Contesting ‘Deforestation’: Civil Society Movements and Knowledge Co-Production in Indonesia

Maharani Hapsari

doi:10.22146/pcd.33763

Contesting ‘Deforestation’: Civil Society Movements and Knowledge Co-Production in Indonesia

https://doi.org/10.22146/pcd.33763

Maharani Hapsari^(1*)

(1) Department of International Relations, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada
(*) Corresponding Author

Abstract

This article explains the emergence of civil society movements around deforestation issue in Indonesia as contestation over knowledge claims that defines ‘deforestation’ as a political term. The term ‘deforestation’, which is translated into ‘perusakan hutan’ in Indonesian forestry laws and regulation, is a product of political epistemology that serve the needs to sustain state-reinforced developmentalism. It is imposed by valorization of modern scientific and technocratic values as well as bureaucratization of the forestry sector. Engaging with critical political ecology literatures, this study unpacks the constitutive interactions among various ways of seeing that redefine state forestry and its implications to the reproduction of political order. ‘Perusakan hutan’ is continuously re-negotiated in the relations between the state and its formative societal elements. Knowledge on addressing deforestation is organized around three contesting epistemologies: conservation, redistribution, and indigeneity. Each epistemology seeks to claim political space in the institutionalization of knowledge that fortifies state’s policies in the forestry sector. Politics of knowledge co-production operates at two levels: between hegemonic knowledge construct and its counter knowledge formation, and within the formation of counter-knowledge through alternative epistemologies.

Keywords

knowledge co-production; political epistimology; Indonesia; deforestation; civil society movement; enviromentalism

Full Text:

PDF

References

Affif, S., & Lowe, C. (2007). Claiming indigenous community: political discourse and natural resource rights in Indonesia. Alternatives, 3(1), 73-97.

Agarwal. A. (1995). Dismantling the divide between indigenous and scientific knowledge. Development and Change, 26, 413-439.

Agustine, I. (2014, December 13). GAPKI Nilai Skema HCV dan HCS Tidak Penting Bagi Indonesia. Bisnis. Retrieved from http://industri.bisnis.com/read/20141213/99/382219/gapki-nilai-skema-hcv-hcs-tidak-penting-bagi-indonesia

Barber, C.V. (1998). Forest Resource Scarcity & Social Conflict in Indonesia. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 40(4), 4-37.

Bebbington, A., Dharmawan, L., & Fahmi, E. (2006). Local Capacity, Village Governance, and the Political Economy of Rural Development in Indonesia. World Development, 34(11), 1958–1976.

Borras Jr, S. M. (2006). Redistributive land reform in ‘public’ (forest) lands? Lessons from the Philippines and their implications for land reform theory and practice. Progress in Development Studies, 6(2), 123-145.

Boudia, S., & Jas, N. (2014). Powerless Science? Science and Politics in a Toxic World. New York: Berghahn.

Butler R. A. (2015, March 26). APRIL Violates Sustainability Police by Clearing Peat Forest after Jan Cut Off. Mongabay. Retrieved from https://news.mongabay.com/2015/03/april-violates-sustainability-policy-by-clearing-peat-forest-after-jan-cut-off/

Di Gregorio, M. (2011). Social Movement Networks, Policy Processes, and Forest Tenure Activism in Indonesia. Doctoral Thesis. London: London School of Economics and Political.

Di Gregorio, M. (2014) Gaining Access to the State: Political Opportunities and Agency in Forest Activism in Indonesia. Social Movement Studies: Journal of Social, Cultural and Political Protest, 13(3), 381-398.

De Royer, S., Visser, L.E., Galudra, G., Pradhan, U., & Van Noordwicjk, M. (2015). Self-identification of indigenous people in post-independence Indonesia: a historical analysis in the context of REDD+. International Forestry Review 17 (3), 1-16.

FOKSBI. (2016, May 3). InPOP Technical Inter-Ministerial Taskforce Agrees to Improve Regulations Related to High Conservation Value. FOKSBI. Retrieved From: http://www.foksbi.id/id/berita/baca/05-03-2016-inpop-technical-inter-ministerial-taskforce-agrees-to-improve-regulations-related-to-high-conservation-value

FORDA, CIFOR, ICRAF and Tropenbos. (2013). Forestry research Collaboration Between FORDA and Partners. Jakarta: Forestry Research and Development Agency (FORDA), pp.8-14.

Forsyth, T. (2003). Critical Political Ecology: the Politics of Environmental Science. London: Routledge.

Forsyth, T. (2008). Political ecology and the epistemology of social justice. Geoforum, 39(2), 756-764.

Greenpeace. (2014). The High Carbon Stock Approach [Briefing Paper]. Author, Retrieved from http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/briefings/forests/2014/HCS%20Approach_Breifer_March2014.pdf

Greenpeace. (2016, March 15). Greenpeace launches maps tracking near real time Indonesia deforestation and fires [Press Release]. Author. Retrieved from http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/2016/Greenpeace-launches-maps-tracking-near-real-time-Indonesian-deforestation-and-fires/

Haenn, N. (2016). The Middle Class Conservationist: Social Dramas, Blurred Identity Boundaries, and Their Environmental Consequences in Mexican Conservation. Current Anthropology, 52(2), 197-217.

HCV Network, (2008), Toolkit for Identification of High Conservation Values in Indonesia, Retrieved from: https://www.hcvnetwork.org/resources/national-hcv-interpretations/HCV%20Toolkit%20for%20Indonesia-Engversion-final.pdf.

Jasanoff, S. (2004). States of Knowledge: the Co-production of Science and Social Order. London: Routledge.

Jati, G. P. (2016, August 01). IPOP Bubar, Enam Konglomerat Sawit Dukung Ispo Pemerintah. CNN Indonesia. Retrieved from: https://www.cnnindonesia.com/ekonomi/20160701145817-85-142442/ipop-bubar-enam-konglomerasi-sawit-dukung-ispo-pemerintahah

Jong, H.N. (2015, August 21). Customary Land Included in One-map Policy. Jakarta Post. Retrieved from http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/08/21/customary-land-included-one-map-policy.html

Joshi, L., Wijaya, K., Sirait, M., & Mulyoutami, E. (2004). Indigenous systems and ecological knowledge among Dayak people in Kutai Barat, East Kalimantan –a preliminary report. ICRAF Southeast Asia Working Paper, Bogor: ICRAF

Kareiva, P., & Marvier, M. (2012). What is conservation science. BioScience, 62(11), 962-969.

Karimasari, N. (2011). Transnational Environmental and Agrarian Movements Influencing National Policies: The Case of Palm Oil Plantation in Indonesia. Research paper. Hague: Institute of Social Studies.

Kurniawan, N.I., & Rye, S.A. (2014). Online Environmental Activism and Internet Use in the Indonesian Environmental Movement. Information Development, 30(3), 200-212.

Leach, M., & Scoones, I. (2007). Mobilizing Citizens: Social Movements and the Politics of Knowledge. Brighton: Institute for Development Studies.

Li, T.M. (2001). Masyarakat Adat, Difference, and the Limits of Recognition in Indonesia’s forest zone. Modern Asian Studies, 35(3), 645-676 .

Li, T. M. (2010). Indigeneity, Capitalism, and the Management of Dispossession. Current Anthropology, 51(3), 385-414.

McCarthy, J. F. (2005). Between Adat and State: Institutional Arrangements on Sumatra’s Forest Frontier. Human Ecology, 33(1), 57-82.

Nomura, Ko. (2007) Democratisation and Environmental Non-Governmental Organisations in Indonesia. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 37(4), 495-517.

Okamoto, S. (2001). The Movement and Activities of Environmental NGOs in Indonesia. Policy Trend Report, pp. 13-23.

Peluso, N. (1992). The Political Ecology of Extraction and Extractivism in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Development and Change, 23(4), 49-74.

Peluso, N.L. (1995). Whose Woods are These: Counter-Mapping Forest Territories in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Antipode, 27(4), 388-392.

Peluso, N.L. (1995). Whose Woods are These: Counter-Mapping Forest Territories in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Antipode, 27(4), 383-406.

Perry, David A. (1998). The Scientific Basis of Forestry. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 29, 435-466.

Schmitt, C. (1976). The Concept of the Political, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Spilsbury, R. (2010). Deforestation Crisis. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group.

Suwarno, A., Hein, L., & Sumarga, E. (2015). Governance, Decentralisation and Deforestation: the Case of Central Kalimantan Province, Indonesia. Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture, 54(1), 77-100.

Turner, S. (2007). Political Epistemology, Experts, and the Aggregation of Knowledge. Spontaneous Generations, 1(1), 36-47.

Undang Undang RI tentang Ketentuan-Ketentuan Pokok Kehutanan 1967. No. 5, Retrieved from http://sipongi.menlhk.go.id/cms/images/files/1021.pdf

Undang Undang RI tentang Kehutanan 1999, No. 41, Retrieved from http://prokum.esdm.go.id/uu/1999/uu-41-1999.pdf

Undang Undang RI tentang Pencegahan dan Pemberantasan Perusakan Hutan 2013, No. 18, Retrieved from http://www.dpr.go.id/dokjdih/document/uu/UU_2013_18.pdf

Vaccaro, I., Beltran, O., & Paquet, P.A. (2013) Political Ecology and Conservation Politices: Some Theoretical Genealogies. Journal of Political Ecology, 20(20), 255-272.

Vandergeest, P., & Peluso, N.L. (2006). Empires of Forestry: Professional Forestry and State Power in Southeast Asia, Part 1. Environment and History, 12(1), 31-64.

Vandergeest, P., & Peluso, N.L. (2006). Empires of Forestry: Professional Forestry and State Power in Southeast Asia, Part 1. Environment and History, 12(1), 42.

Walhi, et. al. (2010, October). Platform Bersama untuk Penyelamatan Hutan Indonesia Indonesia dan Iklim Global. Retrieved from www.greenpeace.org/seasia/id/PageFiles/110812/Indonesia%20CSOs%20common%20platform%20-11OCT.pdf

WWF. (2015, April 27). Living Forests Report Chapter 5: Saving Forest at Risk. Author. Retrieved from http://www.worldwildlife.org/publications/living-forests-report-chapter-5-saving-forests-at-risk

WWF. (2014). WWF Indonesia Strategic Plan 2014-2018. Author. Retrieved from http://awsassets.wwf.or.id/downloads/wwfid_strategicplan_2014_2018_summary_final.pdf

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22146/pcd.33763