Abidah B Setyowati

ABSTRACT There are numerous reasons for turning this situation around and making concerted efforts to address gender concerns in REDD+ including adherence to an internationally recognized human rights approach, arguments of increased efficiency, efficacy and sustainability, as well as simple good business sense. A number of barriers and challenges exist including a male-dominated forestry sector, high labor burden for women, and poor understanding of relationships and nuanced power dynamics within communities.Within this context, the Forestry Administration, the international development NGO Pact, and several other partners have been developing the Oddar Meanchey Community Forestry REDD+ project in an effort to access sustainable financing for forest protection through the international voluntary carbon market. Using the Harvard Analytical Framework as a conceptual methodology, Pact initiated a gender assessment of the project in order to identify ways in which gender could be effectively mainstreamed during the project’s implementation phase. In order to collect data, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions were conducted in four of the 13 community forestry sites in the project area in April, 2012. The assessment team discovered a number of interesting findings related to participation; decision making and leadership; knowledge, skills and capacity; equitable benefit sharing; and resource access, use, and control. With regards to participation, men are taking a primary role in community forestry and REDD+ activities, while women are “partly involved” in almost all activities. Women participate less actively in meetings, trainings, forest patrolling, and forest assessment work due to a number of constraints such as lower membership on elected committees, lack of confidence in speaking, lower literacy levels, childcare and household duties, security issues, and a perceived lower level of knowledge.

The global climate change mitigation initiative, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus (REDD+), has been seen as a new form of environmental rule to govern human-forest relationships. Through analyzing a case study of the Ulu Masen REDD+ project in Aceh, Indonesia, this dissertation examines how REDD+ has been translated into policies and practices, and examines the dynamic process of policy interpretation, negotiation, and even contestation in a particular area. The dissertation addresses five goals: first, examining the extent to which the neoliberalization of nature has been articulated in REDD+ and how REDD+ outcomes have been affected by Indonesia's social and political landscape; second, investigating governmental rationalities, technologies, and practices through REDD+, and how these emerging forms and techniques could (or could not) engender new environmental subjects; third, analyzing the translation of several elements in REDD+ into project practices; fourth, elucidating how the narratives of conservation and development have been played out in project development and implementation; and finally, examining the significance of local agency in shaping the global REDD+ agenda, and the extent to which it provides an arena to negotiate and contest claims to forest resources at the local level. This dissertation research seeks to provide new insights that reveal a more nuanced understanding of the early impacts of the REDD+ initiative, hence providing theoretical contributions to the burgeoning field of political ecology, particularly in the area of critical climate change studies. To guide the research inquiries, multiple methods have been employed including a household survey, focus group discussions, participant observation, semi-structured and in-depth interviews, and archival research.

Energy poverty remains a key global challenge. In Indonesia, around 25 million people are still without electricity access, and many of them live in geographically isolated areas and remote places that preclude them from access to the electricity grid. Deploying renewable energy sources in these areas could present an opportunity for a remarkable and rare complementarity between energy security, energy access, and climate change mitigation. This article examines how energy trilemma plays out in mobilizing private climate finance for renewable rural electrification in Indonesia. Analysis of relevant documents combined with interviews at local and national levels reveals that multiple barriers persist constraining the mobilization of private climate finance to support renewable rural electrification in Indonesia. In turn, this has led to difficulties with managing the tensions and reaching the complementarity of the three key energy objectives. The article concludes with some recommen...

Abstract The Indonesian Timber Legality Verification System (SVLK) has been developed primarily to address illegal logging in Indonesia, and is licensed under the European Union's Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan. While SVLK was catalysed by concerns about the legality of wood originating from natural forests, it applies to all wood production in Indonesia, including smallholders harvesting planted trees. This study investigates SVLK implementation in value chains originating from smallholder forests planted on private land in East Java Province, where these forests are important assets for both farmers and the forest industries. It follows value chains for two manufactured wood products, blockboard and plywood. There are specific SVLK requirements for each value chain actor, other than the market brokers in these chains. Results reveal the limitations of SVLK architecture in relation to smallholder value chains, variation in compliance practices, and points of ‘illegalisation’ and legalization within the value chains. The blockboard and plywood products from each case study chain claimed SVLK compliance. However, only one of the two case study chains for each product was compliant up to the blockboard or plywood manufacturing stage; and no distinction was made at this stage between SVLK-compliant and non-compliant wood. Consequently, none of the final products from any case study chain are SVLK-compliant. These results illustrate the challenges of designing and implementing timber legality systems for smallholder value chains, and suggest areas of focus to improve SVLK for smallholder value chains.

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus the role of conservation, sustainable forest management, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries (REDD+) has rapidly become a dominant approach in mitigating climate change. Building on the Foucauldian governmentality literature and drawing on a case study of Ulu Masen Project in Aceh, Indonesia, this article examines the practices of subject making through which REDD+ seeks to enroll local actors, a research area that remains relatively underexplored. It interrogates the ways in which local actors react, resist or maneuver within these efforts, as they negotiate multiple subject positions. Interviews and focus group discussions combined with an analysis of documents show that the subject making processes proceed at a complex conjuncture constituted and shaped by political, economic and ecological conditions within the context of Aceh. The findings also suggest that the agency of communities in...

Community-based renewable electricity projects have been increasingly regarded as a promising means to alleviate rural energy poverty through ensuring just and inclusive outcomes. However, limited studies have been carried out to investigate the socio-political dynamics of such initiatives and the extent to which they overcome energy injustices in the Global South. Drawing on two case studies from Sumba Island in Eastern Indonesia, this article seeks to critically understand how micro-politics of planning and implementing community-based renewable projects influence their energy justice implications on the ground. In this study, we deploy a contextualised analysis of energy justice to demonstrate how particular socio-historical dimensions shape contemporary energy injustices in a postcolonial setting such as Sumba Island. We argue that the persistence of apolitical framing of community-based energy access intervention runs the risk of perpetuating exclusions and inequalities in rural energy provision. To address energy injustices, it is important to shift away from the centralised mentality that still prevails in the development of community-based renewables in Indonesia and beyond.

In 2019, the Indonesian government released its post-Paris Agreement report Low Carbon Development: a paradigm shift towards a green economy in Indonesia, in which it set out an economic rationale for a move to low carbon growth. The core of the paradigm shift referenced in the report's title was that growth not only had to be decoupled from high carbon inputs but that in both practice and outcomes it had to be sustainable and inclusive. Yet the report does little to define social justice, equity practices, or inclusive outcomes in a green economy context. In this article, we foreground distributive, procedural and recognition aspects of social justice that are central to Indonesia's climate mitigation efforts and transition to a green, low carbon economy. We focus on two sectors that are key to this transition – forest and land-use, and energy. Our analysis shows that existing forms of injustice can exacerbate challenges for decarbonisation action and that low carbon transitions initiatives have been unable to overcome various forms of injustice and have, in some cases, created new injustices.

Transforming financial systems has been considered a promising avenue to ensure financial flows consistent with low carbon and climate resilient development. An important first step to do so has often been the development of sustainable finance roadmaps. Drawing on key stakeholder interviews in Indonesia in 2019–2020, this article examines how Indonesia’s sustainable finance roadmap has unfolded on the ground and investigates key challenges to its effective implementation. The study finds that there has been high procedural compliance by financial institutions through developing sustainable finance action plans and submitting annual sustainability reports to the financial regulator. However, there is considerable variation and inconsistency in interpreting what constitutes a ‘green’ project among financial institutions, enabling some financial institutions to engage in little more than tokenism. With the limited regulatory oversight currently provided, it is difficult to see how financial institutions might be incentivised to do more or how tangible sustainability outcomes can be achieved. This article proposes potential means of overcoming some of the blockages in implementing the roadmap, which include greater intervention to incentivise climate finance by Indonesia’s central bank.

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus the role of conservation, sustainable forest management, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries (REDD+) has rapidly become a dominant approach in mitigating climate change. Building on the Foucauldian governmentality literature and drawing on a case study of Ulu Masen Project in Aceh, Indonesia, this article examines the practices of subject making through which REDD+ seeks to enroll local actors, a research area that remains relatively underexplored. It interrogates the ways in which local actors react, resist or maneuver within these efforts, as they negotiate multiple subject positions. Interviews and focus group discussions combined with an analysis of documents show that the subject making processes proceed at a complex conjuncture constituted and shaped by political, economic and ecological conditions within the context of Aceh. The findings also suggest that the agency of communities in engaging, negotiating and even contesting the REDD+ initiative is closely linked to the history of their prior engagement in conservation and development initiatives. Communities are empowered by their participation in REDD+, although not always in the ways expected by project implementers and conservation and development actors. Furthermore, communities' political agency cannot be understood by simply examining their resistance toward the initiative; these communities have also been skillful in playing multiple roles and negotiating different subjectivities depending on the situations they encounter. Résumé La réduction des émissions dues à la déforestation et à la dégradation des forêts (REDD +) est rapidement devenue une approche dominante pour atténuer le changement climatique. S'appuyant sur la littérature sur la gouvernementalité foucaldienne et s'appuyant sur une étude de cas du projet Ulu Masen à Aceh, en Indonésie, cet article examine les pratiques d'élaboration de sujets à travers lesquelles la REDD + cherche à recruter des acteurs locaux, un domaine de recherche qui reste relativement sous-exploré. Il interroge les façons dont les acteurs locaux réagissent, résistent ou manoeuvrent dans le cadre de ces efforts, alors qu'ils négocient de multiples positions de sujet. Des entretiens et des discussions de groupe, combinés à une analyse de documents, montrent que les processus d'élaboration des sujets se déroulent dans une conjoncture complexe constituée et façonnée par les conditions politiques, économiques et écologiques dans le contexte d'Aceh. Les résultats suggèrent également que le rôle des communautés dans l'engagement, la négociation et même la contestation de l'initiative REDD + est étroitement lié à l'histoire de leur engagement antérieur dans les initiatives de conservation et de développement. Les communautés sont responsabilisées par leur participation à REDD +, mais pas toujours de la manière attendue par les exécutants des projets et les acteurs de la

Energy poverty remains a key global challenge. In Indonesia, around 25 million people are still without electricity access, and many of them live in geographically isolated areas and remote places that preclude them from access to the electricity grid. Deploying renewable energy sources in these areas could present an opportunity for a remarkable and rare complementarity between energy security, energy access, and climate change mitigation. This article examines how energy trilemma plays out in mobilizing private climate finance for renewable rural electrification in Indonesia. Analysis of relevant documents combined with interviews at local and national levels reveals that multiple barriers persist constraining the mobilization of private climate finance to support renewable rural electrification in Indonesia. In turn, this has led to difficulties with managing the tensions and reaching the complementarity of the three key energy objectives. The article concludes with some recommendations for moving forward.

For almost two decades, the concept of Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) has been widely adopted in Indonesia, in policy initiatives ranging from pilot projects to more established PES schemes and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) programmes. Drawing on a case study of a REDD+ initiative in Aceh, Indonesia, this article analyses how the initiative became an avenue to renegotiate political authority, territory and citizenship. Analysis of relevant documents, combined with focus group discussions and interviews at local and national levels, reveals the complex processes by which the authority to govern forest is claimed and legitimized through the revision of provincial land-use plans, and shows how citizenship is rearticulated through participatory mapping processes. The article demonstrates that the initiative has been negotiated and reshaped to conform to local aspirations for greater control over forests and to achieve broader development goals. The discourses of green economy and REDD+ have provided the Aceh government and communities with a new 'surface of engagement' to express Acehnese struggles over territory and citizenship by aligning with global climate change issues.

The Indonesian Timber Legality Verification System (SVLK) has been developed primarily to address illegal logging in Indonesia, and is licensed under the European Union's Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan. While SVLK was catalysed by concerns about the legality of wood originating from natural forests, it applies to all wood production in Indonesia, including smallholders harvesting planted trees. This study investigates SVLK implementation in value chains originating from smallholder forests planted on private land in East Java Province, where these forests are important assets for both farmers and the forest industries. It follows value chains for two manufactured wood products, blockboard and plywood. There are specific SVLK requirements for each value chain actor, other than the market brokers in these chains. Results reveal the limitations of SVLK architecture in relation to smallholder value chains, variation in compliance practices, and points of ‘illegalisation’ and legalization within the value chains. The blockboard and plywood products from each case study chain claimed SVLK compliance. However, only one of the two case study chains for each product was compliant up to the blockboard or plywood manufacturing stage; and no distinction was made at this stage between SVLK-compliant and non-compliant wood. Consequently, none of the final products from any case study chain are SVLK-compliant. These results illustrate the challenges of designing and implementing timber legality systems for smallholder value chains, and suggest areas of focus to improve SVLK for smallholder value chains.

This article examines the EU FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) with Ghana and Indonesia to explore how scale and sources of authority shape access to forest resources. VPAs require the development of internationally recognized legality verification systems to eliminate trade in illegal wood and thus aim to reinforce state law while opening it to broader national and international scrutiny. Analysis of relevant documents, combined with over 70 stakeholder interviews at local to international scales reveal significant differences between Ghana and Indonesia in the design of their verification systems and the attention given to local and domestic forest access. Yet in both countries, a strong focus on legality verification, coupled with a lack of key governance reforms, favors international trade over local access. This calls into question the EU’s growing legality agenda and highlights the need for alternative approaches to reforming domestic resource governance that are more appropriate and beneficial for local forest users.

... Tata Letak Irfan Toni Herlambang Cetakan I, Desember 2008 14x21 cm;xi+50hal Bogor 16152 editor: anDri sanTosa Tim Penulis: 1. Abidah Billah Setyowati 2. Agoes Sriyanto 3. Amsurya W. Amsa 4. Andri Santosa 5. ArifAliadi 6. BernardinusSteni 7. Christine Wulandari 8. Evi ...

The global climate change mitigation initiative, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus (REDD+), has been seen as a new form of environmental rule to govern human-forest relationships. Through analyzing a case study of the Ulu Masen REDD+ project in Aceh, Indonesia, this dissertation examines how REDD+ has been translated into policies and practices, and examines the dynamic process of policy interpretation, negotiation, and even contestation in a particular area. The dissertation addresses five goals: first, examining the extent to which the neoliberalization of nature has been articulated in REDD+ and how REDD+ outcomes have been affected by Indonesia’s social and political landscape; second, investigating governmental rationalities, technologies, and practices through REDD+, and how these emerging forms and techniques could (or could not) engender new environmental subjects; third, analyzing the translation of several elements in REDD+ into project practices; fourth, elucidating how the narratives of conservation and development have been played out in project development and implementation; and finally, examining the significance of local agency in shaping the global REDD+ agenda, and the extent to which it provides an arena to negotiate and contest claims to forest resources at the local level. 
This dissertation research seeks to provide new insights that reveal a more nuanced understanding of the early impacts of the REDD+ initiative, hence providing theoretical contributions to the burgeoning field of political ecology, particularly in the area of critical climate change studies. To guide the research inquiries, multiple methods have been employed including a household survey, focus group discussions, participant observation, semi-structured and in-depth interviews, and archival research.
Publication Date: 2014
PhD Thesis, Rutgers University