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Abstract
This study presents an approach to analyzing decentralized forestry and natural
resource management and land property rights issues, and catalyzing collective
action among villages and district governments. It focuses on understanding the
current policies governing local people’s access to property rights and decision
making processes, and learning how collective action among community groups and
interaction among stakeholders can enhance local people’s rights over lands,
resources, and policy processes for development. The authors applied participatory
action research in two villages, one each in the Bungo and Tanjabbar districts of
Jambi province (Sumatra), Indonesia, to facilitate identification of priorities through
phases of planning, action, monitoring, and reflecting. This study finds that action
research may be an effective strategy for fostering collective action and maintaining
the learning process that leads groups to be more organized and cohesive, and
district government officials to be more receptive to stakeholders. A higher level of
collective action and support may be needed to avoid elite capture more effectively.