Bureaucratic Politics of Reforestation in Indonesia's Conservation Areas: Turf Protection, Competing Mandates, and Implementation Deadlocks

In response to extensive deforestation and land degradation, the Indonesian government has made reforestation one of its top policy priorities. Although several reforestation programs have been implemented, their outcomes have often been constrained by governance-related challenges. This study examines the political dynamics of reforestation in conservation areas by analyzing interactions between two key bureaucracies within the Ministry of Forestry: the Directorate General of Watershed Management and Forest Rehabilitation (DG-WMFR) and the Directorate General of Natural Resources and Ecosystem Conservation (DG-NREC). Drawing on the bureaucratic politics perspective, we show how competing mandates, organizational interests, and bureaucratic turf protection motives shape the implementation of reforestation policies. Using reforestation in Mount Merapi National Park (MMNP) as a focal case, we demonstrate how differences in legal mandates, implementation strategies, budget control, and organizational priorities led to prolonged bargaining and ultimately resulted in implementation deadlock. The findings reveal that the challenges of reforestation extend beyond weak coordination and technical constraints. They are also shaped by bureaucratic competition, in which organizational interests related to authority, budget control, and risk avoidance override broader environmental objectives. The study contributes to understanding how bureaucratic politics shapes reforestation governance and generates environmentally suboptimal outcomes despite a shared commitment to forest restoration.