution shall be clear and not overlapping. In other words, Desa Luar supports the existence at subdistrict level of MHBM Ex Marga Rambang Niru due to historical reasons, while Desa Dalam prefers only village level of MHBM Desa due to factual reason.

2.3. Discourse on Partnership between Desa Dalam and Desa Luar of Rambang Dangku

To bridge differences between Desa Dalam and Desa Luar, an FGD on partnership was conducted. Nine villages participated. They formulated issues and solutions to be agreed upon. In general, these were similar to what Desa Luar had proposed and contained the four issues of transparency, acknowledgment of land history, new community–company agreement and relation between MHBM village and subdistrict.

2.4. Discourse on Partnership by Gunung Megang Community

For comparison we facilitated a meeting of MHBM Gunung Megang located in Gunung Megang subdistrict. Their aspirations were the same as Desa Dalam’s and Desa Luar’s with the exception that they proposed rule enforcement among MHP staff. They felt MHP staff did not follow rules already determined by MHP.

MHBM Gunung Megang proposed three action plans, i.e., (a) hold a meeting of all MHBMs in Muara Enim district to discuss and propose the third rotation agreement of acacia plantation; (b) MHBM Gunung Megang to formulate a draft of agreement between MHP and community of Gunung Megang as a reference for other MHBMs; and (c) ethics and rule enforcement among MHP staff in executing MHBM-related business.

2.5. Discourse on Partnership by MHP

Although MHP is a private company with a clear mission, a gap of perception regarding partnership with communities exists among MHP staff. The 12 MHP staff reflected on issues facing them regarding the partnership. They divided the issues into MHP internal and external issues. The internal issues were low welfare of MHP workers, small operational budget to resolve community issues, absence of support for MHBM from some MHP staff, and spotty communication of MHBM to communities. The external issues included time pressure on harvesting and MHP operation, weak community institution and social dynamics, and the new community–company agreement. To solve problems quickly MHP used the concept of ‘fire fighting’, but it did not consider the solution in the longer term, since the plantation operational schedule must be conducted on time. New community actors always appeared, the problem of community representation existed, and MHP felt it was difficult to deal with the real community representatives. Free riders and rent seekers existed in the communities. Some community members could not be trusted. If they borrowed money, they would not pay it back.

The proposed solution for the internal issues was to improve staff welfare and increase funding for the MHBM supervisor. Meanwhile the proposed solution to the external issue of time pressure on harvesting and MHP operation was for the community to follow the agreement it had made and for MHP to follow the agreement outspokenly. The proposed solution for the weak community institution and social dynamics issue was to institute training and create a model MHBM Desa. MHP staff proposed MHBM Desa as a community organization that involves other related villages. Among the models for MHBM Desa are MHBM Gunung Megang Dalam and MHBM Kombat.

Regarding the new community–company agreement, MHP staff thought that MHP’s profit was limited and consequently they only could increase the current production fee, which is Rp 2,500 per cubic metre of wood, by 20%. The management fee can be increased from the current 1% taken from the jobs done by plantation contractors, which, however, may jeopardize the contractors.

2.6. Discourse on Partnership among All the Stakeholders

The nine villages and MHP participated in FGDs. All stakeholders understood that the plantation should be managed in a sustainable way and so that it is able to support the welfare of local communities. Through this understanding stakeholders were trying to achieve mutual benefit agreements under the agreed vision of ‘together we manage the forest for our common welfare’. After completing five FGDs facilitated by the forum Sebahu Sejalan, the stakeholders came to the following basic agreements.

1. Togetherness needs to be continually built with prioritizing the welfare of local communities.
2. Prioritizing future collaboration with taking into consideration lessons learned from past memorandums of understanding.
3. Strengthening MHBM through honest leadership and management based on agreed AD/ART.
4. Communication and socialisation of AD/ART to all stakeholders including villagers.
5. MHP agrees to lend cash capital for MHBM to work and pay attention to social matters.
6. MHBM urgently needs to take over plantation contract work opportunities that used to benefit contractors and individuals.
7. Second rotation of the memorandum of understanding to be executed as is, but third rotation needs to renegotiated.
8. MHBM at village and subdistrict levels, their human resources and their entrepreneurship need to be strengthened through training, facilitation and working model.

The stakeholders also agreed on making MHBM Gunung Megang a model MHBM in MHP. Therefore more work was to be dedicated to MHBM Gunung Megang. The facilitation in Gunung Megang produced agreed MHBM protocol (AD/ART). This protocol acted as an institution to rule over community members including fee distribution among them. MHBM also produced a proposal for better partnership and submitted it to MHP. The proposal suggested to MHP company that, for the third plantation rotation of Acacia mangium, the MHBM will get a share of about 20% of the management fee and an increased production fee of Rp 10,000 per cubic metre of wood.