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program while in Central Lombok, Dompu and West Sumba farmers groups were able to gain funding assistance and seedlings from the Department of Forestry.
CSOs have been able to influence local government policies to be more supportive of community based economic development. While in general economic groups focused more on practical issues
access to funding, capacity building, marketing, some successfully advocated for 57 village level regulations and four at the district level
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. This includes Regent Instruction No 62011 in Central
Lombok on Procurement of Civil Servant Uniforms
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; MOU with the Department of Industry and Trade, Cooperatives and SMEs in Central Lombok to support product promotion and capacity
building for women’s small enterprise groups; and Regent’s Decree in Bantaeng on Guidelines for Technical Management of BUMDes capital.
Governments proved keen to respond where activities linked with and contributed to existing policies such as the provincial policy in NTB for development
of 100,000 new entrepreneurs, and in providing capital funding for groups established under ASPPUK by the Central Lombok government.
2.2.4. Community‐led Natural Resource Management
The objective of CSO projects in this thematic area was to strengthen capacities for protection of natural resources while providing income for citizens and environmental sanitation. This was the
fourth largest area of investment, covering 81 villages and 9 districts, benefitting around 205,722 people 99,562 m: 106,160 f.
CSO activities in this thematic area included:
• Disseminating knowledge and information on local values in environmental issues including developing village regulations on the environment in Bantaeng;
• Organising groups for reforesting degraded land and replanting forests in Bantaeng, Takalar and Dompu;
• Assisting farmers groups’ to acquire seedlings from the government in Central Lombok • Increasing farmers’ knowledge on cropping patterns for protected forest buffer zones and
forest production shared seedling nurseries, joint planting in West Sumba; • Establishing women’s economic groups to provide alternative income sources to forest
products; • Stopping forest encroachment through organising for a permit request for Community
Plantation Forest HTR as well as productive HTR management in Central Lombok; and • Organising market traders to manage waste in Takalar.
There was a strong economic development aspect as well as rights focus in this thematic area and overall benefits included access to rights for control over natural resources, increased production
skills, improved incomes and assets for individual and groups and particular benefits for women in terms of economic empowerment. In terms of forest protection, one of the two study cases in
Central Lombok showed positive outcomes while the other found forest destruction was still contininuing for reasons discussed below. In the case of waste management in Takalar, the outcome
was also less effective. Community success in conservation is more likely when citizens have control over decision making
and the behaviour of ‘offenders’. As noted above, issues related to land and natural resources fall within the remit of the national government making advocacy work more challenging. This requires
local CSOs and community organisations to be involved in national coalitions on these issues. In the
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ACCESS Six Monthly Report Sept 2012.
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The Decree specified that all public servants would wear local cloth on Fridays and so support the women’s weaving groups that were working with ACCESS.
ACCESS Phase II Impact Evaluation Page 20
case in Central Lombok, the community was able to mobilise and bring about an end of illegal logging by establishing HTR management and making an agreement to preserve the forests. Meanwhile in
West Sumba, although farmers groups were established and strengthened to successfully increase short term agricultural production, but their agreement to preserve forests was not consistently put
into practice and similarly in Dompu, the expansion of cashew plantations was not able to stop illegal logging. This variation in results stems from the extent of citizen control as forest encroachment is
often beyond the capacity of villages to address alone. The success in Central Lombok was due to a clear concept of forest protection that identified the key actors involved in forest encroachment
who are also citizens from the same village and including them in the reforestation program.
Reduced illegal logging and deforestation requires more than Increasing alternative income streams. As noted earlier, some CSO activities in this thematic area were coupled with local
economic development. For example, in Tema Tana and Kareka Nduku villages West Sumba, introduction and practice of planting short‐term crops such as corn and tubers aimed at protecting
the forest. CSOs also provided training on home industries ikat weaving and crackerschips for women’s groups whose husbands were members of the farmers and fishermen’s associations. In
Dompu, CSOs encouraged cadres and citizens to carry out reforestation by expanding their cashew plantations which were being grown in people’s own gardens and provided training on
management of cashew yields. Citizens successfully developed alternative crops which increased their incomes in all of the villages. Nonetheless, forest destruction continued because it was being
caused by people outside of the village who were not bound by the agreement made among the villagers.
Governments can undermine citizens efforts to manage their environments. In Takalar, the local government agency Dispenda Local Revenue Service refused to delegate the daily fee collection for
cleaning of the market to the market head which had been set up by a cadre trained through ACCESS’ partner. This was despite a central government policy to return management of markets to traders
and as a result, citizens were undermined in organising for waste management at the local market and disempowered in having control over their environment.
2.2.5. Social Justice
