ARuPA's Profile

ARuPA ( Volunteers Alliance for Saving the Nature ) was inaugurated in May 16 th 1998 in Yogyakarta, as an action committee for students and junior environmentalists to encourage the reformation movement of natural resources management in Indonesia . Established with a spirit to revise inappropriate national forestry and nature resources management paradigms and policies, the civil society organization pushes government and the other parties to reform its uniform-centralized tenurial system into more local specific and participatory policies .

AR u PA's vision is the sustainable, fair, and democratic natural resources management. The mission is to save and sustain natural resources management based on communities' sovereignty. ARuPA also promoting conflict resolution mechanism between villagers and state owned Forest Company, while strengthening the negotiating abilities of local people, empowering local community organization, and developing community-based forest policies.

The board of institution and executive board are appointed in an extraordinary meeting, which is the highest forum in ARuPA. The meeting is held once in two years.

Based on ARuPA's statute, there are three organs in the institute, which are:

a. Institution board

This organ is responsible to the accomplishment of the mandates from Extraordinary Meeting and to supervise the implementation of the programs. There are three personnels in this organ:

•  Sulistyaningsih , S. Sos . (ARuPA)

•  Purnomo Aji , S.Hut. (ARuPA)

•  M.Chehafudin , S. Si (ARuPA)

b . Executive board

It is an organ to accomplish the mandate of Extraordinary Meeting in ARuPA to implement executive function. The daily managers in ARuPA of the period 2009-2011 consists of the following 3 (three) personnel:

Up to the present ARuPA has three site programs, which are: Wonosobo and Blora District in Central Java Province and Gunungkidul District in Yogyakarta Province

In Wonosobo district, ARuPA develops a schema of managing forest on community based by involving various parties as local government, local assembly, local NGOs, academicians and farmers groups. The process goes continuously that an initiative of the District Regulation Number 22 of 2002 on Community Based Forest Management was issued. In line with the issuance of the district regulation, the conflict between Wonosobo district (local government, community, and NGOs) and Perum Perhutani arose. Since then, ARuPA and partners have been developing schemes for conflict resolution which support forest farmers. The Local Institutions Empowerment for Accelerating Implementation of Community Based Forest Management program which was funded by Siemenpuu in 2005-2006 resulted in some positive changes. The new concept in sustainable forest managemenet and the support of the legitimate institution (FHW) will accelerate the implementation of democratic and sustainable forest management in Wonosobo district and surroundings.

In Blora, ARuPA develops the schema of conflict resolution between the community and Perhutani to manage the state forest in the sub-district Randublatung. Some mediation process have resulted in the managing system of the state forest that can be accepted by both parties. The management regime pattern with the division of the land 50% for the community and 50% for Perum Perhutani enables the people to make use of the state forest to improve their well being and the preservation of the forest. The follow up of this project is the establishment of community school as media for learning and knowledge exchange among farmers.

In Gunungkidul ARuPA facilitates the development of community forest, in which the fundamental problems of the forest management is the management system and the market. ARuPA tries to develop the management system of the community forest. Starting 2003 ARuPA has been facilitating the establishment of management unit of community forest and forest farmer's institution. In the middle of 2006, this management unit got eco-label certificate in the sustainable community based forest management (PHBML) scheme from Lembaga Ekolabel Indonesia/Indonesia Ecolabel Institute (LEI). This certificate becomes recognition for the capability of community in managing community forest sustainably.

In the implementation of its working program, ARuPA is involved and actively plays a role in some working network at national level, which are:

•  Forest Watch Indonesia (FWI)

Forest Watch Indonesia represents a forest monitoring network commited to materialize the sustainable forest management for the purpose of developing data and forestry information transparency in Indonesia . Since its foundation, FWI Jawa node in 2001, ARuPA acts as host and its personnel acts as coordinator of the node.

•  Konsorsium pendukung Sistem Hutan Kerakyatan (KpSHK)/ Consortium for supporting community based forest management

KpSHK represents a working network to strengthen the position of community in managing the forest resources. ARuPA becomes an active member of KpSHK since 2001 and actively plays a role in the promoting the community based forest management in both people forest and in state owned forest.

•  Java Learning Center (JAVLEC)

It makes use of the solid ex Java working group network, and JAVLEC is founded. JAVLEC is formal name of ex Java working group network. It consists of the organizations commited to the save guarding Java forest. The idea continuation of the community is the supporting schema for the empowerment of people organisation through the scheme of learning network (JSC = Java Study Centre ), the information network (INFO JAVA= Information on Forestry in Java ), and the middle grand scheme (CEF=Community Empowerment Facilities).

•  Asia Forest Network (AFN)

ARuPA represents an active network partner of AFN (Asia Forest Network) in Indonesia . ARuPA and AFN have collaborated in the development and the implementation, documentation and publication of the CBFM initiative in Wonosobo district. ARuPA has been actively involved in the AFN regional meetings. These meetings are considered as the AFN partners forum as a media to exchange information and experiences on community forest management practices.

Funding

The source of funding for the organisation results from the funding institutions both in home country and abroad with the mission and vision that are not against the Arupa. Some institutions that have ever given their fund are: Ford Foundation, Department for International Development (DFID) United Kingdom , WWF Indonesia, Asia Forest Network (AFN), International Centre For Research In Agroforestry (ICRAF), Indonesia Ecolabel Institute (LEI) etc. Funding has been raised on the basis of equity and partnership between ARuPA and the funding agency

The funds managed by ARuPa at past 3 years from International organisation were: