There are cases in which local communities have attempted to complain about damage to their 

forest resources caused by commercial timber harvest.  Lease rights granted by government to 

corporate concessionaires deny historical rights of access for local rural residents (e.g., 

compensation for logging damage of non timber forest products previously harvested on a 

small scale by local rural residents).  Local and external NGO's attempt to direct government 

attention to the socio economic losses incurred by local communities and the detrimental 

environmental logging impacts.  Most concessionaires view timber extraction as a short term 

business venture in which ecosystem impact has little consequence.  In fact, existing MoFr 

policies have encouraged this short term approach.  Fostering understanding between the two 

different cultures of concessionaires and villagers is difficult to achieve; long established 

residents have little in common with newly arrived company employees who are typically not 

hired locally (NRMP Report No. 58). 

Indonesia s tropical moist forest ecosystems are indeed renowned for their high level of 

biodiversity.  They span over nine major biogeographical zones with high levels of endemic 

species.  Even within Kalimantan, forest types range from ramin dominated peat swamp to 

upland mixed dipterocarp forest on several geophysical substrates.  The cultural diversity of 

those living in and around these forests and across the 14,000 islands, be they residents, or 

employees of corporate concessionaires, adds another major dimension of complexity to these 

forest ecosystems.  However, the bio cultural complexities of Indonesia s forest resources, is 

often perceived as an additional obstacle to sound forest management (NRMP Report No. 58).  

Unlike commercial tropical timber operations in African and Neotropical forests, where only a 

few select specialty hardwood species are extracted, commercial enterprises in Indonesia 

extract hundreds of species primarily from the Dipterocarpaceae (Curran and Kusneti 1992).  

The ecology, demography and regeneration of the Dipterocarpaceae pose unique constraints to 

forestry as several hundred species often synchronize reproduction over large areas only once 

every 2 7 years (Curran et al. in press).  The spatio temporal variation of this natural system is 

unique to Southeast Asia and requires understanding the ecology and demography of these 

forests to design sound policies that incorporate the ecology of the harvested species.  Forestry 

policy must be designed to ensure both sufficient residual reproductive stock and adequate 

recruitment.   

Although understanding the ecology of these diverse forests is essential to devise appropriate 

silvicultural treatments, this process could take several decades.  Yet, waiting until there are 

"sufficient data" is often used as a tactic to maintain the status quo or divide the scientific 

community into debate among competing views while harvesting continues.  A complete 

understanding of the complexity of these ecosystems is desirable, but given the urgency of the 

problem such complete understanding is unnecessary for designing practical forest policies.  

Adaptive management is an effective approach because timber harvest must be viewed as a 

large scale perturbation experiment, where scientific learning and policy revision are 

incorporated throughout the process.  An active dialogue among policy makers, foresters and 

field ecologists is essential for adaptive management; this proved to be a highly effective 

approach under NRMP.  If the specific objectives of the forestry sector are clear to researchers, 

rapid assessments can generate sufficient information in an effective format for assessing policy 

alternatives.  Admittedly, some issues are much more tractable than others.   

The NRMP experience demonstrated that an investment in interdisciplinary research studies of 

general importance provided relevant information for assessing practical implications and 

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