ENSURE the rights of people to manage forests and land is part of the process of realizing justice for society. Indonesia, a year ago, has declared an area of 12.7 million hectares of forest areas that its rights are entrusted to the community.
Especially for people living in the surrounding forest or whose primary source of income is from forest products. However, based on the information I got from 12.7 million hectares of forest area, only 400,000 hectares of forest have been handed over to the community. Approximately only about 3.5% of the total planned forest area.
This illustrates that there is still a great opportunity for forest areas that can be registered to be managed by the community. Even the village ministry (Kemendes) has taken a role in efforts to accelerate the realization of social forestry management through the Agrarian Reform of Social Forestry (RAPS).
In addition, village counselors become the most important part in the effort to socialize to the community about RAPS efforts that have been triggered by the Ministry in an effort to accelerate the realization of social forestry.
