and the associated costs by expressing its intention to not renew its concession license.  Within 

some abandoned concession areas, increased land encroachment of occurred because the 

area was treated as an open access resource.  This new access has often displaced those who 

previously had traditional, often undocumented, land claims and encourages permanent 

conversion of natural forests.   

The MoFr established the Bina Desa Hutan/ PMDH Program in an attempt to increase the 

benefit streams to local communities.  In this case, economic and social development projects 

were established by the HPH. Unfortunately, this program has often been misguided and 

conducted in a top down manner. The concessionaires who received the forest land leases 

ostensibly implemented the rural development programs approved by MoFr.  Success has been 

evaluated through reports detailing area covered and number of people participating. In 

addition, when concessionaires transfer their holdings or convert them to industrial plantations 

(HTI), commitments to these programs also dissolve.  

The NRMP response to constraints and issues of timber concession rights extension was to 

promote the development of community based Bina Desa programs. Considerable effort was 

spent on developing and demonstrating how these programs could be revised to be responsive 

to community needs and their available resources. Shifting the focus of the Bina Desa programs 

from the autocratic top down agricultural development models to more appropriate solutions, 

based on local economy and ecology, was developed in the Bukit Baka Bukit Raya area of 

West and Central Kalimantan (NRMP Report No's. 43, 53 and 60; Bennett 1996).  Additional 

input was provided by action trainers working on local skills development for agricultural crops 

promoted by the existing Bina Desa program.  In particular, dryland and wet rice technologies 

were demonstrated with significant initial impact for participants in degraded grassland areas 

with few agricultural alternatives.  These technologies required considerable external inputs and 

were not suitable across many areas of Indonesia. Continuation and extension of these 

technologies was uncertain when the program support ended. Again, the underlying policy 

changes, necessary to encourage longer term investments, have not occurred.  

2.6.2  Industrial Plantations and Contested Production Forest Boundaries  

Land designations and boundaries are often conflicting and ambiguous because of the initial 

land allocation process, inadequate ground truthing, and continued efforts to accommodate new 

concessions.  In addition, requirements that industrial plantations be linked to concessions have 

created a multi use forest area concept that was not originally considered. The industrial 

plantation program (Hutan Tanaman Industri, HTI) has aimed to regreen Indonesia's forest 

lands, in part, to counter criticism of expansive timber harvesting programs.  However, the 

planting of pulp species should not influence reforestation programs for native hardwoods.  Nor 

should the number or area reforested under the HTI be combined to mislead the public about 

the extent of replanting dipterocarp or other native commercial timber species.  During Repelita 

IV, for example, only 4.6% of the planned 1.5 million hectare goal was planted under the 

industrial plantation program (Curran 1992).  Despite this significant shortfall, the target for the 

Repelita VI timber estate program has increased four fold to 6.2 million hectares. 

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