Customary authority and the politics of access to customary forest in Kasepuhan Cisungsang, Lebak, Indonesia

Constitutional Court Decision No. 35/PUU-X/2012 lifted customary forest (hutan adat) out of Indonesia’s state forest estate, yet recognition has not widened everyday access. Drawing on ethnography in Kasepuhan Cisungsang, a Sundanese customary community in Lebak, Banten, whose territory overlaps Gunung Halimun Salak National Park, this article asks who benefits from the forest and why. Fieldwork in September 2024 and May 2025 combined residence, observation and ten interviews. Adat (customary law and institutions) allocates access through layered zoning grounded in authority, ecological knowledge and ritual rather than title, while the state overlays classification, licensing and degradation narratives. Recognition procedures, we argue, are themselves an access mechanism: they translate, delay and select claims, and redistribute burdens by gender, generation and household labour.