The Access Initiative (TAI)
Ensuring that citizens have the right and ability to influence decisions about their natural resources.
The Access Initiative is the largest network in the world dedicated to ensuring that citizens have the right and ability to influence decisions about the natural resources that sustain their communities.
Access to information, access to public participation, and access to justice (the three “access rights”) are practical means of ensuring that decisions by governments consider sustainable development concerns and the interests of the poor.
An informed and empowered public monitors government and corporate performance, is alert to problems, challenges the conventional wisdom of government or corporate decision-makers, discusses the issues, organizes social and political change, and demands improvements. Where independent courts supply remedy and redress without political interference, the public can better hold decision makers accountable.
TAI PROJECTS
Bali Guidelines
UNEP and the World Resources Institute (WRI) are developing an Implementation Guide for the 2010 UNEP “Bali Guidelines for the Development of National Legislation on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters” (Bali Guidelines), scheduled for release The guide will be a practical tool that may be used by policymakers, legal professionals, decision makers and civil society to aid them in their work to enact reforms to strengthen access to information, public participation, and access to justice. It will account for the diverse range of systems of law throughout the world, with examples that will represent various legal, political and institutional contexts. These may include, for example, Right to Information laws, Environmental Impact Assessment legislation, or the creation of courts or tribunals to ensure access to environmental justice. By helping practitioners, advocates, and policy-makers identify gaps and prioritize actions, it increase the likelihood of timely and substantive legal reforms for procedural rights supporting Principle 10.
Forest Concessions, Public Participation and Gender
The Forest Concession, Public Participation, and Gender Project is rooted in the existing Riau Province forest fire work of WRI’s Indonesia Forest and Landscapes Project. This work highlighted the lack of transparent, up-to-date timber, logging, and palm oil concession data and the impact this had on determining the origin of the forest fires and the ability to monitor or hold companies accountable.
The lack of available comprehensive concession data, however, is just one small piece of a much larger, complex picture surrounding Indonesia’s land use. Issues involving weak spatial planning, problematic land tenure policies, ineffective forest management, poor governance, and weak law enforcement have not only added to the challenges of forest degradation and deforestation, they have exasperated land conflicts and accusations of corruption.
The granting of concessions is a key axis in this picture. Regulations for issuing licenses function as an important instrument for implementing land use policy and creating strong forest governance. However, the complex regulations categorizing the different types of forests and ownership as well as the rules specifying which level of government is authorized to approve the variety of timber, logging, palm oil, and mining concessions creates a system that lacks transparency and accountability. It also limits the ability of community members to effectively engage in concession allocation processes that directly impact their livelihoods and welfare.
Strong forest governance includes the process of how decisions are made. It must be rooted in the availability of accurate information, meaningful opportunities for public participation, and access to appropriate forms of conflict resolution. Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry states that approximately 30 million people depend directly on forests, and more than 16 million people live in the country’s 15 largest watersheds. A lack of open and inclusive decision making often contributes to the marginalization and impoverishment of forest-dependent communities and indigenous peoples.
Gender is another important component of this inclusive decision-making process that shapes access to and control over forest resources. However, very little data on women’s participation has been collected.
Intentionally engaging both men and women is vital for proper forest conservation. Men and women use and manage forest resources differently. They have different access to the decision-making opportunities and contribute different knowledge, skills, and experience. Policy solutions that ignore these unique roles can reinforce existing inequalities and risk the development of poor policy changes that do not result in positive social, developmental or environmental benefits.
While research exists on gender and broader issues of forest governance (such as the REDD+ process), there is a dearth of research related to men and women’s participation in the concession allocation process. The Forest Concession, Public Participation, and Gender Project offers an opportunity to begin an initial investigation into two important elements of transparent and accountable forest governance: (1) the availability and access to concession data and (2) opportunities for formal and informal public participation with special emphasis on gender and the inclusion of women.