Political ecology of participatory forest management

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(1) Objectives of the research were a) to evaluate the effectiveness of customary forest management systems by the local communities in Indonesia and Laos (study on cultural-ecology), and b) to clarify the condition of political-economic equilibrium after understanding the movement of various actors (or stakeholders) concerning to forest management and use (study on political economy to bridge he village and national level).(2) Research sites were three villages in the province of East Kalimantan, Indonesia, two villages in Oudomxai province and national Biodiversity Protected Area (NBCA) in Savannakhet province, Laos.(3) Result(a) In Indonesia, the local people still practice customary forest management effectively. Such systems can be regarded as "loose commons". Customary forest management by the local communities, however, is now in a critical situation, because various external actors (or stakeholders) entered into the forest region inn the transition era toward decentralization. In Laos, customary forest management by the local people have already been declined because of the effect of the long terra war disturbance, repeated migration of the villages, and control of the villages by communist regime. Instead, we found out that there are trails at village level to make clear regulation for the use of non wood forest products (NWFP). Such trial can be regarded as the process to construct "tight commons".(b) In Indonesia, it was found out that illegal logging was rampant while district governments were in conflict with central and provincial governments over the authority to control the forests. In Laos, it was fond out that the land/forest allocation projects were conducted without agreement by the communities and out of accordance with reality of the land use. We suggested that each stakeholder acts based on their own logic.