Abstract:
State forest in Indonesia is facing of tenurial issue that growing to be a complex situation to resolve. This paper highlights the opportunities and challenges of establishing social forestry in Suban Jeriji forest research, South Sumatra. Data are collected by survey using questionnaire, interview with key informants, and focus group discussion from April 2016 – October 2017. This research shows that almost all of the area in Suban Jeriji forest research has become rubber area occupied by local and outsider people for the last 10 years. The function of the forest change from seed production area into research forest occured in 2014 under the management of of Palembang Environment and Forestry Research Institute. Some of the people realize the status of the land is forest and they will open the commnication to find win-win solution to manage the forest land. Rubber is an established commodity for the people in the forest that potentially combine with other tree species and agriculture species in form of agroforestry. To design and impelement social forestry model in Suban Jeriji forest research,these are some challenges to deal with: (a) strengthening the concept in forest research management and budgetting related with social forestry; (b) capacity building of the research institution; (c) building network and institution with local community and other stakeholders; (d) analysis the options of social forestry model based on agroforestry commodities and market analysis. This forest potentially can be a field laboratory to build a role model of adaptive social forestry in South Sumatra.
