Cultivating Women’s Forest Stewardship: The 100 Champions Network

Rural women have proven to be uniquely effective protectors of Indonesia’s vast and threatened forests. Joining us this week is Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra,  the director of The Asia Foundation’s Environmental Governance program in Indonesia, to talk about women’s forest stewardship and a project called the 100 Champions Network.

Read the full InAsia blog piece on the the project: Cultivating Women’s Forest Stewardship: The 100 Champions Network - The Asia Foundation

Transcript

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (00:03):
One interesting activity conducted by women in Aceh was Women Forest Rangers to monitor illegal loggers or poachers. As a result, currently no deforestation happened in their forest area. This is such great resource.

John Rieger (00:22):
Women in the vanguard of forest stewardship in Indonesia on this International Women's Day Edition of InAsia from The Asia Foundation. I'm John Rieger.

Tracie Yang (00:30):
And I'm Tracie Yang. The vast forests of Indonesia are both a critical climate resource and a vital source of livelihood for the rural populations that live there. They're also under significant threat from powerful economic interests like logging, mining, and palm oil production.

John Rieger (00:46):
How can we stop this market-driven destruction of the forests? The solution could lie in the concept of social forestry, which gives rural villagers more power to manage and defend the forests on which they already rely for their livelihoods. But how do you make it work? Turns out it has a lot to do with women.

Tracie Yang (01:04):
Joining us now is Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra. Alam is the director of The Asia Foundation's Environmental Governance Program in Indonesia, and he's here to talk about women's forest stewardship in a project called The Hundred Champions Network. Alam, welcome to InAsia.

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (01:19):
Thank you.

John Rieger (01:20):
Alum, let's start off with social forestry. This is not a new concept in Indonesia.

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (01:25):
Yeah. In 2015, under the administration of President Joko Widodo, the Indonesia government allows an ambitious social forestry program that aims to distribute 12.7 million hectares to forest communities. This community-based forest management scheme is the result of an effort launched by civil society as long ago as the '80s.

Tracie Yang (01:55):
And why is it important for not the government to manage the forests, but the communities there to manage the forests?

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (02:03):
For them, forest is their resources for their livelihood. So by protecting their life, they protect their forests.

Tracie Yang (02:14):
They manage it more sustainably because they live there.

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (02:17):
Yeah. Now the social forestry is an official program. In Indonesia, office works with the government and local CSO partner to realize this commitment, including ensuring the women group and indigenous people can obtain social forestry permit.

Tracie Yang (02:37):
So this show is going to air a couple of days before International Women's Day. So this is a timely question. Why do women seem to be an essential catalyst for social forestry?

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (02:51):
Forest area is the home for women and their children. Every day, women working and doing their economy activities around the forest area. Women manage the catchment area, the trees and others natural resources around their community and their life. Asia Foundation found that when women are meaningfully involved in community forest management, it leads to increased income, more sustainable forest governance and greater gender equality.

Tracie Yang (03:29):
So you're saying because the women there are managing their livelihood and taking care of their families and gathering water and cooking, they really see a different perspective of what forest degradation is doing to their community?

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (03:47):
Yeah, so our program trying to develop women group to participate on managing forest and land practices in Indonesia. However, while women participation in decision-making is increasing, women remain underrepresented. National forest ten-year policies and program like social forestry give insufficient attention to gender equality and the barrier to participation by women. We think that women in village development and leadership of social forestry activities is really, really important.

John Rieger (04:28):
So although Indonesia's commitment to social forestry actually goes back to the '80s, women up until now have been largely excluded from leadership roles. But your studies have shown that when women do get involved, they have a disproportionate positive effect on forest management.

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (04:43):
Yeah.

Tracie Yang (04:44):
So we're going to talk about The 100 Champions Network, but it's part of the larger Asia Foundation commitment to sustainable and gender-inclusive forestry in Indonesia. Tell us about the larger enterprise.

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (05:00):
The women champions are selected or recruited from the communities heavily affected by deforestation. And they, the women champions, work closely with the local civil society organization. The civil society organization built their capacity to improve sustainable forest management in Indonesia.

John Rieger (05:23):
What kind of capacity building do they typically need?

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (05:25):
Training for becoming paralegal, drafting proposal and demanding enforcement of law against illegal poaching, mining and logging. And the other important part of the capacity building is using public information law and reviewing public document for their cases.

John Rieger (05:50):
I could use some of this training myself. So basically these are rural women who have previously not been engaged in public activism and they need to know how to seize the levers of power and make them work for them.

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (06:05):
Yeah, indeed. For instance, in Aceh, the women granted approval to minute 300 hectares of village forests. They cultivate the forest with coffee, cacao and so on. One interesting activity conducted by women in Aceh was women forest rangers to monitor illegal logger or poachers. As a result, currently no deforestation happened in their forest area. This is such great results. And other example is Dewi Sartika a victim of the expansion of the extractive industries.

John Rieger (06:45):
You actually write about Dewi Sartika in your blog post this week.

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (06:49):
Yeah. Dewi acted to demand information from the government such as legal document confirming her village land rights and map of village boundaries. In between, Dewi also come forward to lead the community in discussion with the local government, including the head of the district.

John Rieger (07:09):
That's great. That's great.

Tracie Yang (07:11):
So The Asia Foundation has a commitment to gender inclusive forestry in Indonesia. And The Hundred Champions Network is kind of a vanguard group. Who are these women champions?

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (07:22):
A hundred champions are women heavily affected by deforestation. We and our civil society organization partners identified and built the capacity of individual women forest champion at the local level, connecting them together to be a hundred champions network in Indonesia.

John Rieger (07:48):
So these women already had a stake in the game. They were already concerned about deforestation where they lived. These are rural women who are worried about the destructive effects of deforestation on their community.

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (08:03):
Yeah.

John Rieger (08:04):
And does that make them better advocates?

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (08:06):
Absolutely. Most of them also become a paralegal to help other women victim affected by deforestation, forest conflicts and other problem with the government or with the extractive industry, particularly on their concession area.

Tracie Yang (08:25):
So you don't encounter any resistance in the villages when you come in with these programs?

John Rieger (08:32):
Yeah, these are untraditional roles for the women in these villages, right? Is that never a source of controversy?

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (08:41):
I don't think, because now women champions receiving some support from other parties. For instance, the university in Aceh helped them to improve their livelihood and some local CSO also train the women group on using GPS and drones to monitor their forests from their smart phone.

John Rieger (09:08):
So what I'm hearing is that these women forest champions aren't just solo knights of the forest. They work with local civil society organizations. They're part of a civil society infrastructure. Tell us more about that civil society infrastructure.

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (09:26):
In our agenda, The Asia Foundation work closely with a network of local civil associate organization to foster gender focal point.

John Rieger (09:39):
Gender focal points.

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (09:40):
Gender focal point, yes.

John Rieger (09:41):
These are individual experts within these organizations.

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (09:45):
Yeah, individual within the civil society organization become experts not only for the women champion, but also for the organization itself to bring gender equality into the mainstream of their organization program. Gender focal point also identify women champion in their area and hold local and national meeting to advance environmental governance. Gender focal point become a facilitator to connect women champion with decision makers training for gender focal point, not only on gender values, but also how to become a facilitator, how to become negotiator, and how gender focal point can promote dialogue between the women champions and the government official. And the same way promote the dialogue with, for instance, private sector member of Parliament and other stakeholders.

Tracie Yang (10:56):
Alam, you've been with Asia Foundation for a long time working on this program and you've been out to these forests, these vast forests. Is there anything that really sticks out to you when you do these visits and you see these women foresters in action?

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (11:18):
Yeah. The interesting on women forest defender movement is when women become friends. This is the good story. In Bengkulu, they organize one group to obtain social forestry concession, and now 10 women group establish and have access to the provincial government. Most of them now become government resource person on sustainable forest management agenda. So this is how women become expert on providing input to government on developing their program agenda.

John Rieger (12:09):
It's interesting, isn't it? We see this again and again, that gender inclusion, that bringing women and their concerns into the mainstream does not disadvantage men. It's not a zero-sum game in which women win and therefore men lose, but in fact, by all kinds of measurements, everybody wins. If women become involved in social forestry programs, their insight into what is valuable in the forest helps the social forestry programs perform better to the benefit of everybody. Seems like we have to keep learning this lesson.

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (12:49):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Due to their traditional roles as household managers of natural resources, women have the greatest knowledge of how to minister their land sustainably. Therefore, women participation and influence in forest management is essential for equitable and sustainable economic and environmental outcomes. The program, I mean the social forestry program itself is also replicable and scalable across Indonesia provinces. It can be a model for government, national agenda target to enhance women and girls rules in social forestry.

Tracie Yang (13:38):
Alam, in our prep for this interview, you said that the name Alam that you go by means nature. So I have to ask, was it always meant then that you were always going to be meant for working on the environment?

John Rieger (13:52):
Is it destiny or coincidence?

Tracie Yang (13:54):
It is.

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (13:56):
Yeah, absolutely.

John Rieger (13:58):
The Asia Foundation's Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra. Thank you so much for joining us.

Rahpriyanto Alam Surya Putra (14:03):
My pleasure John and Tracie.

Tracie Yang (14:06):
And that's our show for the week of International Women's Day 2024. Alam has an interesting post about The Hundred Champions Network in this week's InAsia blog. John and Tracie say, check it out.

John Rieger (14:17):
And while you're there, you know the drill. Subscribe to our podcast. We'll see you next time. Till then, I'm John Rieger.

Tracie Yang (14:23):
And I'm Tracie Yang.

John Rieger (14:25):
Thanks for listening.