Direction for Developing Community Forest Through Land Suitability in Central Lombok Regency

Abstract

Disturbance to forest resources due to human factors has resulted in damage and decreased productivity, supplying less raw materials for the timber industry. The need for wood raw material in Central Lombok regency was 43,445 m3/year while there had been no timber production from natural forests, so that one of the alternatives to meet the needs of the timber is community forest. Based on the above issues, this study aimed to formulate the concept of community forest development in Central Lombok by: (1) Identifying the type of plants that have the potential and the feasibility level of business in community forest in Central Lombok, (2) Learning the land suitability for the development of community forest in Central Lombok, (3) Finding out the availability of land for forest development, and (4) Developing community forest development in Central Lombok regency. The type of community forest plants that have the potential to be developed in Central Lombok based on people’s preference are sengon, mahogany, and teak. The financial analysis using NPV, BCR and IRR indicated that the three types of plants were feasible to be developed in Central Lombok. The land which is suitable and available for teak 73.738 ha, for mahogany 79.640 ha , and for sengon is 32.915 ha. Based on the suitability of land available for the development of community forest, the land potential for the development of teak is 8.826 ha with the largest development area including the sub-districts of Pujut and West Praya. 4.364 ha is for the development of mahogany in the subdistricts of Batukliang and Kopang, and 2.552 ha is for sengon development area in the sub-districts of Batukliang and Kopang. The recommended location of community forest development of sengon and mahogany is in upland areas with adequate rainfall, while the development of community teak forest is directed to the lowlands with low rainfall. The recommended location of development priority is related to the appropriate and available land size based on RTRW and several criteria such as area size, community forest potential, population size, land availibility, and the wood need per capita using MCDM – TOPSIS. The eight sub-districts which become the development priority are Pujut, West Praya, Batukliang, Southwest Praya, North Batukliang, Kopang, East Praya and Pringgarata. According to AHP analysis, the development pattern desired by the parties was the subsidy pattern because the farmers of community forest still expected the government assistance or other parties concerned with the development of community forest. To support the sustainable development of community forest in Central Lombok, it is necessary to have a development pattern of community forest that can make the farmers independent, for example, through a partnership pattern based on mutual benefit cooperation which could be developed with a cooperative pattern. Some inputs for the direction of community forest development in Central Lombok are as follows: creating a database of community forest through the inventory of community forest as a whole, forming dynamic and independent farmer groups, integrating the existence of community forest in the development plan and regional development, encouraging the growth of management units of community forest based on cooperative principles, drafting regional regulations that support the existence of community forest.