On Monday, September 10, 2012, HuMa, debtWatch, and Bank Information Center (BIC) organized a workshop on civil society’s critical notes on the Forestry Investment Program/Plan (FIP) documents, a climate-related funding plan developed by the Indonesian Government together with three Multilateral Financial Institutions (World Bank, Asian Development Bank/ADB, and International Finance Corporation/IFC) under the international Climate Investment Funds (CIF) program [http://climateinvestmentfunds.org/cif/].

This investment plan has the potential to have a serious impact on communities at the site level and forest wealth management by the government today and in the future, so it needs to be scrutinized and monitored to prevent perpetuating or even exacerbating the series of forestry issues in Indonesia, which are still marked by high rates of deforestation and conflicts involving indigenous peoples and local communities.

Present at the workshop to jointly formulate general and specific notes on the thick document exceeding a hundred pages were ELAW Indonesia, , AMAN, Solidaritas Perempuan, KPSHK, , AKSI, and Ulu Foundation.

The general notes on the FIP document resulting from the workshop were conveyed by civil society to the Indonesian FIP Team on September 22, 2012. These notes highlighted fundamental FIP issues that still largely refer to problematic legal foundations, namely Forestry Law No. 41/1999, which does not fully recognize the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities living within forest areas. The FIP document also does not genuinely promote specific forestry policy changes and review of various other natural resource policies mandated by the People’s Consultative Assembly Decree IX/MPR/2001.

Another fundamental issue is that the FIP does not acknowledge and address the problem of uneven forest ownership distribution, resulting in very high levels of unjust ownership inequality. Currently, the forest scheme area for communities is still below one million hectares, while the distribution of forest resources to the private sector exceeds 30 million hectares.

Other general notes include the document’s weak response to gender inequality issues in natural resource ownership, particularly forests; the lack of focus on illegal logging; the disregard for the historical role of international financial institutions in driving deforestation in Indonesia and the lack of due diligence from MDBs; the neglect of economic-political drivers due to decentralization; the strong emphasis on markets potentially leading to market traps and new debt accumulation, and the unclear status of public comments and input in the final FIP document to be submitted internationally for review and approval.

Meanwhile, the civil society’s submission also highlighted specific issues in this FIP document, including differences in safeguard policy standards among each international financial institution and their separation from national safeguards (PRISAI) being developed; the problematic focus units for intervention in the investment plan, especially Forest Management Units related to licensing issues; the restriction of indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ rights, including the Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) rights, by including various reservations such as ‘legitimate rights and valid community claims’ referring to legal-formal BAU requirements that do not provide justice to the community; the lack of clarity on ownership, responsibility, and program accountability; the neglect of issues related to ecosystem restoration schemes; community-based forest management and debt risks; marketization through an imbalanced focus on community forests and community plantation forests; the unclear criteria for selecting pilot test areas; and the vague definitions of various terms used.

The civil society’s submission on this FIP document is supported by HuMa, BIC, debtWatch Indonesia, ELAW Indonesia, AMAN, Solidaritas Perempuan, KPSHK, Forest Peoples Programme, IESR, Greenpeace, Walhi, AKSI, Ulu Foundation, Pusaka, Sawit Watch, with specific notes from Walhi on the feasibility of implementing FIP in Indonesia.

The full comment document can be downloaded at the following link:

Civil Society Comments and Recommendations for FIP September 21, 2012