Injustice against Women in a Social Forestry Program: Case Studies from Two Indonesian Villages

Social forestry programs, aimed to reduce poverty in forest communities while maintaining the forest function, are increasingly incorporating gender issues and responsiveness. By design, social forestry program is supposed to promote justice and equality for forest users, but on the ground discriminatory practices against women are occurring. Drawing case study from two Indonesian villages, this study examined the extent of discrimination against women in the implementation of the state social forestry programs. In-depth interviews, observations, and focused group discussions were conducted to collect the data from the villages to analyze the extent of discriminatory practices by using a social justice framework with a three-dimensional approach, namely recognition, representation, and participation, as well as distribution. This study found that women were not recognized as the primary users of forest land (not considered as farmers), low representation and participation of women in the Social Forestry Groups, and unequal distribution of benefits between women and men in obtaining assistance and participation in training for capacity building. Furthermore, gender based discrimination and inequality in social forestry are influenced by local social constructions in the form of patriarchal culture and religious belief. Finally, discrimination against women can take place even in state programs designed to bring justice in the context of joint forestry management, and the formal programs with a degree of gender responsive elements can be succumbed to biased local informal institutions and beliefs.


INTRODUCTION
Multiple countries have implemented gender-responsive programs and paid great attention to the gender discrimination issues in forest management (Elias at al., 2021).Global programs such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) explicitly mentions equality for rights in accessing economic resources, and ownership and control over land and other resources (in SDG 5 related to gender equality).UN Women 2014 also builds international instruments on sustainable development that reflect the critical relationship between gender equality and sustainable development.Meanwhile, studies also highlight that community forest management programs have become national programs in various countries that regulate the roles and responsibilities of communities as forest users (Buchy & Rai, 2012).
Community-based forest management in Indonesia is considered a suitable scheme to accommodate community interests, especially those around the forest, and believed to be able to reduce tenure conflicts over land in forest areas (Firdaus, 2018).Still, the government does not recognize ownership because forested areas are most likely claimed as state forest (Firdaus, 2018).Moreover, studies also emphasize that forests can be maintained if managed and maintained by land users, usually carried out by communities around the forest, and that forest management by local communities have proved to support the reduction of environmental degradation and alleviate poverty (Buchy & Rai, 2012).
However, various studies reveal that gender inequality are found in land and forest management, which includes situations where groups of women who are forest land users are not recognized, denied access to control, and receive benefits unequally with men in community forestry programs (Ostwald & Baral, 2000;Fonjong et al., 2012;Colfer & Minarchek, 2013a;Patil, 2016;Elias et al., 2020).Furthermore, Agarwal (2000) also sees how institutions may be able to manage natural resources in a participatory, fair, and efficient manner but fail to be gender-responsive.Research related to discrimination against women in community-based forest management programs also shows how inequality occurs unintentionally as a result of social construction in society, shaped by the local culture, religion, and politics.Women in Nepal, for example, are discriminated against due to caste differences, an ingrained patriarchal culture in the state government, af male-dominated political stage, and religious doctrine that views women as only being involved in domestic activities (Buchy & Rai, 2012).
Numerous studies have explored gender based discriminations in community based forest management.These studies, however, are partial: highlights forest management policy texts in India (Tyagi & Das, 2018), emphasize the benefit distribution between men and women in forest management (Asfaw et al., 2013), or focus on how the caste system plays an important role in women's access to forest (Ostwald & Baral, 2000).Meanwhile, the social justice framework has been used to comprehensively examine gender issues in forest management, however few have focused on social forestry programs.Elias et al. (2021), for instance, examines the relation between gender equality in the context of community based forest conservation.In Indonesia, studies on gender issues in social forestry have only examined the women's role and perspective in forest management (Siscawati, 2020).Our study applies the social justice framework to specifically delve into the implementation of the state social forestry programs in two villages, in order to understand the extent of discrimination against women in this context.

CONTEXT
Indonesia's protected forest area is the second largest in the world, accounting for 7% of the world's protected forest area.However, Indonesia's forested area is ranked eighth with a contribution of 2% of the world's forest area (FAO, 2020).Indonesia's forest area in 2022 is more than 125 million ha, divided into 30.9%conservation forest, 34.7% protection forest, and 34.3% production forest (MoEF, 2022).Meanwhile, the community-managed forest areas which are legally recognized by the state are 4.8 million ha, which is only 3.82% of the total forest area in Indonesia.This legal access consists of decree of management rights as many as 7,296 units for 1.49 million households (MoEF, 2022).
Community forest access started after the new order with the enactment of the Forestry Ministerial Decree No. 667/1999 on community forestry (HKm).This was issued mainly to reduce tenure conflicts on forest areas that have been determined arbitrarily by the government.Furthermore, Perhutani (Government owned forestry company) in 2001 implemented the "Community-Based Forest Management" in Perhutani areas in Java Island (Sahide et al., 2020).This initiative was carried out to reduce a series of conflicts between Perhutani and forest village communities that occurs as a form of the latter's resistance to non-participatory forest management.Then, the government expanded the community forest management scheme with the "People's Plantation Forest (HTR)" program through Government Regulation No. 6 of 2007 and the "Village Forest (HD)" program through the Forestry Ministerial Regulation No. 49 in/2008.Until 2015, community forest management became a national priority program with a target of 12.7 million ha of forest area being managed by the community by 2019.Under the umbrella term of 'social forestry', the scheme was expanded and regulated jointly through the Environment and Forestry Ministerial (MoEF) Regulation No. P.83/2016, in which the state regulated five social forestry schemes, namely HKm, HTR, HD, Customary Forests (Hutan Adat), and Forestry Partnerships (Kemitraan Kehutanan).Furthermore, the latest policies related to social forestry management are regulated through the MoEF Regulation Number 9/2021.Recently the total area grants for social forestry schemes totalling around 4.9 million hectares: 1.94 million ha HD, 879.37 thousand ha HKm, 355.18 thousand ha HTR, 1.17 million ha of customary forest, and 592.55 thousand ha for forestry partnership (MoEF, 2021).

Social forestry
Since its introduction in the 1970s, the concept and practice of "social forestry" has continued to change and tend to be influenced by global issues that were developing at that time.The initial phase of social forestry was driven by the issue of scarcity of forest resources and deforestation that occurred throughout the world, especially in tropical forests (Thompson, 1999;Hyde et al., 2000;Moeliono et al., 2017).Deforestation is seen as a result of the failure of conventional forestry development that relies on forestry industrialization (Thompson, 1999;Gilmour, 2016), and on the other hand, local communities, especially population growth, are no longer considered as the main factor causing deforestation and can even be a solution to these problems (Dove, 1995;Moeliono et al., 2017).In this phase, social forestry is aimed at improving forest areas that have been deforested through the involvement of local communities.Social forestry then developed from the issue of forest resource scarcity and deforestation, to become a socio-economic issue as well as an institutional issue for local communities (Dove, 1995;Fisher et al., 2019;Ragandhi et al., 2021;Batiran et al., 2021;Herrawan et al., 2022).The implementation of social forestry in this phase is aimed at increasing access to forest resources which has implications for improving the welfare of local communities.
In general, social forestry refers to "all aspects, initiatives, sciences, policies, institutions and processes that are intended to increase the role of local people in governing and managing forest resources" (Sikor et al., 2013:1).Social forestry as a program of community-based forestry initiatives has been formally adopted by many countries.The implementation of social forestry has different forms and objectives in each country, adjusted based on the local social, political, historical, cultural and bureaucratic context (Gilmour, 2016).As a case example, Wong et al. (2020) provides an overview of how social forestry occurs in Southeast Asia according to regional contexts such as the agrarian reform agenda in Indonesia, sustainable forest management in Malaysia, and payments for environmental services and REDD+ in Vietnam.But basically, social forestry today has similarities that are built by the general discourse that entrepreneurship and fair market access are the solution to economic empowerment and local community prosperity (Wong et al., 2020).
In Indonesia, social forestry has also undergone many changes since it was first adopted by the government.Fisher et al., (2019) stated that Indonesia's social forestry has reached its third generation which is marked by political changes from the 1970s to the present.First, social forestry emerged when forest management was still tightly controlled by the state under the New Order government in the form of small and limited project initiatives on the island of Java.This happened in the 1970s to 1980s.The second generation of social forestry is marked by the spirit of changing the form of centralized government to a more autonomous government for the regions (decentralization) which has opened up more participatory development opportunities.This condition gave birth to Law No. 41/1999 on forestry which has incorporated elements of community empowerment and participation into the legal umbrella for the application of social forestry.This is the beginning for social forestry to be widely accepted and implemented more systematically.This generation occurred from the 1990s to 2012.Third, this generation gained momentum when Joko Widodo was elected as President.The government of President Joko Widodo has set a target for social forestry allocation of up to 12.7 million hectares by 2019, which is much more than the previous social forestry target of around 2 million hectares.This third generation of social forestry has provided clarity on regulations, schemes and processes for obtaining formal management rights.

Women participation and role in social forestry
The change in perspective to a more holistic perspective has prompted the inclusion of various aspects (ecological, economic and social) in forest management.This has implications for forest utilization practices that no longer focus on collecting timber forest products, but instead switch to non-timber forest products (NTFPs).For a long time, managing forests with a focus on timber products has been recognized as a man's job (Colfer & Minarchek, 2013a;De Royer et al., 2018).With this perspective, women's roles and interests in forest management have been neglected.In fact, women living in and around the forest have long been the main actors in the collection of various types of NTFPs, either for consumption purposes or to increase household income (Sarin, 1995;Benjamin, 2010;Acharya & Gentle, 2006).However, this role is only carried out in a smaller scope, namely the household.
Currently, village women are faced with a wider and more complex scope if they want to be involved in managing the forest.In the context of social forestry programs, management rights over state-controlled forests are granted to groups or communities, not to individuals or households (Boyer-Rechlin, 2010;Moeliono et al., 2017;Fisher et al., 2018;Erbaugh, 2019;Jalil et al., 2021).Women get recognition of forest management rights if they have become members of the group.However, in some cases, social forestry group membership conditions only allow one person per household and are usually represented by men as is the case in Nepal, India and Ethiopia (Agarwal, 2000;Lama & Buchy, 2002;Acharya & Gentle, 2006;Giri & Darnhofer, 2010;Kahsay et al., 2021).This condition has reduced women's opportunity to participate in social forestry groups.The benchmark for household representation in social forestry groups is still considered exclusive and unfair, especially from a gender perspective (Agarwal, 2000).
The participation of women as members of social forestry groups is very different from what they did before (collecting, processing and selling NTFPs).Women must be involved in the institutional work that they have mandated to male family members.Gupte (2004) describes four types (or "levels") of women's participation in social forestry groups including nominal, instrumental, representative and transformative.First, "nominal" participation is only characterized by women's formal membership in groups.When a female member is present at each group meeting, it becomes an "instrumental" participation.Furthermore, participation will increase to "representative" if female members actively speak in every meeting.Finally, female members who have been able to initiate and formulate group resolutions will become "transformative" participation.
Field studies have found that women still play a limited role as members of social forestry groups.They are excluded from the main group activities such as group formation, planning, site selection, protection and benefit sharing (Sarker & Das, 2002).In addition, women's involvement in group decision-making structures/bodies is only a formality (Giri & Darnhofer, 2010).This exclusion is caused by several factors such as the rules the group has; cultural construction related to gender roles; responsibilities and expected behavior; barriers to group meeting time, and biased attitudes towards women (Mwangi et al., 2011).Finally, female members will lack information and confidence to speak up, low participation in meetings and exclusion from leadership positions (Mukasa & Tibazalika, 2018).Therefore, women's knowledge and interests that are not taken into account in decision making have many implications for effective management (Benjamin, 2010).
Whereas other studies also mention multiple benefits that can be obtained through the involvement of women in social forestry groups (Indriatmoko et al., 2007;Pratama, 2021).Various studies have reported the benefits of involving women in social forestry programs.In the aspect of forest protection, (Agarwal, 2009) revealed that involving women in group activities will increase community commitment to forest conservation, accelerate information dissemination and increase supervision.

Discrimination aganst women in social forestry
Gender inequality in community-based forest management has been in the spotlight with numerous studies examining how discrimination against women occurs in these contexts (Colfer & Minarchek, 2013b).Elias et al. (2020) looks at the barriers for women in two Indian states to actively participate in collective forest management, how their access is limited by caste, and the exclusion of women from certain ethnicities.Andersson & Lidestav (2016) examine the relationship between understanding masculinity excluding women.Clair (2016) highlighted the higher workload for women in Nepal than men in meeting the need for firewood obtained from the forest.Likewise, Vázquez-García & Ortega-Ortega (2016) study in the Central Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, shows how male-dominated institutions defy women rights in forest governance.In addition, other studies highlight how gender equality is designed and implemented in forest management policies.Tyagi & Das (2018), assessing gender-responsive policies to increase women's participation in Indian forest management, found that the term "gender" was never mentioned explicitly in forest management policies.In a research conducted in Nepal, Buchy & Rai (2012) found that participation of poor and low-caste women was limited even in all-female forest user groups formed as gender-responsive government programs.
Nevertheless, these studies generally focus on how women's participation in forest management is limited, few have explored how discrimination against women occurs in social forestry programs by applying the social justice framework, which presents a more comprehensive dimensions of discrimination, namely recognition, representation and participation, and distribution (Elias et al. 2020).The application of this framework allows us to explore more comprehensively the discrimination that occurs along the implementation the social forestry program.Thus, this study asks to what extent social forestry implementation promotes social justice for female forest users.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
This study applies the social justice framework (Elias et al. 2020) to look into the extent of women's discrimination in forest management.The framework originated from Nancy Fraser (1996) that introduces three dimensions of social justice: recognition, redistribution, and participation.Redistribution entails looking at justice through how resources are distributed equally.Recognition highlights cultural dominations, lack of acknowledgement and respect to other social groups, which stimulate the rise of social movements such as women and indigenuous movements (Patittingi, 2020).Finally, participation in the social justice framework explores the degree of equality in opportunities for individuals and groups to participate in social life.
Although forest management usually uses an environmental justice framework (Dhiaulhaq and McCarthy, 2020;Sahide et al., 2020;Setyowati, 2021), this research focuses on gender inequalities that are influenced by social context.The threedimensional approach applied here reflects Frazer's framework on social justice, and explores each dimension to highlight women's experiences in social forestry programs.Specifically, the recognition here refers to an acknowledgement of the existence, experience, and knowledge of women in land management.Representation and participation entail the extent of space that women have so that they can access the forest.Finally, distribution emphasizes the degree of benefits and roles taken by women in joint forest management.
In the recognition dimension, studies have found unequal recognition between women and women.Elias et al. (2020) described that the absence of recognition given to low-caste and poor women limits their participation in decision-making on environmental management so that they cannot change how costs and benefits are distributed.Recognition, according to Elias et al. (2021), examines how gender problems occur based on group identity that is given from birth, such as discrimination because there is no recognition of women that are in the lowest caste in the social hierarchy.However, in this study, researchers will focus on the extent of recognition of the role of women in land management and the extent to which women's groups are marginalized due to the absence of recognition.
Representation and participation dimension is related to women's opportunities to be involved in social forestry groups and the extent to which women can participate in decision-making related to forest management.Data from the MoEF (2021) shows that in Sulawesi only 5% of women become members of more than 140 social forestry groups.The national number illustrates similar inequality, with only around 4% of women participating as members of social forestry groups (46.149 women out of a total of 1.037.920members).Vainio & Paloniemi (2013) contend that forestry is often viewed as masculine oriented activity which tends to limit the women's participation, and therefore impact the formal recruitment by government forestry programs.
The distribution dimension will focus on how the distribution of roles and benefits among women and men prevail in the research locations, both in domestic and forest and land management activities.As such, we will look at their division of labor as well as distribution of benefits from the social forestry programs.By exploring this aspect, we hope to examine whether the double burden experienced by women reduces their opportunities to be involved in formal activities in social forestry groups (Fakih, 2020).
At the research sites, social forestry went through a long administrative process.It began from the program dissemination by forestry extension workers or field facilitators, which is usually carried out at the village office.The forest farmer groups and their membership were then established after these meetings, often under the imposing opinions of the village government (chief of village and hamlet) and forestry extension workers who are normally men.The members who are smallholders also play a role only as far as determining the location of the proposed social forestry.The group structure is chosen based on local social construction: the chairpersons are usually men as they are chosen for prominence in speaking and the ability to organize members, while the treasurers are generally to women who are traditionally managing the domestic finance.Finally, the group administrator completes the proposal document to be submitted to the forestry instructor.Throughout this processes discrimination against women occur in various degrees.This study will look at each stage of the process by applying the three-dimensional framework of social justice (recognition, representation and participation, and distribution).Each of these dimensions examine socially constructed gender inequality in environmental management, and are looked at together because they are mutually reinforcing to limit or open opportunities for women in forest governance.

METHODS
This research was conducted in Pundilemo Village, Cenrana Sub-District, in the Regency of Enrekang; and Paku Village, Masanda Sub-District, Tana Toraja Regency.Both are located in the province of South Sulawesi, Indonesia.Pundilemo village is a highland area, approximately 250 meters above sea level.This village has a 52 ha community forest area with a management permit issued by the Ministry to the Sipatuo Social Forestry Group.This village has an area of 12.10 km2 with a population of 1,172 people with 830 women and 342 men, and most of them are farmers.Meanwhile, Paku Village is located in the north of Enrekang Regency.Paku Village, with an area of 1,200 ha, with a population of 1,174 people consisting of 581 women and 593 men.Similar to Pundilemo Village, most of the population work as farmers.Paku Village is located at an altitude of 1,600 dpl, with a forest area of more than 900 ha, and around 360 ha of which is a conservation area.And the proposed forest area for community forest management is 292.93 ha.The following is a map of the research location.change, a program with affirmative gender mainstreaming policy.The research was conducted in July-December 2021.Informants were intentionally selected from women who joined social forestry groups to conduct in-depth interviews.Interviews were also conducted with male group members to see their perspective regarding women's participation in the social forestry groups.For social forestry groups without women members, initial observations are made by tracking the process of social forestry groups formation in order to gain their perspective on why women are not participating.
In-depth interviews were conducted following the informant's approval, notes were taken and voices recorded during the interviews.The researchers stay for a full month in the field to observe the daily activities of both women and men in land use and management.Data also gathered from the NGO's field facilitators who have been working for a year in the villages.Focus group discussions (FGDs) were also conducted in each village to obtain information related to the local culture associated with the division of roles and labor between men and women, as well as to verify and deepen the information obtained from the interviews conducted.The researcher also observed the division of roles and labor between men and women, both in forest land management and household affairs.
Furthermore, to guide researchers in analyzing gender issues in the context of social forestry schemes implementation, a social justice framework is used using three dimensions consisting of recognition, representation, and participation, as well as distribution built by (Fraser 1995;2009;Elias et al., 2021).Within this frame we look at the processes around the group formation and their follow-up activities, the forms of discriminations the women experienced, as well as the causes and consequences of these processes.By framing the findings in this fashion we hope to shed light on the extent of discrimination against women to access forest areas through social forestry schemes.

Restrictions on women's participation in social forestry groups
Group formation in Indonesia social forestry programs to gain land access in forest areas focuses on male smallholders.The conventional interpretation of the term "farmers" as men-only discriminates women who also work as farmers.Behind this view is the assumption that women's job is to help their husbands, which also includes managing natural resources.The view of farmers as men-only can be seen in state recognition through their identity cards.Women, who also practice farming, are only recognized by the state as housewives, as in the occupation column in their identity card they are listed as "housewives" (Ibu Rumah Tangga -IRT).Women are not seen as the main actors in land management since farming as an occupation is considered as a job for the breadwinners that are expected to earn the main household income.And so women are not considered as "farmers".Beside not being the breadwinner, the local tradition also considers women as physically weak.These social constructions have important implications in the formal involvement of women as members of social forestry groups.Forestry extension workers who work at the site are trapped in the construction to inadvertently ignore gender gaps in social forestry groups.The actual recruitment of group members by the forestry staff only looks for those with "farmers" written on the occupation column in their identity cards, as mandated by national policies (MoEF Regulation No.9/2021), instead of those who are actually working to manage forest and land.In addition, the regulation only allows one member from a family, and so the men as breadwinner, 'the head of the family', and 'farmer' become the legitimate candidates to represent the family in the groups.
As a result, the social forestry groups formed in this program are dominated by men.The Sipatuo social forestry group in Pundilemo Village has 27 group members, and all are men.In this case, women were not involved during whole processes of the formation of the local social forestry groups, which started from information dissemination on the social forestry schemes and procedures, the group formation activities, preparation of the management structure, to the finalization of the social forestry proposal documents.The dissemination process and the formation of social forestry groups in Pundilemo Village was carried out by extension workers from the Forest Management Unit, prior to the KAPABEL program interventions.The dissemination activity in this village was carried out on the same day as the formation of the Sipatuo Social Forestry Group.The forestry staff asked the sub-village head to gather people who manage land in the forest.On the same day, the residents gathered at the village head's house, all of whom were men.The women presented at the venue only worked in the kitchen to prepare food.Forestry extension workers then carried out the dissemination, and a Forest Farmers Group was then formed with members who were sitting at the meeting, all were men.The forestry extension directed that those who are designated as members of the Farmers Group should not be women because the rules for group formation require that their Identity Card have to have the status of "farmers."Due to the custom in society and state regulation that farming is a men's job, this process closes the space for women to join the groups.Indeed, the head of the sub-village who collected and informed residents about this activity stated that: "Usually, the formation of groups does not require women to be involved as members.If there are men, they (women) are not included." This statement from the man was confirmed by a statement by a middle-aged woman, whose husband is a member of Social Forestry Groups: "At that time, my husband asked me to come with him to the Head of Sub-Village's house, to help the Head of Sub-Village's wife, to prepare food because forestry extension workers will come and carry out an [public] activity." Women's role recognized by the local society is limited to domestic activities such as taking care of children, preparing food, feeding livestock, and cleaning the house.By implication, women's role in formal public activities are closely related to the domestic tasks, namely preparing consumption at events, and in this case at the meeting to establish the social forestry groups.While getting busy in the kitchen, they were not involved in meetings, neither in dissemination or group formation.In fact, women had no access to information on social forestry activities.
A woman who is the head of a family and works as a farm laborer and is not involved in social forestry in her village revealed: "I have never heard any information on the establishment of the forest farmer group in this village, even though I wanted to become a member so I could get government assistance and be able to manage forest land legally.Moreover, I am a single household head who does not own land and only works as a farm laborer." As non-members women have no access to participate in managing forests as main accessors and controllers, they also have limited access to government assistance, neither to become beneficiaries for NGO programs nor obtain assistance from foreign donors in the form of equipment and capacity building targeting social forestry groups.This can be seen in the formation of the Social Forestry Business Group (KUPS), whose membership must come from the Social Forestry Group according to the rules (MoEF Regulation No. 9/2021).The KUPS members receive capital, production, and training inputs that exclude women because all members are men.It was for this reason that the KAPABEL's program in the research villages required women's involvement in establishing the business units they facilitated.This effort however must first obtain the approval of male members of the social forestry group.The negotiations between the KAPABEL program and the social forestry group decided that the women involved in the KUPS can only come from among the wives of the members of the social forestry group.This result excludes the women whose husbands are not members of the social forestry group or female heads of household, who usually live in poverty.
Comparable to the case of Community Forest Management in Nepal, which privileges women with a high economic and caste status (Buchy & Rai, 2012), in our case injustice occurred to women who have no access (through marriage ties) to male members of the social forestry group.Moreover, their non-participation in the group resulted in their exclusion from decision-making in land management processes.They are excluded from making decisions at social forestry group meetings regarding land management.Although a government policy (MoEF Regulation No. 31/2017) has emphasized gender mainstreaming in forestry programs implementation.The policy witnessed no implementation in practice.
The high participation of men relative to women indicates a gender pattern in forest land management and a high tendency to exploit trees.Colfer & Minarchek (2013a), in their research on gender roles in forest management, explain that men are the holders of the "axe right," namely the perpetrators of felling trees because of men's tendencies to generate as much profit as possible.In contrast, women tend to use forests more for kitchen (domestic) needs, such as firewood from wood waste, fruits, medicinal plants, and animal feed.Furthermore, Asfaw et al. (2013) show that household income by relying on forest products is greater for women than men, providing another rationale that granting equal rights to men and women in accessing forests will strengthen the economy at household and forest sustainability.

Subordination of women in social forestry groups: women as substitutes for men
In Paku Village, 19% of women join the Mesa Penawa Forest Farmers Group.The women's involvement in this farmer group occurs since their husbands failed to meet the administrative requirements, or because men in the household migrate out of the village.Women are the second choice for membership of forest farmer groups although they actually play an important role in managing land and forest.They go to the fields every morning after doing household chores such as cleaning the house and cooking.
In the field, women plant and harvest fruit, vegetables for animal feed, and collect firewood from waste wood branches.They make use of the forest as needed, gathering for their daily kitchen needs.Unfortunately, the women did not join the group on their own initiative but are included as male "substitutes."One member of the women's group said: "I was told that my husband was a member of the group by the head of the Forest Farmer Group.However, my husband's ID card was problematic, so my ID card was collected.At that point, I had no other choice but to accept the decision.Moreover, this decision is a decision that my husband has taken." In the recruitment and group formation processes, women are essentially represented by men.The male administrators or their husbands only told them that their names had been included in the membership of the forest farmers group.Thus, the decision surrounding their membership in the group comes from other people, usually men.
Another female member of the social forestry group stated: "I didn't participate when the group was formed, my husband did.However, my name was inducted by my husband.He said, when he goes abroad, he could no longer be actively involved as a member of the group, so it would be better if I were included as a member from the beginning." Meanwhile, a similar group formation process in Paku Village carried out by KAPABEL at least opened up opportunities for women to participate in social forestry groups.However, the women's involvement in the groups can only be materialized through the intervention of the KAPABEL program facilitators, which have affirmative policy for women participation.This is different from what took place in Pundilemo Village, where all members of the social forestry group are men, whose formation was carried out by forestry extension workers, long before the KAPABEL program came to the village.Although the number of female group members is smaller than the male group in the Mesa Penawa Farmers' Group formed by KAPABEL, at least there have been female representatives in this group.

Women roles
In this section, we look at the distribution of roles between women and men in land management, the household, and in culture and belief systems.The distribution of roles and responsibilities is closely related to the free time that both men and women have, which affects the involvement of women in public activities, such as farmer group meetings, training for capacity building, and routine group activities.This analysis also helps to understand the role of the local social constructions, such as how culture and belief systems limit women's movement in public spaces, which has implications for discriminatory practices against women.

Women roles in household
The women in Paku Village are very busy.As an illustration, the following is a typical daily activity for a member of a women's group.She starts her activities in the morning by taking care of household chores such as washing dishes and preparing breakfast.After that, she fed their pigs.This activity is carried out from getting up at around 5.30 to 7.50 AM.She then went to the field by walking for around 30 minutes, covering a distance of approximately one kilometer.She would normally spend 7 hours in the field and arrived home at around 3.00 PM.After bathing and changing clothes, she returned to prepare and feed her pigs, before continuing to prepare dinner for her children, eat together, wash dishes, and chat with the children until around 7.30 PM. (Field Notes, 11 July 2021) This illustration shows how the woman was involved in domestic chores, managing land, and taking care of livestock for as much as 14 hours a day.When compared with a typical man's activities, who is also a member of the group, he spends only 8 hours working in a day.He played no part in the household chores nor to prepare fodder for the livestock.He only focuses on tending the fields, in which his wife also joins to help him.There is a 6-hour difference in time spent working between men and women.
This day to day inequality seems to go unnoticed by the local community.These are common activities and considered normal.Women carry out three roles at once, production in the field, reproduction at home, and social roles in community.According to what they do daily, there is a bias between women's roles that are "recognized" by the local society.They did much of the work, but formally unrecognized in the public sphere.In addition, household affairs are not considered as a job because they are seen as generating complementary or indirect financial earnings.Therefore, the burden of domestic tasks is attached to women as non breadwinners and becomes a stereotype: women are the caregivers.Women's domestic work tends to be valued lower than (direct) income earning jobs.The view of men as being "the head of the family" and working as main income earners are culturally constructed, and become a rationale to escape responsibilities in domestic tasks.While women's role ensures the resilience of a household: managing household finances to ensure household economic stability, they are considered too mundane and even unseen by the government programs.

Women roles in land management
Differences in socially constructed roles are also reflected in the realm of land management (Buchy & Rai, 2012).In the paddy fields, the men are responsible for the plowing and land preparation, while the women do the seeding and planting.Men carry out the fertilization processes, but harvesting and post-harvest tasks such as drying the grain and bringing it to the mills is normally done by women.Where coffee is the main commodity, which group members cultivate in the forest area, men and women also share the burden: they work together in most of the stages of the coffee production.They work together in land clearing, making holes and planting, weeding and pruning, but women carry out the harvest (picking coffee cherries).After harvesting, the men help the women to carry them home.
This division of labor in land management shows that in general the workload is lopsided between men and women.While women mostly do the tasks they normally do, such as drying rice and harvesting activities, women often assist in works usually done by men, such as land preparation and weeding.And women often do these tasks since it is closely related to their domestic chores: the grass they cut is used for animal fodder.

Women and men roles in culture and belief systems
Gender biased norms also facilitate the construction of various barriers to women's participation in and access to public spaces.The people of Pundilemo Village believe that some cultural activities are not allowed to be carried out by menstruating women, such as cooking glutinous rice for offerings in the "mattoanang marassi", a traditional ritual that offer gratitude to God by praying and eating together.In addition, pregnant women are prohibited from crossing the bridge over the Saddang River.These norms also affect the role and participation of women in forest management.They are usually not allowed to plant the first seed during the menstruation period.Their participation is also limited when they have young children to take care of at home, as men are not required to take up the role and only 'help' on their own will.These roles are instilled by the society from an early age: girls are given a stereotyped role as caregivers and boys are seen as physically gifted for income earning roles.
The worldview influenced by changing religious teachings also affects women's participation in land management.A woman in the agroforestry group in Pundilemo Village used to actively participate in outreach, training, and other public village activities involving both men and women.However, since the change in her religious belief, she began to limit herself to mingling with men.This belief further limits the space for women to participate in social forestry group membership, which men dominate.Because of this belief, they tend to avoid participating in male-dominated meetings.They, therefore, have no space to express opinions, obtain information, and be involved in decision making.They also tend to keep away from training, which allows men's capacity building opportunities to be greater than women.
Furthermore, during the traditional wedding proposal ritual in the village, namely conveying the man family's intentions to the woman to marry off their relatives, only female members of the family will attend.They consider that marriage is the initial process of building a household, and women are viewed to have the best understanding of the domestic affairs.This tradition reinforces the view that women have full responsibilities related to household matters.A good portion of their time is spent taking care of domestic tasks, while also involved in land management which is formally unrecognized.

Recognition: women exclusion in formal forest management
While men are recognized as farmers, women are marginalized and denied access to the government benefits due to their unrecognized farming activities.And, as government policy emphasizes that only farmers have access to social forestry group memberships, women are formally unable to get involved in government sponsored farmer groups.Or, in limited cases where women are participating, women involved in the social forestry group were substitutes for their husbands who could not join the group.Following the functionalism perspective, women are viewed to have the main role in reproductive matters such as giving birth, raising children and maintaining the household, and the women's activities outside of this role is considered secondary (Fakih, 2020).
The patriarchal culture that has been dominating for a long time, both in government and communities, makes this norm considered unproblematic (Siscawati, 2020).The prevailing stereotypes tend to position men as breadwinners, skilled workers, competent, and physically stronger.In contrast, women are seen as secondary earners, have no skills for such tasks, and are physically weak (Fakih, 2020), a view that helps the women's role in forest management to go unrecognized.This understanding is further exacerbated by some of the local religious and cultural traditions.As a consequence, in formal terms, only men are seen as land managers and therefore suitable for having the legal control of the land; men get more land rights than women.In many countries, men's legal control over land derived from inheritance systems is greater than women's, despite the women's actual involvement in land management alongside men (Ostwald & Baral, 2000).
The problem of recognition has more severe impacts on families where women are the head of the family, especially those who work as farm laborers.Women who are not legally represented by men in farmer groups are excluded from access to the state forest management.This is no longer in line with the state's own vision of communitybased land management that targets vulnerable groups and the goal of equitable redistribution of land ownership.Siscawati (2020) concluded that the state social forestry programs, initiated to resolve tenure conflicts between the government and the community while preserving the forest, would find difficulties to achieve their targets without the legal involvement of women.This can be seen, for example, in the cooperation between women and men in a successful mangrove rehabilitation in the Teluk Lombok Sub-Village (Dewi, 2007).The cooperation carried out by men and women in improving the environment reduces the ecological damage in their villages through mangrove planting.

Representation and participation: women in social forestry groups
Men almost entirely dominated the social forestry groups established in Indonesia, and many of them are men only, like in the case of the social forestry group in Pundilemo Village.Women's participation in this group is limited by excluding them from the group membership, although this is not done on purpose, but as a result of local norms that defy women involvement in activities related to formal land ownership and management.Women, who are not participating in groups, are also unrepresented in the land management regulatory process.Although women play an important role in actual forest management, and possess local knowledge and skills in sustainable management, they have little space to formally apply their knowledge and skills in the state forest management programs.They are excluded despite multiple studies maintaining that women are mastering the art in land management, which have positive impacts on environmental sustainability (Colfer & Minarchek, 2013a;Vainio & Paloniemi, 2013).
Moreover, the MoEF's guidelines for the Implementation of Gender Mainstreaming have stated 30% as the minimum quota for women participation in social forestry group membership-beside increasing women's role, quality, and position in forestry development (MoEF Regulation No. 31/2017).This already unequal quota has yet to be met.In addition, women's power in influencing decision-making is immensely weak as they are placed at the lowest position in the group management structure.Women are not occupying influential positions such as group leaders or heads of divisions, and are placed in positions related to administration (secretary and/or treasurer).In addition, the limited participation of women is exacerbated by the unequal obstacles faced by women relative to men in their ability to be actively participating (Agarwal, 2000).Women have limited free time compared to men, tend to be passive in formal meetings because of limited knowledge, and are more likely to follow decisions that are detrimental to them due to the men's domination.Hence, the rules in social forestry groups tend to favor men.The low participation of women also impacts the space to express opinions that are largely closed for them.Neldisavrino (2007) shows how the women group in Jambi, Indonesia, have difficulty in expressing opinions or simply providing information related to land management based on their experiences.

Distribution: from the absence of recognition to unequal distribution of benefits
The absence of state recognition for women, which discourages their participation in social forestry groups, limits their ability to benefit from the program.This government program has prevented women from accessing various benefits that range from capital and production inputs, to capacity building training targeting members of the social forestry group.Similar cases have been found elsewhere.Buchy & Rai (2012), for instance, discovered how women forest land managers in Nepal are unable to access assistance to purchase seeds since they were formally unable to be the members of joint forest groups.Tyagi & Das (2018) found in India that decision-making affects the women's ability to benefit from capacity-building training.The training activities were dominated by male participants so much so that the women became increasingly lagging in necessary capacities for forest management.Consequently, women generally participate passively in public meetings due to the lack of capacity and selfconfidence.Women can only participate more actively when the training programs were designed with special attention to gender responsiveness and affirmative action (Clair, 2016).In this research, we saw how the production inputs targeting members of the social forestry group and training on forest food cultivation conducted through the KAPABEL program positively impacted the majority of men, and only a small portion were beneficial to women.
The distribution of benefits, which are unequal and do not match the women's actual contributions in forest use and management, is also influenced by the local cultural and religious norms.Religious doctrine reinforces the unequal distribution of benefits for women due to restrictions on access and physical movement in spaces.Women have a narrower range of motion than men in public spaces because of religious doctrine.The cultural prohibition for women to get involved in a variety of activities, also found in other parts of the globe (Elias et al., 2020), are limiting women's Anugrah et al. (2022) participation in land management.

CONCLUSION
Social forestry programs that are designed to promote justice and equality in forest management have not been implemented properly.Discriminations against women occur at different levels during the implementation of the social forestry program.Women are not seen as the main users of forest land, and therefore are not formally acknowledged as "farmers".This lack of recognition limits the women's participation in the state sponsored forest farmer groups, a program that constitutes one of the most important parts of the Indonesian social forestry schemes.Moreover, low representation and participation of women in social forestry groups result in unfair distribution of benefits between women and men in obtaining government assistance, as well as low participation in various training and involvement in social forestry business groups.
Gender based discrimination and inequality in the social forestry are influenced by longstanding social constructions that are relfected in both formal regulation and mechanisms, as well as the local community's patriarchal culture.New religious teaching also helps to limit the women's participation in forest management.The view that women are complementary in earning the household income and the traditional distribution of labor, places a triple burden on women and limits their participation in the social forestry activities.Meanwhile, the beliefs that women have physical shortcomings and are religiously directed to be at home, limit their movement in public spaces in general.
Applying the three dimensions of social justice, we found that discrimination against women may take place even in state programs designed to bring justice in the context of forestry management.The objective of gender justice in such programs might be eschewed by different and often contradictory regulation.Moreover, the formal programs with a degree of gender responsive elements can succumb to gendered local informal institutions and religious beliefs.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Research Sites The location selection was based on the presence of the social forestry groups, indicating the implementation of the social forestry program in these villages.Moreover, to establish a degree of comparison, one of the groups was established by the local Forest Management Unit, a state forestry agency operating at regency level; and the other one formed later by the KAPABEL a program run by a cooperation of local NGO, university, and international donor focus on community adaptation to climate