Abstract
Recently, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF) of Indonesia has been promoting social forestry programs to improve the management system of the forest areas in cooperation with local people. This research aims to clarify the factors that influence the success of the rubber tree planting project, which was implemented with the participation of the local people, applying community forest plans from the social forestry programs in the protected degraded national forest in Tanah Laut District, South Kalimantan Province, Indonesia. In this case study, some households, including relatively few landowners, were selected as participants by the local university, and the MoEF officially approved land-use rights (35 years) in the national forest. Additionally, excellent varieties of rubber seedlings were offered free of charge from local rubber enterprise farms, and guidance on cultivation techniques was provided to participants. Half of the planting labor was paid for by the project. Consequently, participants successfully reforested the grassland in the national forest, where repeated wildfires had frequently occurred. The participants hope to acquire a steady income from selling rubber tree sap, five to six years after planting. This is effective as an incentive for the participants to protect the reforested land from fire. To promote the social forestry programs targeting reforestation of degraded areas in the national forest, it is considered important to ensure equitability by prioritizing the poor when selecting local participants, and to secure steady income from the reforested land for local people institutionally, technically, and financially, through external support.
