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The poor condition of community in and around forest areas that has no right of ownership and management, has made the government issued Social Forestry (SP) program as a solution in maintaining the economic equalization. By this program, community can obtain the status of the forest and right to manage the forest land, or doing the business based the forest, in the form of village forest, community forest, Community Forest Plantation, “adat” forest, and forestry partnership.
Social forestry is implemented based on cluster to reach the domestic economic growth. In this way, job opportunities will be wide open and can contribute to reduce the poverty significantly.
Continuing the mission to give a chance for community in term of forest management, on 25th November 2018, President Joko Widodo gave Social Forestry Decrees directly to the community in South Sumatra. The ceremonial of this activity was done at the Natural Tourist Park Punti kayu, Palembang City, South Sumatra, with recipients of the Social Forestry Decrees from 10 districts, they were Muara Enim, Musi Rawas, Pagar Alam, Lahat, Banyuasin, South OKU, OKU, OKI, East OKI, and Musi Banyuasin, with the area is 56,276 ha, that covering 9,710 households.
By giving this Social Forestry Decrees, President hoped that the community can utilize the existing land productively. Community will be given a freedom to plant the various commodities such as coffee, fruits or horticulture plants, especially those that are appropriate with the local climate and weather.
The Ministy of Environment and Forestry, Siti Nurbaya, said that the target of Social Forestry in Indonesia in 2018 is 2 million ha. Now the realization of Social Forestry Decrees’ releases has covered 2,173 million ha.
Hopefully this program can help the economic equalization for farmers and community around the forest areas in Indonesia, and can resolve the conflict of land management, gap in access land management, and provide many job opportunities for the community.