Friday, May 16, 2014

The week in Indonesia

While I was in Indonesia, Tim and I were able to interview one national-level stakeholder, who was from the Directorate General of Conservation Areas in the Ministry of Forestry, and also cover one GEF-supported PA. The week before, we had met with different groups to finalize the PAs to be visited. But it was only during the interview that the people who would be coming with us during the field visit from the Ministries of Forestry and Environment were finally identified so we could book the plane tickets. This was in the afternoon of Monday, and we were targeting to leave early Tuesday morning. To top it off, although Tim and I had decided over the weekend to do a PA that used a private-public partnership model,  the GEF unit staff said during the meeting that it would be better if we went to the sites where the stakeholders were already informed about the evaluation (in fact they were a bit upset that we were thinking of doing the other one that wasn't in the original project list that they received from us). So at that very last minute, we had to change our itinerary as well. I will not go into the sordid details of trying to book a flight for 5 people that was leaving in less than 24 hours, but suffice it to say, I finally got tickets at 930 am when we were supposed to be at the airport by 10 am. What makes the PA visits complicated in Indonesia is that because it is the world's largest archipelago,  you have to fly everywhere, and this particular PA entailed two flights plus a two-hour drive, which by Indonesian PA standards is not too far.

For domestic flights, we had to contact BCD Travel instead of AmEx. Thankfully they had a 24-hour service which was very functional (much more than I can say for AmEx). Instead of getting an interpreter at very short notice, we decided instead to have one of the staff in the GEF coordination unit to translate for us during the trip. This turned out to be a good idea as he had enough background to interpret things in context, and we didn't have to bother with getting a contract done, etc. Below is a summary of my impressions of what we found out during my week in Indonesia:

1) At the national level, GEF seems to be irrelevant as far as terrestrial PAs go. First of all, there is no GEF project at the national level supporting the PA system. The government is very keen to fund their own way as much as they can, but still depend on donors, especially WWF, to do wildlife monitoring and research. International NGOs and other countries have been very influential in shaping how the PA system is managed.

2) At the GEF-supported PA, while nobody knew what GEF was, and this was an MSP so the funding was really very small, the community leaders did say that people became more aware about the importance of preserving the forest because their water supply improved as a consequence of rehabilitating the areas surrounding the PA. Now nobody even uses firewood for cooking. They have started planting nutmeg which both discourages illegal logging and provides income to the communities. A common theme, though, seems to be that the NGOs that have been executing GEF projects do things that are counter to the government's way of doing things. So while the over-all outcome in terms of biodiversity and socioeconomic improvement has been good, the NGOs have ended up being kicked out of the area due to these unresolved differences.

Tim went on another 6-hour drive to visit the comparable non-GEF PA, Buton Utara, while I went back on the two-hour drive and then two flights (6-hour trip) to get back to Jakarta and catch my plane to Uganda.

Below are some of the photos I took to document the evaluation.

Power outage during meeting at Ministry of Forestry while we were deciding where to go
Interview with one of the kecamatan (very local level of government) that was part of the community  forum supported  by GEF
Welcome sign to the protected area of Lambusango in Buton Island, South Sulawesi
Community leaders in another kecamatan, owners of the house we stayed at. Communities have been benefiting from scientific tourism activities that were part of the GEF project run by Operation Wallacea. 
Pearl culture was one of the forms of livelihood introduced  to relieve pressure from timber harvesting.

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