From 1 January 2001, the Indonesian government implemented a policy of regional autonomy and decentralisation. The provincial and district governments have been handed responsibility to raise revenues locally to fund regional activities and development. However, the central government has retained some revenue raising powers, and the full details of the process of devolution have yet to be fully spelt out. This study was commissioned at the end of 1999 to look especially at policymaking and administrative practises relating to forests in sample districts of Riau province, Sumatra, as these evolved in the year prior to 1 January 2001. The research...

Under Law No 22 of 1999, the decentralisation process was projected to take place in three phases which would take two years to implement:

7 May 1999 to 31 March 2000: Preparing for autonomy;

1 April 2000 to 31 December 2000: organising institutions and setting district regulations (Perda); and

From 1 January 2001: the implementation of regional autonomy, with arrangements being evaluated and monitored until the deadline of 7 May 2001, when everything was supposed to be working smoothly (Dephutbun 1999).

According to the implementing regulations for Law No 22/1999, the 11 fields or sectors to come under district responsibility...

Before subdivision in 1999, Kampar covered 30,569 square kilometres (km²), making it one of the largest districts in Indonesia, as large as the province of Bengkulu. Now only one-third remains as the kabupaten induk, with nearly 400,000 people (Map 4). It was believed that the new district might languish after the excision of its two arms, Pelalawan and Rokan Hulu, especially after the disappearance of the ‘locomotive of development’, the rapidly expanding centre of Pangkalan Kerinci, headquarters of RAPP and now part of Pelalawan. The Bupati complained that not only had the major industrial sites gone to Pelalawan, but the...

In this report, we have sought to understand the dynamics of the decentralisation process in Riau, as it occurred through 2000 and into 2001. The changes have been considerable over this period, and a variety of people, from senior government officials through representatives of private firms, members of NGOs and ordinary villagers, have endeavoured to come to terms with the meaning of the process. Its ‘socialisation’ has not been easy, largely because of the uncertainties prevailing in the central government and the preoccupation of that government with issues as fundamental as the very survival of the Indonesian state. There is...