Abstract:
Forests are strategic natural resources with essential ecological function and high economical value. Good forests management therefore is a must so that the benefit of having forests will not deteriorate and disappear. The paradigm of community based forest management (cbfm) is now becomes preferable since it gives bigger roles to community involvement and participation. But questions about the concept implementation is still abound. Not all forest owners know how to do it properly, ecologically and economically. Therefore, there was an attempt to socialize the concept by coordinating forest owners and acting collectively through cooperative movement. The cooperative is now very popular and gaining a lot of members. To understand what has happened, we designed a study that was aimed firstly, to analyze how private forests in Kulon Progo was managed under Wana Lestari Menoreh Cooperative, and second, to study any constraints to the management. To achieve those aims, focus group discussion is carried out, so is depth interviews with cooperative officers and forester members. Local officials and other important persons who has close relationship with the cooparetaive were also interviewed. The result showed that the cooperative has already been functioning although with a lot of constraints, which some may develop into problem if not handled properly. The constraints range from technical difficulties to managerial and organizational challenges, memberships misunderstandings and no less important, bureaucratic blunders and uncertainties.
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