MAKASSAR – Watershed Management Agency thought, The People Forest and Village Forest could be the solution to solve the tenure conflict – conflict relating the area management and advantage in the forestry area among the people in South Sulawesi.  This programme could make the people able to access to cultivate the forest and advantage the result or harvest they have done.

People Forest is the state forest which could be advantaged to empower the local people. The Village Forest could be defined as the state forest which the village could cultivate to welfare the local peole. The People Forest and the Village Forest which Watershed Management Agency has developed in Jenebereng, Walanae, South Sulawesi Province have proved to give advantages to the local people around the forest.

“They have better income from the non wood forest, besides the plantation they have planted before,” Head of Institutional, Watershed Management Agency, Jeneberang Walanae, I Nyoman Pujawan said several time ago.

REDD reported, the programme was firstly done by Agency Jenebereng Walanae – which is also the technical unit of General Directorate of River Management and Social Forestry in North Sulawesi -  in 2010.

“The People Forest and Village Forest are developed in the Production Forest and Protected Forest,” Nyoman explained.  (T3)