Poverty of village forest communities and forest resources degradation is still a grave concern for forest management in Indonesia. Village forest community empowerment programs that have to potential to provide access to communities around forests in managing forest resources, is not effective compared to the national achievement target of 500,000 ha/year for Community Forestry (Hutan Kemasyarakatan/HKm) and Village Forest (Hutan Desa/HD) in which only 10% per year was the average achievement (calculated since 2007).

The lack of information available is one of the obstacles, causing the slow process for permit and community empowerment implementation that has obtained proper permits from both schemes. In addition, stakeholders' roles and functions are not optimized which delays HKm and HD program implementation.

To facilitate HKm and HD, the budget changes were allocated for physical expenses such as plantings. Therefore there is no budget for community empowerment, which must be resolved, because there are still many obstacles in the Ministry itself, explained Niniek Irawati, Head of Sub-Directorate of Community Forestry Development, Ministry of Forestry.

Village forest community empowerment program actually can be aligned with community-based forest management, community forestry, or social forestry. A forestry model that opens up to village community participation in forest management is viewed as a strategic alternative in handling various forestry issues such as tenurial conflict, forest degradation, forest safety, poverty, and various environmental issues.

However, in reality, community empowerment through both of these schemes only develop in sites facilitated by NGOs with financial backing from many national as well as international donors. Meanwhile, HKm and HD in other sites in which there are no NGOs to facilitate the communities, generally cannot develop well.

Therefore, as an organization committed to carry out open data management and forestry information, Forest Watch Indonesia (FWI) is providing technical assistance to a number of NGOs to facilitate community empowerment programs with the Community Forestry and Village Forest schemes.

One of these activities is through national consolidation and Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with the topic “Optimizing Role of Stakeholders in Community Empowerment through Community Forestry and Village Forest Programs”. The event was held in Bogor, West Java, Indonesia, on Friday, 29 August 2014.

To urge management by the community, FWI has a role in overseeing several HKm and HD recommendations facilitated and assisted by a number of local NGOs in Sumatra, stated Cristian Bob Purba from FWI.

Consolidation meeting is held with NGOs facilitating local communities, national NGOs, and Ministry of Forestry. This meeting is expected to provide an opportunity to share information and solution.

The participants of these activities were focused on NGOs that are currently or will assist and facilitate the Community Forestry (HKm) and Village Forest (HD). Five NGOs in Sumatra that are conducting community facilitation in the HKm and HD schemes in Riau are: YMI; Bengkulu: AKAR; Lampung: WATALA; and Jambi: YLBHL; South Sumatra: WBH and West Sumatra :Qbar.