ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the policy and politics of biodiversity conservation. It discusses how they affect the process of decentralization, community resource use and participation, and the continued existence of protected areas (PAs). The chapter explains Indonesia's achievements in biodiversity conservation and some of the most pressing issues challenging its capacity to deliver on international expectations, arising from the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It examines the obstacles created by the government's policy to reconciliation between local communities and the government itself. At the policy level, the Indonesian government has shown leadership over many years in the way it has embraced international initiatives. Indonesia, like many other countries, is struggling in the transition from the practice of conserving biodiversity within the boundaries of PAs to reducing the impact of human activities in the broader landscape through better environmental planning. Much of the literature dealing with decentralization issues has focused on governance in a political-economic framework.
