{"id":5452,"date":"2026-08-03T09:59:42","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T02:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ap2si.id\/?p=5452"},"modified":"2026-08-03T09:59:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T02:59:42","slug":"potret-perhutanan-sosial-di-sumut-hutan-lestari-rakyat-sejahtera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ap2si.id\/en\/2026\/08\/03\/potret-perhutanan-sosial-di-sumut-hutan-lestari-rakyat-sejahtera\/","title":{"rendered":"A Portrait of Social Forestry in North Sumatra: Sustainable Forests, Prosperous People?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Potret<\/div>\n

North Sumatra is one of the provinces with the largest forest area in Indonesia, encompassing approximately 3 million hectares, comprising conservation areas, protected forests, and production forests. This area is not only the last bastion of biodiversity, including the Leuser Ecosystem (KEL), but also the living space for thousands of communities who depend on the forest for their livelihoods. Therefore, forestry policies must not only focus on preserving the area but also ensure justice for the communities who have long lived alongside the forest.<\/p>\n

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One instrument the government has developed to address this need is Social Forestry. Through this policy, communities are given legal access to manage forest areas sustainably while simultaneously improving their well-being. By 2025, approximately 284 Social Forestry groups in North Sumatra will have been established, managing tens of thousands of hectares of forest and involving more than 12,700 families as beneficiaries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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These achievements are certainly commendable. However, the question that needs to be asked today is no longer how many permits have been issued, but rather whether these permits have truly transformed people's lives and strengthened forest management at the grassroots level.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Experience mentoring 13 member groups of the Indonesian Social Forestry Management Association (AP2SI) for the North Sumatra Region shows that the biggest challenges arise after the Social Forestry Agreement is issued. The primary issue is no longer obtaining management rights, but ensuring those rights can actually be exercised. Administrative recognition is not always accompanied by guaranteed access to the area, resolution of tenure conflicts, strengthening of group institutions, or adequate economic support.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This situation indicates that the implementation of Social Forestry still tends to be understood as a program for allocating access to land. Success is often measured by the number of approvals issued or the size of the allocated area. However, the substance of Social Forestry is much more than simply granting permits. Social Forestry should be an instrument for community empowerment, strengthening village economies, and maintaining the sustainability of forest functions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Various field experiences show that this problem occurs in almost all groups in different forms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Nipah Farmers Group in Kwala Serapuh Village, Langkat Regency, for example, had to navigate a long conflict with a palm oil company that controlled part of the Social Forestry area. After years of struggle, the group finally restored approximately 62 hectares of previously oil palm plantations and is currently restructuring the area's management through an Annual Work Plan (RKT) and a Social Forestry Work Plan (RKPS). However, their work is not yet complete. Limited capital makes it difficult for the group to develop nipah derivative products with added economic value. This means that even after the conflict has been resolved, new challenges arise in the form of minimal support for business development.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Not far from the site, the Mangrove Taruna Group faced a different challenge. The group's activities were temporarily suspended due to an internal community conflict over claims to a managed area, which was then used for fish and shrimp ponds. This situation demonstrates that the legality of Social Forestry does not automatically guarantee control of the area if conflict resolution mechanisms at the local level are not effective.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Meanwhile, the Muara Baimbai Group in Serdang Bedagai Regency presents a different picture. This group has successfully established a community-based mangrove management model through area rehabilitation, ecotourism development, and processing mangrove products into various food and beverage products. They demonstrate that communities can both protect forests and reap economic benefits. However, this success faces obstacles in the form of limited capital for business expansion, resulting in the group's growth being slower than its potential.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Another example is the Mangrove Conservation Group in Lubuk Kertang, Langkat Regency. This group experienced a vacuum due to a conflict with a mangrove charcoal entrepreneur operating in the managed area. This impact not only disrupted the area's management but also halted various program support previously received from the government and non-governmental organizations. Although the group is currently recovering through a mangrove restoration program, financial and institutional issues remain major challenges to developing the area sustainably.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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These four experiences reveal a common thread. The main issue in Social Forestry today is no longer how communities obtain permits, but rather how the state ensures these permits can be implemented. Tenurial conflicts, weak post-approval assistance, limited access to financing, underdeveloped downstream processing of forest products, and weak inter-agency coordination remain recurring issues.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This situation serves as a reminder that social forestry cannot be merely an administrative program. The state needs to build an ecosystem that enables communities to manage forests sustainably. Strengthening group institutions, providing legal certainty, access to financing, technical assistance, and market access must be viewed as an inseparable whole.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The momentum of the new Forestry Law should be used to address these issues. The new regulation should not only regulate the designation of areas and the granting of management rights, but must also ensure that tenurial conflict resolution is the responsibility of the state through a swift, transparent, and equitable mechanism. The state must also guarantee protection for Social Forestry Agreement holders from intimidation, criminalization, and the control of areas by other parties.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Furthermore, post-approval assistance obligations need to be explicitly stipulated in law. Institutional strengthening, management planning, human resource capacity building, and forest product-based business development must be integral to the implementation of Social Forestry. This support needs to be strengthened through easier access to financing, product downstreaming, expanded market access, and cross-sector coordination to ensure integrated infrastructure development, conservation, and community economic empowerment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It's time to change the metrics for success in Social Forestry. Success is no longer measured solely by the number of permits issued or the size of the allocated area. Far more important indicators are reduced tenure conflicts, improved well-being of forest-dwelling communities, the growth of strong group institutions, the development of forest-based businesses, and the preservation of the area's ecological function.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ultimately, social forestry is more than just providing communities with access to forest management. It's an effort to bring equity to natural resource governance. Forests will remain sustainable if the communities living around them receive certainty of rights, support for development, and the opportunity to enjoy the economic benefits of the forests they protect. After all, once permits are issued, the state's greatest work has only just begun.<\/p>\n

News Source: https:\/\/www.idntimes.com\/opinion\/community\/potret-perhutanan-sosial-di-sumut-hutan-lestari-rakyat-sejahtera-01-hhtcq-d0x00s\/preview<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sumatera Utara merupakan salah satu provinsi dengan kawasan hutan terluas di Indonesia, mencapai sekitar 3 juta hektare yang terdiri atas kawasan konservasi, hutan lindung, dan hutan produksi. Kawasan tersebut bukan hanya menjadi benteng terakhir bagi keanekaragaman hayati, termasuk Kawasan Ekosistem Leuser (KEL), tetapi juga menjadi ruang hidup ribuan masyarakat yang bergantung pada hutan sebagai sumber […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216366695,"featured_media":5454,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[814849,814848],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-informasi","category-publikasi"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdFNnz-1pW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ap2si.id\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/bcbeb0e3-6c68-4dec-a0b9-9518c965df5a_1c597bd0-4c2e-463a-a000-402b1686093d.jpeg.webp?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ap2si.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ap2si.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ap2si.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ap2si.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/216366695"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ap2si.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5452"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ap2si.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5455,"href":"https:\/\/ap2si.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5452\/revisions\/5455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ap2si.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ap2si.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ap2si.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ap2si.id\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}