2.4.2  Management Challenges  

NRMP attempted to distinguish between the underlying causes and the symptoms of forest 

degradation and loss.  The daunting complexity of the biophysical, economic, social and political 

elements of sustainable forest management, coupled with the institutional intricacies would 

seem to call for highly involved and sophisticated approaches to deforestation control. However, 

the institutional and biophysical complexities of natural forest management do not necessarily 

require complex solutions to prevent deforestation.  Regulation of forest management and 

industry must be radically simplified and re oriented towards outcomes or goals.  Rather than 

dictating how forest managers should comply with prescriptive regulations, outcomes should be 

established that allow managers to design their own methods to meet targets.  A better 

understanding of the fundamental constraints is essential to see how effective policy solutions 

could be developed and applied (NRMP Report No. 51, Bennett 1996). 

The distinction between prescriptive and outcome based management approaches is more than 

semantic. The latter regulates forest operations according to how they meet specified 

objectives. Prescriptive approaches dictate the options available to management decision 

makers so that goals can be achieved.  Prescriptive approaches, on the other hand, are not 

inherently bad.  The major advantage of prescriptive, command and control approaches is their 

ability to be applied to site specific conditions.  Currently, however, this is far from possible in 

Indonesia's diverse natural forests without several site or at least region specific designs.  

Moreover, if forest regulations incorporated both the ecological and socially desirable functions, 

the number of regulations would proliferate beyond reason.  Many regulations have little 

relevance to low impact logging and instead provide incentives for economically and 

ecologically adverse outcomes.  For example, the restrictive cut control mechanisms result in 

practices poorly adapted to local conditions, reduce the value of the forest, and increase 

avoidable waste.  The volume limit in the Annual Allowable Cut (AAC) is a typical quota 

mechanism that results in high grading where concessionaires can selectively choose more 

valuable logs from the available standing volume (NRMP Report No. 51, Bennett 1996). 

The opportunity to high grade arises from excessive timber allocations to concessionaires 

relative to their allowable cut levels.  This excess is due to the application of safety and 

exploitation factors (Curran and Kusneti 1992, Hendrickson 1992, NRMP Report No. 33) and 

means that only 60% of the sustainable volume can be extracted.  In effect, relative to the 

allowable log volume, the harvestable tree resource is over abundant.  Extraction tends to be 

wasteful.  Slightly defective logs are ignored, more trees than necessary are felled, and 

economically usable wood is left behind in the forest (NRMP Report No.33).  Many of the 

regulations pertaining to construction within concessions also encourage harmful practices.  For 

instance, the requirement to provide a  sun strip  on both sides of the road so as to allow new 

roads to dry and settle is often manipulated by concessionaires.  Because logs of harvestable 

diameter located in sun strips are excluded from the cut quota of the AAC, concessions have 

tended to construct the widest allowable roads. 

The NRMP response to management constraints was to promote  low impact logging .  NRMP 

investigated the extent and costs of logging impacts as part of a low impact logging initiative.  

Working with concessionaire staff, the levels of avoidable logging waste were systematically 

quantified (NRMP Report No's. 33 and 37).  The definition of  avoidable waste  was based on a 

consensus between concessionaire staff and technical expertise.  While demonstrating large 

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