Poverty Alleviation Efforts through a Community Forestry Program in Java, Indonesia

Abstract

Community forestry has been promoted as a strategy to tackle rural poverty in Indonesia. This article asks the extent to which the program can serve as a vehicle for poverty alleviation in the country. Based on the assessment on the economic outcomes of a community forestry scheme in the island of Java, this article concludes the scheme has yet to fulfill its high promises on providing forest users with genuine escape routes from their poverty-laden life. This paper further argues that instead of alleviating the poverty of the forest users, the community forestry scheme creates only subsistent economy.