Extending northwards from East Kalimantan’s Sangkulirang peninsula, Kabupaten Berau is situated approximately 200 km south of the province’s border with the east Malaysian state of Sabah. The district is located between three surrounding kabupaten, or districts: Bulungan to the north; Malinau to the west; and East Kutai to the south. Berau has an extensive eastern coastline, and the district has long played a significant role in trade passing through the Straits of Makassar, which separate Borneo from Sulawesi. The total land area that falls within Berau’s jurisdiction is just over 24,000 km². In addition, Berau also claims administrative authority over...

Indonesia’s decentralisation process gained momentum in May 1999 with the passage of Law 22/1999 on Regional Governance and Law 25/1999 on Fiscal Balancing. These laws provided the legal basis for regional autonomy, laying out a broad framework for the decentralisation of administrative and regulatory authority primarily to the district level. Law 22, for instance, defined districts as ‘autonomous regions’ and gave them the authority ‘to govern and administer the interests of the local people according to its own initiatives based on the peoples’ aspirations in accordance with the prevailing laws and regulations.’

In Berau, as in many other parts of...

This study has traced the preliminary effects of decentralisation on forests and forest industries in Berau during the initial phase of Indonesia’s regional autonomy process. It has shown that following the introduction of Laws 22 and 25 of 1999, the district government moved aggressively to establish greater administrative control over the forest resources within the district’s jurisdiction. As in many neighbouring kabupaten, Berau officials issued district regulations that allowed the government to allocate small-scale logging and forest conversion permits to local community groups. Through 1999–2000, it allocated large numbers of IPPK permits to local entrepreneurs working with village cooperatives...