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Strengthening the Participation of Non-Governmental Actors in Forest Governance in Indonesia

As a part of Birdlife International’s global partnership, Burung Indonesia will be the national implementer of a program on strengthening the participation of non-governmental actors in forest governance in Indonesia, funded by the European Union. Aside from Indonesia, the program is simultaneously being carried out in Malaysia, Philippines and Papua New Guinea, and will take five years to be completed (2017-2021).

This program aims to support the process of monitoring, planning, and strengthening forestry policies in the country, in particular the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade-Voluntary Partnership Agreement (FLEGT-VPA) initiatives, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), and Ecosystem Restoration.

There are two main activities planned to be implemented. The first one focuses on strengthening the independent monitoring network and small-scale farmers in the Mbeliling Landscape, Flores, as a pilot site for the FLEGT-VPA.

“This program will support and synergize with community-based forest management as part of sustainable landscape management with the Forest Management Unit (FMU) and community groups in the Mbeliling Landscape, Flores. In the future, it is expected that this activity can contribute to site level certification for small-scale farmers and establish an independent monitoring network, in particular in the Eastern Indonesia region," Asep Ayat, Forest Programme Coordinator for Burung Indonesia explained at the National Inception Workshop in Jakarta (Thursday, 11/07/2017).

The second activity relates to the efforts of promoting and strengthening the ecosystem restoration activities through the Ecosystem Restoration Working Group (ERWG) network. The members of the working group are the Ministry of Environmental and Forestry (MEoF), the ecosystem restoration concession holders, academics, and non-governmental organizations.

With the support of various stakeholders, it is hoped that ecosystem restoration will strengthen the practice of sustainable natural forest management. "This group acts as a think-tank or center for policy strengthening and learning from the implementation of ecosystem restoration, including the possibility through the adoption of the REDD+ scheme," he said.

This program will contribute directly to stakeholder capacity building, community-based forest monitoring and stakeholder networking. It also will support forest policy strengthening, including ecosystem restoration in production forests and integrated landscape approaches.

Burung Indonesia’s Managing Director, Dian Agista, affirmed that Indonesia’s development in the initiatives of FLEGT-VPA, REDD+, and Ecosystem Restoration is an important achievement. Therefore, his party took the opportunity to continue the development of these three initiatives through this program.

“Burung Indonesia has been developing an approach on management of habitats and important locations for wild birds in a sustainable manner, in its various working areas. This approach is not only for conservation forests, but also includes production forests. This is what underlies us to work intensively with the Ministry of Environment and Forestry in establishing and mainstreaming sustainable production forest management through Ecosystem Restoration,” he explained.

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