The Origins of Forest Watch Indonesia

Early 1996, in the midst of conflicts over forest management, several non governmental organizations (NGO) agreed to initiate a joint program entitled Pro-Bela, coordinated by Yayasan Telapak Indonesia (www.telapak.org), to develop an independent network to monitor forest management in Indonesia. In the course of its development, the program faced difficulty in utilizing the outputs of the monitoring. A follow-up program was initiated to manage the data. FWI was founded to address the problem.

FWI has a strategic role to develop transparency in forestry information for the sake of democratization of forest resource allocation and management. FWI started to work in November 1997 through a workshop attended by some 20 NGOs, followed by regional level consultations in North Sumatera, East Kalimantan and Papua, in which agreements were reached to develop FWI. Next was a national workshop in Bogor in July 1998, in which FWI established its strategy, i.e. to develop an independent data-based network to monitor forest management in Indonesia. Another workshop in March 1999 appointed Mr. Abdon Nababan coordinator, and produced the organizational structure, and made “State of the Forest Report – Indonesia” (Potret Keadaan Hutan Indonesia) its first publication target. The first FWI national meeting in August 2000 produced an agreement that FWI should have its own legal status, separated from Yayasan Telapak Indonesia, and established an ad-hoc FWI’s national secretariat to facilitate independence. The workshop also appointed Mr. Togu Manurung director, replacing Mr. Abdon Nababan. The second national meeting was held in September 2004 in Bogor, producing several important decisions, such as establishing strategic goals for the 2004 - 2007 period and revising the FWI’s organizational structure. In accordance with national meeting’s mandate, the objective of all the programs are to maintain its member’s commitment to encouraging transparency in forestry data and information in Indonesia. To this end, FWI has already set up several supporting programs, such as: a) building the technical capacity of its constituents, b) organization building, and c) use of FWI’s outputs to improve forest management and policies.