Front Cover: A forest home in northern Thailand (Photo: Poffenberger)

WG-CIFM

LINKING LEARNING WITH POLICY FORMULATION

The international Working Group on Community Involvement in Forest Management (WG-CIFM) has evolved in the last few years to raise awareness of the roles that communities play in many places around the world in the sustainable management of forests. Over 157 individuals have participated in WG-CIFM sessions representing forest departments, donor agencies, NGOs, and academic institutions from most of the world's regions. The sharing of national experiences provides a clearer picture of common issues, creating opportunities to improve national, regional, and international policies. Funded by the Ford Foundation and the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) the WG is currently facilitated and administered by the World Conservation Union (IUCN). The WG-CIFM is committed to discovering better ways to engage communities in the sustainable management of forestlands and for providing opportunities to communicate their experience.

For further information about the regional profile series, please contact:

© IUCN

COMMUNITIES AND FOREST MANAGEMENT

IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

Mark Poffenberger, Editor

A REGIONAL PROFILE OF

WG-CIFM

THE WORKING GROUP ON COMMUNITY
INVOLVEMENT IN FOREST MANAGEMENT

FOREWORD TO THE REGIONAL PROFILE, SERIES

This series of regional assessments was initiated by an international group of individuals concerned about the future of the world's forests. We began meeting during the sessions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF) convened by the United Nations in New York and Geneva between 1996 and 1997. In order to promote regional exchange and better inform international policy dialogues, we formed the Working Group on Community Involvement in Forest Management (WG-CIFM). The World Conservation Union (IUCN) agreed to facilitate our activities and administer financial support which was provided by the Ford Foundation and the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID).

The Working Group currently includes forest administrators, planning officers, forest scientists, environmental activists, and diplomats. Our discussions of the underlying causes of deforestation and promising strategies to bring greater stability to the world's forests revealed many similarities between our regions. Most group members agreed that the expansion of government and private industry control over forests in the past century had increasingly undermined the management role of communities in their nations. In some cases this was reflected in the deterioration of indigenous forms of resource stewardship, in others policies did not allow for localized systems of forest rights and responsibilities to be established. Many participants reported that a growing number of communities in their countries are attempting to gain greater control over their forest resources. Nations in both the South and the North are beginning to address this imbalance by developing policies and programs to re-engage communities in forest management decision-making.

During the meetings of the Working Group we noted that many government forestry agencies are under-financed, their budgets cut over the past decade due to political changes and economic restructuring in both developed and developing countries. While the rapidly shrinking public forest base is under unprecedented pressure from industry as well from local and urban public forest consumers, many forestry agencies have been faced with severe financial constraints and staff reductions that frustrated their attempts to sustainably manage their national forests. Economic recessions and government downsizing have been catalysts for innovative solutions to forest management problems.

Working side by side with local communities, some forest agencies are forging new partnerships and approaches to forest management. While the subtle pace of this change cannot stem the criticism from conservationists, industry, and local communities not experiencing change, the dialogues and partnerships have sparked a new dynamic animated by citizen's coalitions and regional processes incorporating diverse stakeholder groups. Our group concluded that these parallels warranted a sharing of community forest management experiences between countries in the hope of accelerating the development of more effective strategies to engage forest stakeholders in sustainable forest management.

Throughout the process of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests, the Working Group sought to introduce language to the draft recommendations that could contribute toward creating new policies that support greater community involvement in forest management. The Working Group convened six times during the meetings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests between 1996 and 1998. Over 150 individuals have participated in these sessions. The Working Group was able to effectively influence the final text of the IPF that resulted in some 135 proposals for action approved by governments in June 1997 at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session.

In order to extend our exchanges to colleagues and other interested readers who were unable to participate in the Working Group, we decided to establish a monograph series that characterizes some of the diverse community forest management experiences from each of the world's regions, emphasizing community perspectives. We defined "community" broadly to include small forest-dependent settlements, indigenous peoples, as well as the greater civil society. This broad definition presented the challenge of capturing the inevitable diversity of opinion present in the realm of forest "stakeholders'" literally, all those who have ties to or needs that are met through forest environments. Members of the Working Group agreed that the profiles should reflect a range of views of communities, planners, foresters and other stakeholders within each country. The profiles attempt to be both a synthesis and a mosaic of these complex and diverse national and regional realities.

The degree to which community involvement in forest management (CIFM) is recognized by governments and is integrated into state management goals varies widely. Presently, much of the world's forests are used by local communities, whose interactions are mediated through institutions that range from highly traditional to very modem, and whose legal control ranges from nothing to absolute. Because community forest management is often based on local organizations that are frequently unregistered and fall outside formal policies and prescriptions, local forest-dependent inhabitants have been the hidden component of management in the forestry sector. The communities' role may extend from passive engagement to active participation in goal identification, objective setting, controlling implementation, and assessing results. In some areas community involvement and authority may be comprehensive, based on granted legal autonomy or simple isolation. In 1997, the Working Group developed the following chart to reflect the broad spectrum of ways in which communities interface with government management strategies and the varying levels of authority they may hold.

The goal of the regional profile series is to communicate CIFM experiences between regions, targeting diverse audiences including international policy makers and national planners who are responsible for shaping forest management policies and strategies, as well as the forestry practitioners and development specialists who implement them. To familiarize our cross-cultural audience with the national contexts, each regional profile provides a brief summary of the region's forest management history, human ecology, and administrative organizations, followed by a series of CIFM case studies.

Each regional profile is compiled with the collaboration of many individuals and organizations engaged in the countries of the region under review. The contributors include a mix of generalists and in-country specialists who draw on an extensive collection of existing histories, policy reviews, ecological assessments, personal interviews, and case materials. During the assimilation of materials for review, the editor and the contributors participate in national and regional meetings to capture contemporary views and policy trends. Outside reviewers read and comment on a succession of draft manuscripts to better ensure a balanced presentation. Nonetheless, given the controversial nature of the forest policy debate, numerous differences over the interpretation of data or the validity of information are likely to occur. For this reason, the Working Group feels that it is important to act independently of any organization or institution. I hope our readers find these materials useful in seeking new solutions to forest management issues and I take responsibility for any errors or omissions.

— Mark Poffenberger, Series Editor

PREFACE

This regional profile focuses on six Southeast Asian nations including Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam, bringing together the experiences of many individuals, villages, agencies, government and non-government agencies engaged in efforts to strengthen the role of communities in managing the region's forests. Unfortunately, resources were not available to extend the review to Malaysia, Brunei, and Burma. As editor, I made several trips to Southeast Asia to gather materials for this profile, interviewing dozens of individuals and reading through many excellent books and scholarly articles, as well as government documents, project reports, and field memos. In each country that I visited in Southeast Asia, the growing number of committed individuals involved in community forestry policy analysis, project planning, advocacy, research, training, monitoring, and program administration continually impressed me. In this report I have attempted to capture the voices and views of local people, government staff, development workers, researchers, and NGOs, while also providing some historical, ecological, and social context for their interpretation.

It is clear that there are many important components involved in forest management at the policy and field level. What emerged repeatedly during this review was the fundamental question of who should control the natural resources of Southeast Asia? As the population of Southeast Asia has grown, the rural landscape has absorbed millions of people, both indigenous inhabitants as well as migrants. Burgeoning rural communities inevitably compete with internal and external actors for access to natural resources that are part of their production systems. Increased competition for land, water, and forest resources is often an important force driving the need for more clearly defined systems of forest management. The case studies in this report will demonstrate how villagers are attempting to intensify the productivity of existing lands, place tighter use controls on remaining forest lands to protect watersheds, and reach clearer resource use and territorial rights agreements with their neighbors to minimize conflicts.

A major goal of this report is to present the unique perspective and experience of forest-dependent people in the region. Further, I hope to document both the problems and opportunities confronting government and development agencies as they struggle to engage forest dependent people more effectively in management. For several decades the development sector has largely articulated community forestry issues in terms of project activities and technologies including the establishment of village wood lots or support for non-timber forest products collection. For the most part, social forestry initiatives were safely confined to pilot project areas, within a framework of government programs. In recent years, perceptions regarding the role of communities in resource management have begun to change. In some countries, community forestry has begun to emerge as a people's movement, challenging the authority of the state to hold unilateral power over management decision making.

This report provides the reader with a synthesis of information regarding the past, current, and future role of forest communities in sustaining the natural environment in Southeast Asia. The contributors and I share the assumption that the meaningful engagement of the region's rural communities will be a key element in reestablishing sustainable systems of environmental management. Part I highlights issues currently confronting the natural forests and the people who live in them and depend on them for their survival. Part II reviews the history of forest-use across the region, providing a brief description of human-environmental relationships from pre-history up to the present. Part III offers a short description of major forest types in Southeast Asia, noting some of the specific challenges each bio-region faces.

Part IV examines the relationship between government and forest communities, highlighting how laws, policies, and development programs affect them. This section also gives an overview regarding how policies are changing in the region. In Part V, a selection of six case studies illustrates a wide variety of contemporary community forest management practices, as well as the problems faced by local residents as they struggle to sustain forest environments in the face of growing pressure from within and without. In addition to community reports, this section also documents several regional and national strategies that expand the roles local groups can play as forest stewards and custodians. In the final section, Part VI, the report identifies positive roles government, NGOs, development agencies, and the private sector might play in supporting this transition to participatory stewardship of the region's natural forests.

A recurring theme throughout the report is the conflicts over forest control within and among communities as well as with outside actors. It is assumed that meaningful community forest management will require a long-term effort to transfer legal authority downwards to small groups of forest-dependent peoples. After over a century during which forest controls have become increasingly centralized, there is a sense that the pendulum has begun to swing back, with a process of devolution beginning to take place. Yet, as Gilmour and Fisher write in Villagers, Forests, and Foresters, this creates a paradox where government must "use its authority to give away its authority." As this profile will show, the dynamic process of public land reform in the Southeast Asia region is replete with both progress and resistance.

—Mark Poffenberger, Editor

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The goal of this regional profile is to bring together a broad range of experiences with community involvement in forest management (CIFM) from six Southeast Asian nations. This required drawing on the oral and written accounts of dozens of individuals in order to reflect the dynamic forestry contexts present in Southeast Asia. I was fortunate to receive extensive help from those individuals listed as contributors, however, far more people gave to the task of preparing this profile and those are mentioned here.

Part I briefly summarizes some of the forces and pressures forest communities in Southeast Asia are currently facing. I am grateful to CIFOR and the Environmental Investigation Agency for tracking and publishing reports concerning trends and events that threaten the region's natural forests with special thanks to Don Gilmour for reviewing this section.

Part II presents a brief history of forest management in each of the six countries. This section draws on the fine scholarship of Peter Bellwood, Peter Dauvergne, Ronald Edgerton, David Feeny, Karl Hutterer, Nancy Peluso, Richard Tucker, and others.

Part III provides a brief discussion of the major forest bio-regions that exist in Southeast Asia. This section is based on the work of T.C Whitmore, Mark Collins, Jeffrey Sayer, and Dillion Ripley. I am grateful to Peter Ashton at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University for his review of this section.

In Part IV, national reviews of forest policies and social contexts are based on the contributions of many organizations and people. The Cambodian section draws heavily on the work of Doug Henderson and Kol Vathana. The report on Indonesia was informed through the writing of Suraya Affif and Muayat Ali Muhsi, with additional suggestions and guidance from Jeff Campbell and Martua Sirait. The report on Laos was developed with input from Khamphay Manivong, Manfred Fischer, Carl Mossberg, Marko Katila, Bruce Jeffreys, Peter Jones, and Clive Marsh. The section on evolving community forestry in the Philippines was written by Peter Walpole with special thanks to Tony La Vina at WRI for his review and comments. Karen Lawrence and Anan Kanchanapan authored the national review of CFM in Thailand, with input from Komon Pragtong and Samer Limchoowong. Finally, the section on Viet Nam draws heavily on the work of Thomas Sikor, as well as on input from Charles Bailey, Nguyen Huy Phon, and Vo Tri Chung.

The case studies in Part V are based on the work of many organizations and individuals. The Cambodia case study of Ya Poey Commune draws on the excellent work and writing of Sara Colm, with an update on recent events by Don Muller. Jeff Fox provided a fascinating abstract of his findings regarding changing forest vegetation and swidden farming in northwest Cambodia. The Krui case from Indonesia is based on contributions from Hubert de Foresta, Claudia D'Andrea, and Tim Krui, a consortium of CFM researchers. The section on Ban Kamtheuy, Laos was provided by Rachel Dechaineux, Joost Foopes, and Southone Ketphanh. The case studies from the Pantaron Mountains were provided by Peter Walpole, members of the Philippine Working Group and the research and mapping team from the Institute for Environmental Science for Social Change (ESSC). The Thai case study was contributed by Karan Aquino and Karen Lawrence, with additional materials drawn from the fine work of the Northern Development Foundation in Chiang Mai and TERRA staff (Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance) in Bangkok. The case from northwest Viet Nam is extracted from a research project conducted by Asia Forest Network members, including Nguyen Huy Dzung, Vu Van Dzung, and Eric Crystal.

Aside from the contributors to the national and country cases, many other individuals helped make this publication possible. In Viet Nam, I am grateful to Hans Helmrich and Michael Glueck who guide the GTZ funded Sustainable Resource Management Project. Hans and Michael provided immense support in synthesizing hundreds of reports on forests and communities in the Mekong River Area, and now offer an excellent web-site where many of these documents are available without charge (www.mekonginfo.org). I am also grateful to all members of the national working group on community involvement in forest management in Cambodia, including Chea Sam Ang, Key Serey Rotha, Wayne Gum, Mao Kosel, as well as to Gordon Patterson, and Andy Maxwell for their help with the Ratanakiri case study. In Thailand, I want to acknowledge the help of Somsak Sukwong, Bob Fisher, Cor Veer, and Michael Victor at RECOFTC, as well as Pat Durst with FAO. Finally, in the Philippines special thanks are due to Sylvia Miclat of AFN/ESSC for facilitating communications, and to members of the Philippine CBFM Working Group.

I am especially grateful to Andrew Ingles, IUCN regional coordinator for South and Southeast Asia, who took the time to read through the entire manuscript and provided many valuable comments. I would also like to express my appreciation to Fran Korten, Michael Conroy, and Walt Coward at the Ford Foundation, and to John Hudson and Pippa Bird at the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID), for supporting the activities of the Working Group on Community Involvement in Forest Management (WG-CIFM), including this second publication in the regional profile series. At the World Conservation Union (IUCN) headquarters, I am grateful to Simon Rietbergen and Ursula Senn for facilitating and administering the Working Group program. Thanks also to Bob Reed and Eric Crystal at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California at Berkeley for providing encouragement and logistical support for the review. We are also grateful to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for supplemental funding for this publication.

My special thanks are due to the production team who worked diligently over the course of a year to bring this report to publication. Kevin Kolb, the cartographer, did a fine job creating the maps. I am grateful for his input and suggestions. Jeffrey Barash handled copy-editing tasks in an effective, thoughtful manner. I am very thankful for his grammatical expertise. I extend my gratitude to Shirley Poffenberger for her careful reading of the manuscript and her suggestions for improvement. I thank Inna Jane Ray for her layout work and Jack van den Brulle at Apollo Press, Berkeley, for printing this report. Finally, I extend my gratitude to Kate Smith-Hanssen, Assistant Series Editor, for helping develop and organize the text into a coherent form and for her thoughtful editing and patience.

—Mark Poffenberger, Editor

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures

List of Boxes

PART 1

INTRODUCTION

Southeast Asia is one of the richest regions in the world in terms of its varied human-ecosystems. The diversity of cultural groups, combined with one of the world's richest genetic pools, has resulted in a multiplicity of forest-use systems. For thousands of years, the upper and lower watersheds of the major mainland rivers as well as the entire island archipelago of Southeast Asia were carpeted with dense rain forest. Tribal communities fished, hunted and gathered in the forest, and practiced long rotation agriculture. Thousands of long rotational swidden systems were developed for a wide variety of lowland rain forests, swamp forests, mountain forests, monsoon forests, and mangrove forests.

Each country possesses hundreds of agro-forestry systems, mixed tree gardens, and natural forest product gathering and hunting strategies. A single forest garden often contains hundreds of plant species, mostly well known and well-used by local populations. Recent studies of indigenous forest management systems show that they often retain 50 to 80 percent of the biodiversity found in neighboring natural forest ecosystems (Note 1).

Systems of sustainable use evolved over thousands of years based on traditional knowledge passed from one generation to the next. While indigenous peoples manipulated the natural environment to meet their needs, they did so in a way that allowed much of Southeast Asia's forest cover to remain intact.

This report explores the roles communities and other forest stakeholders play as forest managers across the Southeast Asia region. Where authority is ultimately vested and how decisions are made regarding forest management goals and operational responsibilities is a political issue in Asian countries. As this report will show, there are forces throughout Southeast Asia that promote devolution downwards towards the community, as well as powers that draw that authority towards the center and upwards. The forest is a contested domain and the nature of this tension is a primary topic. This report focuses on the issue of community control of forestlands both through legal frameworks and in the field.

This section begins with a brief overview of two major paradigms that reflect separate and distinctive approaches to forest stewardship: the state versus community forest management (CFM). There are some areas of overlap, with opportunities for varying degrees of collaboration and participation, yet it is also clear that there are profound differences that necessarily affect any resource management strategy. Over the past three decades, community-based forest management (CBFM) programs have acquired new names like participatory forestry, joint forest management (JFM), and village forestry while the scope of the role for rural people has broadened as well. The process of trying to integrate the different agendas of the state, development agencies, and communities has resulted in some progress in merging the forest management goals and strategies. But, it has also blurred fundamental differences that require illumination and high-level policy debate if they are to be resolved. The following list presents a brief summation of some of these important differences: short and long term goals, technologies, control mechanisms, orientation in space and time, and modes of production.

STATE FOREST MANAGEMENT

Most of Southeast Asia's forestland was placed under state control during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, largely dictated by the European colonial administrations of the era. The process of land nationalization was sequential and multi-faceted, involving the formulation of laws to legitimize the state property regime and the development of bureaucratic institutions created to implement claims of governments. Western concepts of nature preservation, silviculture, and industrial forestry provided a scientific basis for developing management goals and mechanisms for administering newly demarcated public forestlands. Indigenous forest management practices, such as long rotation swidden agriculture, agro- forestry, hunting and gathering regimes, often found little or no recognition in these new systems of land tenure and forest laws as they were based on European concepts of land ownership, reflecting very different modes of production and legal traditions.

Throughout Southeast Asia, a discourse of state forestry was established drawing on constitutions, laws, and other legislation that largely rejected local claims to forest resources. This was based on a growing body of decrees, regulations, codes, and other government declarations that reinforced the de jure rights of the state vested through national constitutions and agrarian laws. In many cases, communities continued to be the de facto users and managers of forest, until the state or other entities authorized by the government, usually state forest enterprises or private sector leases, began exploiting the resources. When confrontations between state and local users occurred, the former almost always prevailed, although resistance often continued in the form of guerilla activities, sabotage, petty theft, and arson.

The globalization of the world economy reinforced state claims to resources while facilitating their exploitation by national and transnational companies. Political leaders found they could control the leasing of large tracts of forest for timber and mineral extraction that provides a wealth of money, power, and influence. With the increasing centralization of forest control, national elite acquired hundreds of thousands, and even millions of hectares of land to log, mine, and establish estate crops. From the 1970s through the mid-'90's, international development organizations and large private banks financed these activities, perceiving these large private sector initiatives to be consistent with prevailing paradigms for economic development. Since 1997, however, the onset of the Asian economic ecession has drawn global attention to the corrupt practices and inequities apparent in the region's economies, including the state forestry sector.

There is growing recognition that corruption in the forestry sector begins at the top, where centralized control is frequently concentrated in the hands of a relatively small group of political and economic elite. This pattern is also reflected at more local levels where provincial, district, or sub-district government officials may establish patronage links with local businessmen. What Dauvergne describes in Indonesia is true of many countries in the region: "the result is rampant illegal logging, timber smuggling, tax and royalty evasion, flagrant violations of logging rules, and avoidance of reforestation duties." (Note 2)

The World Bank, the IMF, and other development agencies continue to view these problems as being rooted in the poor implementation of forest policies, rather than questioning the basic viability of state forestry. But, the massive failure of forest policies for half a century or more throughout the region requires that we look beyond the managerial and technical problems facing forestry agencies to explore alternative management paradigms, community forestry being a logical candidate.

COMMUNITY FOREST MANAGEMENT

While autonomous, communal systems of management have existed in Southeast Asia for centuries, state sponsored social and community forestry projects are a recent invention. As Gilmour and Fisher note, "The early approaches to community-based forestry in the 1970s were referred to as "social forestry," and were often limited to hiring local villagers to establish wood lots. (Note 3)

Fundamental questions regarding community rights and responsibilities for forest resource management were usually beyond the mandate of state sponsored projects. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) defined CFM very broadly in 1978 as "any situation which intimately involves local people in a forestry activity." (Note 4) But, Gilmour and Fisher have extended this definition to emphasize issues of authority that exist within CBFM. They now define it as: "the control and management of forest resources by the rural people who use them especially for domestic purposes and as an integral part of their farming system." (Note 5) The question of control is arguably the most important and controversial issue surrounding the debate regarding the role of communities in the management of the region's forests. Increasingly, throughout Southeast Asia, community forestry is being recast as a political issue, driven by an emerging peoples' movement.

Even at the end of the twentieth century, indigenous resource use practices have not disappeared, instead many Southeast Asian communities are adapting their resource use systems to changing social and political conditions and market trends. While greater emphasis is being placed on commercial forest products, subsistence goods still retain a significant if not dominant role in local management activities. Although most Southeast Asian governments give little recognition to communal resource management institutions, village elders, clan chiefs, and other traditional community leaders and their members continue to play important roles in guiding the use of farmlands, water sources, pasturelands, and forests. In Laos, for example, 80 percent or more of all forestlands remains under indigenous systems of management. In Indonesia, local communities retain control over substantial tracts of forest often operating alongside commercial enterprises. These indigenous patterns of stewardship of the natural environment exist in the shadows, however, as they are given little or no recognition under the land laws and policies in most Southeast Asian nations.

In this era of development, traditional resource use systems have often been viewed as obsolete, uneconomical, and inefficient. Despite a growing body of scientific research that indicates that many indigenous forestry and agroforestry systems are economically productive, possess an ability to mimic natural environments, and are remarkably compatible with local ecosystems, they receive little support from government or development agencies, either legally or financially. Instead, government planners sign away hundreds of thousands of hectares of natural forests to foreign logging firms, mining concessions, or estate crop operators, while disregarding evidence that local people have effectively acted as resource stewards for generations.

The broad discrepancy in management characteristics between the state and rural forest-dependent communities suggests that it may be important to support community forestry as a separate and distinctive approach to natural forest management. Integrating it as a minor program within the state model as has been attempted in recent decades has failed to empower community forest managers. By highlighting these fundamental differences in management goals and perspective toward the natural environment, perhaps a new paradigm can evolve that can more equitably address the increasing pressures on Southeast Asia's resources.

The following themes provide a brief overview of rapid population growth, land and forest tenure conflicts, industrial logging, estate crops, mining, and fire. These are all topics of major social significance and of special relevance for community forest management. These topics will be briefly discussed in this section and echoed through subsequent parts of this report dealing with national forest policies, development agency strategies, and field situations.

POPULATION GROWTH

Population growth and increasing per capita consumption of many forest products in developed countries has led to expanding pressure on Asia's forests. On the island of Java, for example, the population has increased from 3 to 100 million over the past two centuries. Indonesia now has over 200 million people, with projections of 350 million for the year 2020. (Note 6)

Asia's population is estimated to reach 4.3 billion by 2025. Asia currently has less forest per capita than any region on earth—under 0.2 hectares per person. (Note 7)

In Southeast Asia, there are an estimated 80 to 100 million people who reside on land classified as public forest, and these numbers will likely double over the next 20 to 30 years. Moreover, there are an additional 200 million rural residents who are to varying degrees dependent on forest products for their survival. Finally, 150 million urban dwellers rely on upper watershed forests to provide critical environmental services.

The linkages between population growth and forest loss, however, are not straightforward. It is easy to blame population expansion for natural resource degradation, rather than focusing on other causal factors such as policy failure, corruption, and the uncontrolled activities of the private sector. As Daniel Bromley has noted: "Blaming population growth allows inept or corrupt governments to shift the blame for either their behavior or their inaction, as the case may be, to 'promiscuous' peasants." (Note 8)

In fact, there is growing evidence that increased use of local resources can encourage communities to implement tighter controls and more sustainable systems of management. (Note 9) Nonetheless, the long-term impact of expanding rural and urban populations will place increasing pressure on the natural resource base. Growing populations impact the forests by increasing demands for more agricultural land, fuelwood, and other forest products. Other factors that impact forest loss are: 1) the breakdown of local systems of management, 2) market and policy failures, 3) rapid commercialization of natural resources, 4) resource tenure structures that encourage short-term exploitation and 5) institutional weaknesses characterized by corruption practices. (Note 10)

LAND AND FOREST TENURE

Tenure is sometimes referred to as a "bundle of rights," recognized either by law or custom. Tenure security is the degree to which an individual or group feels its relationship to a place or the resources that support them are in jeopardy. Tenure systems, especially customary rules and rights found in rural Southeast Asia, are highly diverse. They cover land, trees, and water, as well as specific products like birds' nests, gums and resins, fruit, honey, specialty woods, and hundreds of other items. Individual and family rights are often nested within an overall framework of community administration. Traditional tenure systems tend to be flexible, so that rights can flow outward to users, expand and contract based on demand, and be adjusted in response to good or poor practice. Individuals and families are accountable to the community, the community in turn to its members, and, finally, a balanced relationship with neighboring communities must be maintained. Tenure conflicts are to be avoided, first through continuing efforts of members to avoid offending others, and then through mediation at increasing levels of authority.

Traditional tenure systems have been the primary mechanism for allocating natural forest resource use among local populations for thousands of years. The Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic empires of Southeast Asia prior to the colonial period had limited control beyond the lowland agricultural plains. Up to the end of World War II, though colonial governments declared most of the region's forests to be state domain, effective administration of Southeast Asia's 500 million hectares of forest was limited to a relatively small number of timber production areas with road access. Only during the past 50 years have newly independent nations in Southeast Asia begun taking more comprehensive management control of upland forests by setting up new structures of local governance and imposing national land laws, while rarely recognizing indigenous tenure practices. Instead, governments have generally assumed public forestlands are freely available for leasing to state corporations, private enterprises, or for management by new local government administrators.

The absence of legal rights in much of the region's natural forestlands has left local communities highly vulnerable to the interests of outside actors, be they governments, corporations, or migrant settlers. The failure by most of the governments of Southeast Asia to recognize the territorial rights of indigenous and other traditional peoples is increasingly acknowledged to be a fundamental cause of deforestation (Note 11).

Insecurity of tenure can generate perverse incentives for sustainable management—for local populations as well as private companies. Although much of the land in these countries was nationalized over the past few hundred years, in recent decades the encroachment of external forces has intensified, destabilizing and eroding local resource management systems. What Steven Lawry observes of sub-Saharan Africa is also true of many parts of Southeast Asia: "While states have usurped the last vestiges of local control through legal reform, they have been unable to put in place an effective alternative system for managing collective resources'" (Note 12). Still, in many of the more remote forest areas and watersheds of mainland and insular Southeast Asia, customary tenure practices continue to guide communal resource management, despite the absence of formal recognition. The question is whether they will continue to be eroded or whether an appropriate marriage of supportive policies and effective programs will re-energize local systems of community resource stewardship.

Since the 1960s, for example, the Indonesian government has transferred rights to approximately one-third of the national land area to a small group of people with powerful political connections. While much of the 65 million hectares was initially designated for long rotational timber harvesting, the selective-felling system failed due to overlogging, fires, and other disturbances. Wealthy families have attempted to hang on to their lease-holds by clearfelling them for pulp, converting them to plantation crops, or exploiting their mineral resources. Millions of local residents lost their ancestral lands in the process and there has been little recourse through the judicial system.

Southeast Asian countries are challenged by the great differences between modem government land laws and customary tenure traditions. Even after laws are enacted that can link modem and traditional forest tenure systems, the process of delineating tenure authorities through negotiations and mapping is an immense task. The bureaucratic capacity, procedures, and skills to implement national public land reform is also woefully limited throughout the region. Further, much forestland has already been leased to outside companies or placed under the administration of state corporations, and pressure to exploit forestlands for foreign exchange has grown with the economic recession of the past two years. Bringing land security to upland forest regions will require a careful crafting of enabling policies, a strong political will, and the capacity to implement them.

INDUSTRIAL LOGGING

No force has transformed the natural forests of Southeast Asia so rapidly as industrial logging. Commercial timber extraction has occurred in the region for centuries, but only in the last 100 years have expanding international markets, together with new felling, extraction, and transportation technologies increased the rate of logging to its current high levels. Today, the international timber trade is valued at $ 100 billion a year (Note 13).

For many Southeast Asian nations, timber is a resource that can be sold on international markets to generate foreign exchange. Nations with large debts to development banks as well as private commercial lending institutions require foreign currencies to service their loans. With the onset of the Asian economic recession in 1997, alternative sources of foreign exchange from the manufacturing sector declined sharply and natural resource extraction is seen as a primary means of meeting the need for hard currency. The International Monetary Fund and other global financial bodies have urged nations not to default on their debts and risk jeopardizing their credit status. As a result, the urgency to generate dollars through timber sales has increased, despite a wood glut in the global market and historically low prices from logs and plywood.

Logging is very difficult for governments to regulate and timber revenues are hard to capture. According to a recent study by the World Wildlife Fund: "Virtually all logging for export currently taking place in India, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines is illegal ... It is estimated that at least a third of Malaysian logging may be illegal and as much as 95 percent in Indonesia is not wholly legal." (Note 14)

While timber operations are not solely the work of transnational corporations (TNCs), these companies have the advantage of a foreign base and high mobility, often taking advantage of political instability, economic crises, and difficult-to-monitor operations in remote areas. TNCs are often able to circumvent regulations and barriers that protect the environment and local forest communities. Transnational firms have experienced a rapid increase in their capacity to roam the world in search of new forests to exploit. TNCs have been charged with a wide range of illegal practices, including overextraction, logging in protected areas, logging outside concession areas and in the domains of indigenous peoples, as well as such fraudulent actions as bribery, illegal exports, forgery, the underreporting of harvests, and transfer pricing. (Note 15)

Samling Corporation, a Malaysian timber giant, landed logging rights to natural forests covering 800,000 hectares in Cambodia in 1994. The four-page agreement gave Samling control over 4.5 percent of the nation's land area, with an eight-year tax holiday, an automatic option to renew for 30 years, and a requirement of spending only $ 100,000 for reseeding. Cambodia's National Assembly approved this land grant without debate. (Note 16)

In Ratanakiri province, Macro-Panin, an Indonesian consortium, negotiated a logging concession for 1.5 million hectares, the equivalent of 20 percent of the nation's remaining forests and the ancestral domain of a number of ethnic minority communities. (Note 17) By the end of 1998, the Cambodian government had allocated logging rights for approximately 40 percent of the country's territory to foreign firms. Estimates indicate that Samling is harvesting 50 cubic meters of timber per hectare, five times what is considered a sustainable yield. Ministry of Agriculture officials report being turned away by concessionaires when they attempt to monitor logging activities (Note 18). According to one report, "People living within the boundaries of its concession have been prevented from cutting trees for fuel, saw-mills for local use have been closed down, and the company has brought in foreign guards to protect its interests." (Note 19)

A logging truck outside Phnom Penh is one of many operators that transport timber in Cambodia (photo: Poffenberger)

A joint venture coal company operatesthis strip mine on logged-over lowland rain forests 80 kilometers from
Samarinda, East Kalimantan. (photo: Poffenberger)

A recent financial analysis of the timber trade indicates that transnational logging companies take most of their revenues abroad, with as little as 9 percent remaining in the producing country. When logs are processed into sawn timber and other wood products, 65 to 90 percent of earnings by TNCs still leave the country. (Note 20)

An economic valuation of old growth logging in the Philippines found that the return on harvest was a negative $130 to $1,175 per hectare, after calculating replanting costs and off-site damages. (Note 21) Despite the costs to local communities and national governments, TNCs now control an estimated 80 to 90 percent of the trade in wood, pulp, and paper products, with a market value of $110 billion in 1995. (Note 22) Only 350 companies control 40 percent of the world trade, many with sales volumes that are higher than the entire GDP of many countries. The Environmental Investigation Agency concluded that:

In the absence of restrictive trade barriers and without adequate global institutions to regulate their activities, TNCs now enjoy unprecedented freedom to roam the globe in their quest for profits. Dwarfed by the economic might of these super-corporations, and eager for revenue, many countries are seemingly powerless to regulate the management of their precious natural resources. (Note 23)

As this brief review suggests, industrial logging operations threaten forest-dependent communities, as well as national societies. Remote forest communities are poorly positioned to resist timber extraction by private companies sanctioned by national governments. The actions of TNCs are further supported by some developed countries that provide a market for their timber products. Once logging operations are completed, access roads built for timber extraction often expose forest communities to an influx of migrant families in search of agricultural land, placing further pressure on forest and land resources. The impact of TNCs and illegal logging operations on community forest management efforts will be examined in case studies from Cambodia and the Philippines in Part V.

MINING

Mining poses a growing threat to natural forests and rural communities throughout Southeast Asia. A recent IUCN report found that the expansion of mining is being driven by trade liberalization, technological change, debt, corruption, and influence from large corporations. (Note 24)

In recent years, the Philippines and other countries in the region have attempted to attract foreign investment in mining. The 1995 Philippine mining code extends full ownership rights to foreign firms, eliminates taxes for ten years, and allows for total repatriation of profits, leaving one-quarter of the land area available for lease.

Environmental disturbance from mining operations has immense impact on site as well as downstream. Each ton of silver and gold ore extracted from open pits generates between 1 and 3 million tons of waste, contaminated with chemicals like cyanide, sulfuric acid, and heavy metal toxins that often enter hydrological systems. In the province of Irian Jaya in Indonesia, the world's largest gold mine owned by Freeport McMoran (USA) and Rio Tinto (UK and Australia) discharges some 110,000 tons of toxic waste daily into the Ajikwa River. The Amungme tribal council has sued Freeport, which hold's a mining license for 2.6 million hectares, after they and the neighboring Ekari and Komoro tribes were displaced from their ancestral lands. The tribes rejected the company's compensation offer as inadequate. (Note 25)

Tribal actions to protect their lands have resulted in conflict with the Indonesian military, which has been called in to suppress local communities.

The economic recession has clearly placed great pressure on the Indonesian government to lease mining rights on public forestlands. At present, 269 contracts have been approved for gold, nickel, diamonds and coal, 50 contracts being awarded in February 1998 alone, about six months after the recession began (Note 26).

Concerned by the growth of transnational mining operations, an international meeting of indigenous peoples held in 1996 declared: "no activities must take place on Indigenous Peoples' territories without their full and informed consent through their representative institutions, including the power of veto." (Note 27) While indigenous people's protest with growing urgency, large corporations and the international monetary community take advantage of the greater trend towards global free trade and increased foreign investment, breaking down national regulatory barriers and leaving upland forests and the communities that inhabit them increasingly vulnerable.

FIRE

Forest fires in Southeast Asia have received international attention in recent years. Millions of hectares have burned in Borneo, the Philippines, Sumatra, and Mainland Southeast Asia. In 1982-83, fires burned an estimated 3 million hectares on the island of Borneo. In 1997, catastrophic blazes produced smoke that affected southern Malaysia, Singapore, and much of western Indonesia, disrupting travel, driving away tourists, and undermining commerce. Air pollution from these fires was estimated to have affected 80 million people with a financial loss of over $1 billion dollars (Note 28).

The primary culprits were government-linked companies engaged in forest clearing in Sumatra and Kalimantan to prepare land for the establishment of palm oil and rubber plantations (Note 29). Loss of commercial timber is another result of the fires. The commercial plywood industry faces a shortfall of 14.5 million cubic meters of timber, or 30 percent of its demand, in part due to fires in production forest areas. Some analysts predict that fire-induced shortages will drive logging companies to overlog existing concessions and exploit protected forest areas (Note 30).

Fire has always been an important element in managing the natural forest environments of Southeast Asia, especially in the drier ecosystems. Most long-rotation swidden farming systems rely on fire to clear fields, recycle nutrients, and manage pests. Most farmers, with the oversight of community institutions, carefully control such burns. In these contexts, fire has been used for generations as a means of managing the landscape in culturally prescribed ways. Unfortunately, documentation of indigenous systems of fire use and management is limited, vague, and judgmental. Some scientists are urging that a greater effort be made to understand the indigenous use of fire in collaboration with local communities (Note 31).

The incidence and extent of fire in the forests of Southeast Asia appears to have increased dramatically in recent decades with an expanding impact on forest ecosystems. There is evidence that forest fires in logged-over tropical rain forests result in a much higher mortality rate among the towering canopy trees because of the hotter temperatures generated by fuel build-up from the logging slash. The concentration of fire in logged sites and in areas being converted to commercial plantation crops raises serious questions regarding the sustainability of natural forests when they fall under the control of large, private sector interests. Analysis of bum patterns in Kalimantan during the fires of 1983, 1997 and 1998 indicate that the extensive fires were largely confined to areas being cleared for industrial tree crops, while areas under community control experienced much less burning.

SUMMARY

Over the past several centuries the Southeast Asia forest resource base has been reduced by half, a loss of some 350 million hectares of some of the world's richest tropical rainforest. Some scientists estimate the loss of original habitat as high as 80 percent in Viet Nam and the Philippines, and between 50 to 70 percent in Indonesia, Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia. (Note 32)

The remaining half is under growing pressure and much of it is being disturbed. It is clear that commercial resource exploitation through logging and mining, as well as estate crop establishment has greatly contributed to the degradation of vast areas, both in terms of their ecological and productive functions. At the same time, over the past century, the role of communities in managing natural forests has been curtailed legally and administratively. A serious political commitment will be required from national leaders and international organizations if the community forest management paradigm to be meaningful empowered through legislative and operational actions throughout the region.

Notes

1 D. Lawrence, D. Peart, and M. Leighton, "The Impact of Shifting Cultivation on a Rainforest Landscape in West Kalimantan: Spatial and Temporal Dynamics," Landscape Ecology, 12:135-148, 1998. Cited in Jefferson Fox, "Mapping a Changing Landscape: Land Use, Land Cover, and Resource Tenure in Northeastern Cambodia," unpublished manuscript.

2 P. Dauvergne, Shadows in the Forest. Japan and the Politics of Timber in Southeast Asia. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1997) p. 72.

3 D.A. Gilmour and R.J. Fisher, "Evolution in Community Forestry: Contesting Forest Resources," in Michael Victor, Chris Lang, and Jeffrey Bornemeier, Community Forestry at a Crossroads: Reflection and Future Directions in the Development of community Forestry, (Bangkok: RECOFTC, 1997).

4 This is from a published report by FAO, "Forestry for Local Community Development," FAO Forestry paper No. 7. (Rome: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, 1978).

5 Ibid. p. 30.

6 Robert Cribb, "Contemporary Indonesia: Achievements and Dilemmas" (Denmark: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 1998) P.11.

7 Lester Brown et al., Vital Signs, 1996 (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1996) pp. 122-123.

8 Daniel Bromley, "Property Relations and Economic Development: The Other Hand of Reform," World Development, Vol. 17, 1989.

9 Mark Poffenberger and Betsy McGean, Village Voices, Forest Choices (Oxford and New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996).

10 Carter Brandon and Ramesh Ramankutty, Toward an Environmental Strategy for Asia (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1993) Discussion Paper Number 224, pp. 122-123.

11 For more information, see Mark Poffenberger, Keepers of the Forest (Hartford, Conn.: Kumarian Press, 1990); John B. Raintree, Land, Trees, and Tenure (Nairobi: ICRAF, 1987); Owen Lynch, "Philippine Law and Upland Tenure," in Man, Agriculture and the Tropical Forest: Change and Development in the Philippine Uplands (Bangkok: Winrock International Institute for Agricultural Development, 1986).

12 Steven W. Lawry, "Tenure Policy towards Common Property Natural Resources in Sub-Saharan Africa," Natural Resources Journal, Vol. 30, Spring 1990.

13 Environment Investigation Agency, "Corporate Power, Corruption & the Destruction of the World's Forests," London: EIA, 1996, p.1

14 World Wildlife Fund, Bad Harvest (Gland: World Wildlife Fund, 1995).

15 Environmental Investigation Agency, p.7

16 Ibid. p. 29.

17 Ibid. p. 3.

18 Personal Communication from MOA staff, November 1999.

19 Environmental Investigation Agency, p. 29.

20 International Forest Science Consultancy, "Review of the European Community Tropical Forestry Sector Activities 1976-1990," 1991 cited in EIA, p. 4.

21 Food and Agriculture Organization, The State of Food and Agriculture, Rome: FAO, 1994.

22 Environment Investigation Agency, p. 2.

23 Ibid. p. 3.

24 IUCN, "Metals from the Forests," Gland: IUCN, 1999, p. 10.

25 Ibid. pp. 18-19.

26 CIFOR, "The Indonesian Economic Crisis Implies Immense Changes in the Forest Sector," CIFOR Homepage, March 26, 1998, pp. 5-6.

27 IUCN, p. 26.

28 Cribb, p. 16.

29 Ibid. p. 16.

30 William Sundarlin, "Between Danger and Opportunity: Indonesia's Forest in an Era of Economic Crisis and Political Change," unpublished manuscript, September 1998.

31 Jackson and Moore, 1998, p. 10

32 John MacKinnon and Kathy MacKinnon, Review of the Protected Areas System in the Indo-Malayan Realm (Gland, Switzerland: IUCN, 1986).

PART II

A BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMAN-FOREST RELATIONS

This section reviews the history of human uses of Southeast Asia's forests. For centuries, just as human societies have shaped the natural environments, so too have forest ecosystems influenced the development of civilization. In exploring the roles communities can play in forest management in the future, it is useful to reflect how they have been engaged as stewards of these natural resources in the past. By better understanding the forest management experiences of the past, proponents of greater community engagement in forestry may see ways to re-establish or adapt these management forms to respond to future challenges.

PREHISTORIC

Archaeological evidence indicates that human habitation of Southeast Asia dates back one million years or more. More abundant findings from 10,000 to 40,000 years ago tell us of cave-dwelling communities that hunted a broad range of animals in the tropical forests along the coast of Viet Nam, the Malay Peninsula, and Sumatra (Note 1).

In northern Thailand, at a site known as the Spirit Cave, anthropologists have found a variety of tree crop seeds including candlenut, canarium nut, butternut, betel nut, terminalia nut, chestnut, and mango, as well as seeds, bushes, and vegetables. Scientists speculate that inhabitants of the area may have cultivated small gardens in the forest between 6,000 and 12,000 years ago.

According to Karl L. Hutterer, "the natural vegetation cover of Southeast Asia has been affected by a long history of often intensive human interference predating colonial influences by thousands of years." (Note 2)

At the same time, he concludes that forest-foraging communities were too small to have had a great impact on forest ecosystems. Population densities throughout the region remained quite low until the beginning of the current millennium, with small isolated bands roaming through the dense forests that cover most of the region. Survival strategies, including hunting practices and foraging methods, varied widely, depending on local environments. "In all," says Hutterer, "the animal bones reflect a hunting pattern that exploits a very broad range of animals found in the rain forest and along its fringes, a pattern that is shared by most contemporary hunting societies in Southeast Asia." (Note 3)

Six thousand years ago, most forest-dwelling peoples of peninsular and insular Southeast Asia subsisted through nomadic hunting and gathering, semi-sedentary fishing and gathering, or semi-sedentary cultivation of wild plant species such as yams, bananas, and coconuts. The presence of words like "yam," "taro "banana," and "coconut" in the Proto-Austronesian vocabulary indicates that these cultigens were very important in the lives of people in insular Southeast Asia over 5,000 years ago (Note 4).

Small settlements would create openings in the forest to establish swidden fields. Forest clearings and enriched soils around settlements provided an environment for light-loving plants that allowed humans to identify useful species. Indigenous forest trees like durian, breadfruit, banana, and coconut were identified in the forest and domesticated near houses and in swidden fields.

Evidence from Thailand indicates that rice and other cereal crops were cultivated 5,000 years ago, reflecting an intensification of agriculture. Communities that developed cereal production systems became less dependent on the forest. Since agricultural land for cereal production took time to develop, and as cereal could be stored for long periods of time, a migratory existence was replaced by sedentary life. Some anthropologists note that, "populations engaging in permanent field agriculture have essentially 'locked themselves out of the forest' conceptually (Note 5).

Among such societies the forest became fearful and dangerous, as reflected in some cultural mythologies, while forest-dependent communities continued to relate to it as a source of livelihood and protection. Even today, forest dwelling communities like the Semang of the Malay Peninsula seek out the forest because it is "cool" and therefore "healthy," while neighboring Melayu and Temair people regard it as disease-ridden and "too cold". (Note 6)

EARLY KINGDOMS (500-1500)

The role of the state in controlling land resources in Southeast Asia took shape during the first millennium CE with the expansion of sedentary farming communities in lowland areas. In the first centuries of the Common Era, Chinese and Vietnamese rulers began establishing administrative systems in the Mekong Delta in what is now the southern part of Viet Nam. They imposed systems of territorial control through land taxes, tributes, and corvée labor (labor provided to the state in lieu of taxes). Since low population densities were a primary constraint on production, it was the control of people rather than land that was the key to economic and political power. As a result, early kingdoms typically attempted to expand their territories into agricultural areas with larger populations. Forest communities in the upland areas and more remote interior regions were rarely subject to prolonged campaigns and generally fell outside the administration of the royal court.

Although inscriptions from the early kingdoms indicate that vast areas of forests were under the control of ancient rulers, they may have been written simply to enhance the prestige of the kings, as there is little evidence to suggest that they ever really controlled the land they claimed. According to Hutterer, "the principal means of demonstrating economic wealth and political influence of leaders were the ostentatious display of expensive foreign trade goods and the espousal of foreign religious ideologies." (Note 7)

The monumental remains of Angkor Wat, Pagan, and Borobudur bear witness to the massive human and material investment used to aggrandize the ruler in the eyes of god, the court, and local farming communities. Alternatively, rulers invested in irrigation and drainage projects that increased the area of productive agricultural land. By contrast, we have no reason to believe that similar investments were made in raising large armies to gain control over the people of the forest or their land.

Even in lowland areas, most farming communities were probably relatively autonomous; as distance from the royal court increased, central authority weakened. In the case of the Javanese kingdom of Mahajapahit, one historian notes: "One can easily envisage the situation in which the entire (state) pyramid disappears, but the village continues to function. This was actually the case with large parts of Southeast Asia, where there simply did not exist any effective central authority (Note 8).

The early kingdoms of Southeast Asia were influential in formulating the concept of state domain and establishing administrative systems in areas under their limited control. They also supported private ownership and the sale of agricultural land. From the beginning of the first millennium CE, there is documentation that forest products made up the bulk of trade goods and were a key element in the economics of the early kingdoms. Roman coins, as well as Indian artifacts, have been found near the coastal village of Oc-Eo in southern Viet Nam at what may have been the site of the ancient kingdom of Funan. These finds date to the second and third centuries CE and were likely used in part for trade in forest products like wild spices such as cardamom, nut- meg, and clove, and other goods like lacquer, aromatic woods, hides, rhinoceros horn, and ivory. The high-value, low-bulk forest products were collected or caught by the inhabitants of the forest, who received coins and goods in return. (Note 9)

A stone frieze from 9^th century Buddhist located in Borabodur, central Java. This panel depicts the life of inhabitants and their forest gardens, not unlike the Indonesian fruit gardens found in rural areas across the island today. (photo: Poffenberger)

By the first century CE, millions of pieces of ceramics were being shipped to trading ports in insular Southeast Asia in exchange for rain forest products. Since exported goods were largely derived from upland forest areas beyond the administrative control of the royal courts, coastal people's and trading kingdoms had to establish exchange relationships with the forest villages in the interior. Contact between these societies was common, although intermediary traders often facilitated exchanges. Nonetheless, the forest peoples consciously maintained their isolation and retained their distinctive identities, keeping their animistic belief systems while lowlanders adopted Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and other major religions entering the region.

However, hunting and gathering and swidden agricultural communities continued to manage their resources independently in the upland and interior forests removed from the influence of the royal court. Until recently, communal systems of tenure were common, especially for less intensively managed resources like forests, lakes, and streams. The community administered forestlands used for long-rotation swidden farming. Farmers were given temporary use-rights extending through the agricultural rotation. Many forest-dwelling cultures in Southeast Asia viewed their lands as resources held in trust for future generations and as legacies of their ancestors. The lands were considered inalienable, and homelands were to be held in perpetuity. This custodial role of forest tribes is reflected in the words of a tribal elder from Irian Jaya: "The ancestors made these goods (the land) at the beginning of time... and their descendants must be handed these goods in unimpaired condition in the future." (Note 10)

THE COLONIAL ERA (1500-1950)

Southeast Asia's colonial period began in the early 16^th century with the arrival of Spanish and Portuguese explorers, followed by the Dutch, the English and the French. The Spanish were the first to attempt to establish territorial control when Magellan landed on the island of Luzon in the northern Philippines in 1521 and claimed the island chain for the Spanish crown. Unlike the other great European colonial powers exploring Southeast Asia, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who were more concerned with trade and the establishment of secure market access, rather than political dominance, the Spanish were interested in territorial control from the beginning. It was not until the early nineteenth century that we see other colonial powers struggling to take physical and administrative control of the Asian states.

The sixteenth and seventeenth century Europeans visiting Southeast Asia were in search of valuable trade commodities that were both light in weight and able to withstand long sea voyages. Spices, gums, resins, and aromatic woods fetched high prices in Europe, as they had in China and Rome for over a thousand years. European colonists initially relied on pre-existing collection and marketing systems. For their forest products European traders paid in gold and silver as well as in cloth, matches, metal tools, mirrors, and other goods, while Chinese traders used tahil (gold), gongs, and dragon jars. The depleted forests of Europe led colonial powers to increasingly depend on Asia for materials for ship repair and construction. The first forests set aside by Europeans were designated as sources of timber for boat building. By 1677, the Dutch were already negotiating contracts with Javanese rulers to secure access to the rich teak forests of the northern coast. (Note 11)

While forest reserves were established to protect shipbuilding industries as early as the seventeenth century, by the nineteenth century commercial timber extraction was widespread. Burma and Thailand were being heavily logged for teak, and much of the lowland Philippines was intensely harvested from the 1850s on. In response to the uncontrolled cutting, the Spanish colonial government established the first Phil