The social forestry program was established in 2007 with the following objectives: (1) to achieve equal quality of life for rural communities, particularly in forested areas; (2) to prevent and reduce deforestation and forest exploitation. To support this, in 2014 the government directed the Ministry of Environment and Forestry to increase the target area for social forestry, which by 2016 had increased to 12.7 million hectares (Cifor 2019).
This study aims to measure the impact of the social forestry program on the level of community welfare in villages with forest areas as well as the level of deforestation in the area. Using secondary socio-economic and spatial data with a Two-stage Least Square model, a dependent variable is formed in the first equation, namely a dummy village with social forestry followed by several independent variables indicated to be related to the dependent variable, namely the distance of the village to the nearest capital, the distance of the village to the nearest highway, the level of village slope, the level of village elevation, and the dummy sub-district where the 30% village has social forestry. In the second equation, dependent variables are used that explain the level of welfare and deforestation such as households using electricity, the number of elementary schools, and households using LPG. Related to deforestation, the level of deforestation is used sourced from Hansen data. The results of the first equation estimation show that the distance of the village to the nearest capital and the level of village elevation decrease the chances of a village to obtain social forestry, while the level of village slope and sub-district where the 30% village has social forestry significantly increase the chances of a village to obtain social forestry.
Using the estimation results, the second equation shows that villages with social forestry are able to increase: (1) the average number of electricity-using households in the village; (2) the number of elementary schools; (3) the average number of LPG-using households. However, contradictory results are seen, namely that social forestry has not been able to reduce the level of deforestation, seen from the positive and significant results on the level of deforestation in the village. These results indicate that there must be better management of areas that receive social forestry so that increasing the welfare of rural communities, especially forest areas, can be accompanied by a decrease in the level of deforestation.
