A Progressive Legal Approach to the Community Forest Management: The Middle Ground of Tenurial Conflict

Abstract

Tenurial conflict in the management of the production forest areas in Indonesia is a multidimensional problem involving legal, social, and environmental aspects. This problem often arises due to the inequality of local communities' access to forest land and the weak empowerment system in forest resource management. This research aims to analyze the Community Forest Management model as a form of corporate social responsibility by Perum Perhutani, and examine the relevance of the progressive legal approach in resolving the tenurial conflict. The method used is doctrinal legal research with statutory, conceptual, case study, and comparative law approaches. The data was analyzed using the prescriptive-analytical method to produce normative recommendations on the issues studied. The results showed that Community Forest Management provides space for active participation of forest village communities through a partnership system based on social capital and profit-sharing mechanisms. This model not only contributes to improving community welfare, but is also able to reduce the potential for tenurial conflicts between the community and relevant stakeholders. The progressive law approach is used to emphasize that the law must be adaptive to social realities and favor substantive justice, especially in the context of inclusive and sustainable natural resource management. This research contributes to strengthening forestry governance based on collaboration and social justice through optimizing community empowerment in the production forest management system.