Forest and Society

Welcome to Forest and Society

Forest and Society is an international journal published by Forestry Faculty of Hasanuddin University that promotes research making clear conceptual and methodological contributions particularly research engaging with people, land, and forest, including topics such as The Commons, Commoning, and Collective Action; Landscape Governance; Political Ecology and Environmental Justice; International Forest Regime; Agrarian Transformation; Social Movement and Resistance; Technopolitics, Knowledge Production, and Environmental Communication; Rights, Gender, and Indigeneity; Mobility, Labor, and Demographics; Climate Change and Carbon Forestry; Frontiers and Extractive Industries; and Nature Conservation and Protected Areas.

While our geographical focus is on Southeast Asia, we actively encourage submissions that offer comparative analyses across regions. The journal bridges theoretical and applied research, supporting capacity-building initiatives to improve regional research quality. We welcome proposals for Special Issues on specific themes.

Current Issue

Volume 10, Issue 2 (2026)View issue

Featured Content

Current Articles

    • Original Research Article1 July 2026

      When Ecology Encounters Industry: Dynamics of Local Community and Floodings in the Bahodopi Morowali Mining Area of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia

      Yahya Yahya, Muhammad Junaidi
      The expansion of extractive industries, particularly nickel mining, has become a major driver of socio-ecological transformation and forest loss in the Global South. In Bahodopi, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, downstream industrial policies and global energy transition demands have rapidly transformed forested, agrarian, and coastal landscapes into industrial frontiers. This study exposes the green transition paradox, wherein global decarbonization efforts inadvertently produce severe environmental destruction and localized ecological crises at the resource frontier. Drawing on a political ecology framework and ethnographic fieldwork, this article examines recurrent flooding as a socio-ecological process shaped by mining expansion, political deforestation, and unequal power relations among the state, industry, and local communities. The findings demonstrate that flooding is not merely a hydrometeorological event but a hydrosocial outcome resulting from the systematic conversion of state and customary forest areas into mining concessions, combined with inadequate industrial drainage management. Ethnographic data reveal that local communities, especially smallholders and coastal residents, experience everyday ecological vulnerability through direct economic losses, crop failures, and limited access to corporate accountability. This study contributes to political ecology and forest governance scholarship on extractive frontiers by showing how ecological risks are socially produced and unevenly distributed through nickel industrialization in contemporary Indonesia. Ultimately, it highlights the urgent need to challenge technocratic solutions and integrate community-based forest protection into downstream mining policies to restore the ruptured forest-water nexus.
    • Original Research Article27 July 2026

      Bureaucratic Politics of Reforestation in Indonesia's Conservation Areas: Turf Protection, Competing Mandates, and Implementation Deadlocks

      Arief Setiyo Utomo, Pande Made Kutanegara, Ahmad Maryudi
      In response to extensive deforestation and land degradation, the Indonesian government has made reforestation one of its top policy priorities. Although several reforestation programs have been implemented, their outcomes have often been constrained by governance-related challenges. This study examines the political dynamics of reforestation in conservation areas by analyzing interactions between two key bureaucracies within the Ministry of Forestry: the Directorate General of Watershed Management and Forest Rehabilitation (DG-WMFR) and the Directorate General of Natural Resources and Ecosystem Conservation (DG-NREC). Drawing on the bureaucratic politics perspective, we show how competing mandates, organizational interests, and bureaucratic turf protection motives shape the implementation of reforestation policies. Using reforestation in Mount Merapi National Park (MMNP) as a focal case, we demonstrate how differences in legal mandates, implementation strategies, budget control, and organizational priorities led to prolonged bargaining and ultimately resulted in implementation deadlock. The findings reveal that the challenges of reforestation extend beyond weak coordination and technical constraints. They are also shaped by bureaucratic competition, in which organizational interests related to authority, budget control, and risk avoidance override broader environmental objectives. The study contributes to understanding how bureaucratic politics shapes reforestation governance and generates environmentally suboptimal outcomes despite a shared commitment to forest restoration.
    • Original Research Article29 July 2026

      Hotter than the Fire: Analysis of Indonesia's Forest and Peatland Fire Policy Contention, 2015–2024

      Dede Setiono, Nunuk Retnandari, Putri Wulandari
      The catastrophic forest and peatland fires of 2015 served as a critical juncture for Indonesia, catalyzing an unprecedented wave of policy reforms aimed at fire prevention and ecosystem restoration. Despite this, major fire events recurred in 2019 and 2023, exposing a persistent gap between policy ambition and on-the-ground reality. This article investigates the underlying reasons for this continued policy failure. This study employs a qualitative, interpretive approach, drawing on 25 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders across government, the corporate sector, civil society, and local communities conducted between 2023 and 2024. The analysis reveals that Indonesia's fire crisis is not merely a technical or enforcement problem but a political one, rooted in deep-seated policy contention. This contention is driven by the clash of four powerful, competing institutional logics: state-led developmentalism, corporate profit-seeking, community livelihood security, and transnational environmental conservation. These conflicting logics create policy incoherence, paralyze effective governance, and enable powerful actors to subvert conservation-oriented regulations. Technical solutions such as reforestation and peatland rewetting are insufficient without addressing the structural political-economic conflicts that fuel the fires. Meaningful progress requires enhancing policy coherence, reforming corporate accountability mechanisms, and empowering local communities.
    • Original Research Article29 July 2026

      Rural Youth Activism amid Multi-Arena Contestations of Infrastructure, Industry, and Conservation Landscapes

      Rajib Gandi, Lala M. Kolopaking, Didin S. Damanhuri, Sofyan Sjaf
      Rural youth in Indonesia are increasingly entangled in overlapping pressures of industrial expansion and ecological conservation that redefine local livelihoods and participation. In Cigombong, Bogor, West Java, where the Lido Special Economic Zone borders Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park, youth confront intertwined political-economic and ecological exclusions that marginalize them from both development and conservation benefits. While state narratives portray youth as agents of rural transformation, many remain symbolically included but materially excluded from decision-making. This study examines how rural youth activists exercise agency and negotiate structural power within these contested arenas, analyzing how such interactions shape their livelihoods, participation, and emerging ecological practices. Using a mixed-methods approach and Bourdieu's theory of capital and field, the study identifies three youth typologies—Marginal-Trapped, Independent-Adaptive, and Progressive-Transformative—based on structural positioning and livelihood strategies. Results show that over half of the youth face multidimensional poverty and symbolic inclusion in village development due to limited access to economic, political, and ecological capital. In conservation buffer zones bordering Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park, youth experience spatial enclosure but develop forms of productive resistance through community ecotourism and localized land-use claims. These practices reflect not only socio-political adaptation but also emerging ecological agency. Statistical analysis confirms that local governance structures significantly influence livelihood outcomes, yet structural exclusion persists even in relatively advanced villages. This study argues that genuine participatory development requires redistributive justice in socio-ecological resources. Situating rural youth at the intersection of environmental governance and rural inequality, the article contributes to critical forest-society scholarship by revealing how youth act not merely as beneficiaries but as political and ecological agents in contested rural transformations.
    • Original Research Article13 August 2026

      Conservation as a Guise: Green Grabbing and the Acculturation Erasure in Rempang, Indonesia

      Umi Ma'rufah, Bobi Bobi, Yogi Eka Sahputra, Muhammad Ishlahudin
      This study examines how the state enacts green grabbing through forestry legal instruments and how this process intersects with the existence and cultural acculturation of the Sungai Raya community. Previous studies on state-led green grabbing have predominantly emphasized economic, political, and ecological dimensions, often overlooking the socio-cultural dynamics of affected communities. Employing a qualitative narrative research approach, this study draws on in-depth interviews and literature review to reconstruct the life histories of community members. Using the Rempang Eco-City National Strategic Project as a case study, this research identifies the unilateral designation of Kawasan Hutan Taman Buru (the Hunting Park Forest Area), facilitated by a collaboration between the Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) and a subsidiary of the Artha Graha Group, as a form of green grabbing. The findings reveal that Kampung Sungai Raya is a microcosm of long-standing cultural integration (Berry, 2018), in which Malay, Chinese, and Flores communities have coexisted harmoniously across generations. However, this harmony is challenged by the state's and the private sector's green-grabbing practices, as reflected in four processes introduced by Fairhead (2012): privatization, the redistributive role of the state, financialization, and crisis-response mechanisms. We conclude that green grabbing can be understood as a process of simultaneous material and identity dispossession, and that socio-cultural hybridity is constitutive of how dispossession and resistance unfold.
    • Original Research Article13 August 2026

      Ancestors and Tiger From Elsewhere: Emerging Forms of Human-Tiger Socio-Natural Relations in Cosmopolitical Frontiers of Sumatra

      Imam Ardhianto, Febri Sastiviani Putri Cantika, Matahari Jingga, Dimas Iqbal Romadhon
      How are the moral relations between communities and the Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) being reconfigured as forests fragment and land-use change accelerates across Sumatra's conservation landscape? This article addresses that question ethnographically, drawing on forty semi-structured interviews conducted in Agam and Pasaman Regencies (West Sumatra) between April and June 2026 and interviews with Yayasan SINTAS Indonesia. The article documents the three animistic category of the tiger, comprising Datuk/ancestor, harimau jadi-jadian, and harimau tandang, and traces how it is being reshaped by habitat fragmentation, commodity-driven land expansion, generational interruption of customary authority, and state translocation protocols. Cases from Agam and Pasaman show that the same kind of sighting yields divergent outcomes, a buried relative, cattle predator, a rehabilitated administrative subject, or a marketable carcass, depending on which institution (pawang, BKSDA, NGO, or illegal-trade collector) retains operational authority at the moment of conflict. Conservation programmes in Indonesia frequently treat sacred values and ``local wisdom'' as stable cultural inheritances; the material presented here shows instead that these moral relations are conditional and subject to transformation. Using a cosmopolitical-frontier framework, the article argues that effective conservation must engage the plural forms of human–tiger relation simultaneously at work and the political-economic forces that recalibrate them, rather than treating community engagement as the recovery of a stable cultural inheritance.
    • Original Research Article19 August 2026

      Indonesia's Palm Oil Diplomacy Under Sustainability Transitions: A Qualitative Analysis of Key Diplomatic Relationships

      Fatima Tuzzahara Alkaf, Helena Varkkey
      Indonesia's palm oil sector has become increasingly embedded in global sustainability governance, particularly through regulatory frameworks such as the European Union Renewable Energy Directive (RED) and the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). This study examines how Indonesia manages its key diplomatic relationships amid sustainability transitions and explores the role of palm oil trade diplomacy in maintaining market access, international legitimacy, and regulatory sovereignty. Drawing on the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) and Institutional Theory, the study conceptualises Indonesia's palm oil diplomacy as a process of adaptive institutional mediation, through which global sustainability pressures are translated into domestic policies and diplomatic strategies. A qualitative research design was employed, using semi-structured interviews with 15 stakeholders representing government agencies, palm oil companies, smallholders, and non-governmental organisations. The data were analysed using a combination of Thematic Content Analysis and Thematic Analysis. The findings reveal that Indonesia's palm oil diplomacy operates through a multi-level governance system involving state actors, industry, smallholders, and NGOs. Stakeholder triangulation identifies patterns of convergence, complementarity, and divergence in sustainability governance and trade diplomacy. While government and industry actors largely agree that sustainability is a prerequisite for export competitiveness, significant divergences remain over access to certification, compliance burdens, and the distribution of economic benefits, particularly for smallholders. The study further demonstrates a transition from defensive diplomacy towards more adaptive and transformative strategies, including institutional collaboration, regional coalition-building, and sustainability-based diplomatic narratives. Theoretically, the study advances the concept of adaptive institutional mediation, illustrating how developing countries negotiate global sustainability pressures while preserving domestic policy autonomy. The findings suggest that legitimacy in contemporary sustainability governance is achieved not only through compliance but also through institutional innovation, diplomatic adaptation, and the strategic negotiation of sustainability norms.
    • Original Research Article7 September 2026

      The Forest's Gift: Ritual Resilience, Nature, and Faith in the Malay Postpartum Tradition of Pelimau Dapur

      Nurul Asmaa Akmal Md Din, Sri Qamariah Mohd Samsir, Awang Azman Awang Pawi, Tengku Intan Marlina Tengku Mohd Ali, Nurul Haniza Samsudin
      This article examines pelimau dapur, a Malay post-confinement ritual practised by some families in Kampung Alor Limbat, Terengganu. It investigates how ritual knowledge is transmitted, how natural and processed materials acquire cultural, spiritual, and perceived therapeutic meanings, and how the practice is reshaped by religious, social, healthcare, and material change. The study employed a focused ethnographic case study design involving semi-structured interviews with eight purposively selected participants (two traditional midwives and six women with direct experience of the ritual), together with participant observation, field notes, and visual documentation. The data were analysed thematically. The findings show that pelimau dapur functions as a culturally recognised form of pelepas that marks the conclusion of postpartum confinement and the mother's reintegration into everyday family and community life. Its continuity depends on the embodied authority of the bidan, intergenerational transmission, family support, and access to trusted practitioners. The ritual has nevertheless changed through the replacement of coconut fronds with flour or talcum powder, the transition from well water to tap water, and the use of Qur'anic recitations in place of earlier ritual formulas. These changes demonstrate that ritual resilience is achieved through selective adaptation rather than the unchanged preservation of tradition. The study contributes to debates on rites of passage, medical pluralism, and socio-ecological transformation by showing how Malay postpartum knowledge is renegotiated across religion, infrastructure, mobility, markets, and maternal healthcare.
    • Original Research Article9 September 2026

      Re-evaluating Seagrass Ecosystem Services: Integrating Community Gleaning and Cultural Values into Economic Valuation in Selayar Island, Indonesia

      Hendriyadi Bahtiar Daeng Sila, Rohani Ambo-Rappe, Mahatma Lanuru, Sebastian C.A. Ferse
      Dominant marine conservation and blue economy paradigms systematically prioritize biophysical metrics, such as biodiversity or carbon sequestration, frequently rendering the cultural and subsistence values of coastal communities invisible. This study contests these biophysically-centered frameworks by applying a holistic valuation approach to seagrass meadows at the Selayar Archipelago, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Utilizing the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) framework as an instrument for recognition of cultural values, we applied participatory methodologies to evaluate the relational values embedded in traditional gleaning—the small-scale, intertidal harvesting of marine invertebrates (a'sulo/ngatti-ngatti). The findings reveal a socio-economic and cultural reality that contradicts formal market assessment: 52.2% of harvested biomass bypasses formal cash economies, serving as a crucial non-monetary safety net. Moreover, results from a participatory Token Allocation Game suggest that local inhabitants prioritize non-extractive cultural services (social cohesion and healing, 52%) over direct economic extraction (48%). While we apply the Replacement Cost method to illustrate the ecosystem's crucial role as an active ``Natural School'' for intergenerational knowledge transfer, we argue these monetary estimates serve as tactical, illustrative proxies rather than functional substitutes. Rather than merely presenting alternative economic metrics, this study asserts that these relational values are not simply undervalued, they cannot be fully captured through the dominant metric driving global blue economy and carbon agendas. As Indonesia rapidly advances its blue economy, we contend that relying exclusively on carbon-centric legibility risks enclosing the marine commons, disenfranchising local populations and overlooking intangible, critical values coastal ecosystems provide. Coastal governance and national policies must urgently evolve to incorporate these structurally invisible socio-cultural dimensions.

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    Adaptive Water Management Strategies for Subsistence Rice Farming Under Projected Rainfall Variability in Drought-Risk Khon Kaen, Thailand

    Phayom Saraphirom, Sukanlaya Choenkwan, Arunee Promkhambut, Tansuda Jinai
    This study offers new insights into adaptive water management for drought-prone subsistence rice farming in Ban Thum Sub-district, Khon Kaen Province, Thailand. By triangulating climate science, agronomy, and farmers’ socio-economic conditions, we assess drought risk and identify feasible adaptation strategies. The analysis integrates 30 years of observed climate data (1994–2023), mid-century projections (2024–2053) under SSP 245 and SSP 585, as well as semi-structured interviews with farmers. Stage-specific effective rainfall, crop evapotranspiration, and supplemental water requirements were calculated. Although total rainfall is projected to rise slightly, severe and moderate droughts are expected to remain frequent, particularly during the heading and ripening stages. In drought years, sustaining yields of 200–300 kg rai⁻¹ will require an additional 200–1,300 m³ rai⁻¹ of water. Groundwater wells and large farm ponds are technically effective but financially inaccessible to most smallholders; smaller ponds represent a more affordable alternative. The findings underscore the importance of targeted adaptation, including enhanced on-farm storage, optimized irrigation scheduling, and supportive policies such as low-interest loans and infrastructure subsidies. By linking climate projections to local capacities, this study provides a practical roadmap for strengthening rice-farming resilience and safeguarding food security in one of Thailand’s most climate-vulnerable regions.
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    The Illegal Online Trade of Indonesian Protected Pitcher Plants

    Uswatun Hasanah, Retno Utami, Yatha Maziyyatul Hijriyah, Eni Nuraeni, Dwi Hilda Putri, Syahrul Kurniawan, Iyan Robiansyah
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    Elephant Economics and Agrarian Transitions: Conditions for Benefiting From Elephant Tourism Market in an Upland Karen (Paganyaw) Village

    Xiaoyun Neo, Aswin Baharuddin, Nur Fadilah Sunardi
    In rural, upland northern Thailand, Indigenous Karen (Paganyaw) communities have long practiced diversified subsistence cultivation and forest-based livelihoods. Yet state conservation policies and tourism-led development are reshaping these agrarian systems and livelihoods. This paper explores how one Karen (Paganyaw) community in Chiang Mai province reconfigures its livelihood strategies amid the decline of swidden cultivation and the rise of elephant tourism as a new rural economy. Beyond subsistence cultivation, villagers are seeking to diversify their households and personal income by participating in this new economic sector. We argue that the transition out of small-scale agriculture into tourism is not a neutral market choice but responds to the same political-economic pressures that have historically displaced swidden systems. Drawing on 32 qualitative interviews, this ethnographic research examines diverse forms of Indigenous involvement in the elephant tourism supply chain crucially determined by non-capitalist social relations and kinship networks.  By identifying the socio-economic conditions – land and capital ownership, and familial and social networks – that result in socially-differentiated and stratified allocation of benefits from elephant tourism, it disenchants the notion of a monolithic ‘community’ yet reveals one empirical case of how Indigenous peoples navigate shifting economies and sustain meaning in their livelihood.
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    Community Forest Management and its Impacts on Ecosystem Services and Livelihoods in Thua Thien Hue Province, Vietnam

    Nguyen Ngoc Lan Chi, Le Thi Hoa Sen, Ho Le Phi Khanh, Guilhem Saget, Jennifer Bond
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    The Role of Ecosystem Services in Holistic Conservation within Protected Areas: A Case Study of the Song Thanh National Park, Vietnam

    Tuyen Nghiem, Sumeet Saksena, Hue T. Ha, Truong Dao, Toan Le, Huong D. Vu, Dien Nguyen, Truong Q. Hoc
    Vietnam has made a strong commitment to biodiversity conservation, as evidenced by its extensive network of protected areas. However, environmental issues persist in protected areas. Often, the resulting violence complicates the situation, making it more challenging to analyze and manage. We studied the perceptions of people in the buffer zone of the Song Thanh National Park, Quang Nam province, regarding the current status of ecosystem services (ES), the importance of ecosystem services, their changes over time, and people's participation in protecting ecosystem services. We employed a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative and quantitative data. We conducted semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and household surveys. We found that local communities were aware of the current status of ecosystem services they used and the importance of prominent selected services, such as swidden agriculture and water resources, in their lives. The study also showed how people perceived the improvement of regulatory services since the establishment of the national park, while the extraction of forest ecosystem services led to legal violations. People's dependence on the provisioning services provided by protected areas often leads to environmental conflicts in their management. This study provides strong evidence that conservation is essential; however, an ES approach is needed to manage protected areas effectively to meet conservation objectives.
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    An annotated bird checklist for Gam island, Raja Ampat, including field notes on species monitoring and conservation

    Julian Schrader, Christoph Parsch, Soetjipto Moeljono, John D Kalor, Tim Hofmann, Christoph Weinrich, Fabian Mühlberger, Christina Stinn, Michael Mühlenberg, Cornelia Sattler
    Species checklists are a fundamental component of biodiversity research. They foster understanding of species distributions and habitat preferences, thus reducing gaps of knowledge in geographical occurrences of species. Especially in light of the limited availability of data on species distributions for Tanah Papua, an increasing scientific focus on the region is crucial to foster and refine the knowledge of species occurrences and to inform potential conservation planning. Despite a strong focus on conservation of Raja Ampat´s marine areas, surprisingly few studies have focused on the terrestrial biodiversity of the archipelago. As a consequence, detailed species checklists are largely missing. Here, we provide a preliminary bird species checklist for the island of Gam and its surrounding islands, located in the central Raja Ampat archipelago. During nine sampling periods between 2013 and 2019, we recorded 132 bird species in six distinct habitat types. Of the detected species, six are considered threatened by IUCN Red List criteria. We further recorded three new species for Gam Island, thereby expanding their known extent of occurrence.
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