Trees, tolerance and livelihoods: negotiated access to state forest land and heritage tourism under Perhutani’s mahogany on Mount Penanggungan, East Java, Indonesia

Collaborative forest management on Java’s state forest land is usually judged by its formal instruments, while the everyday arrangements through which villagers gain, hold and transfer access to plots and trees remain poorly documented. This qualitative case study examines how Perhutani’s Collaborative Forest Management programme (PHBM) works in Kedungudi, an upland village bordered by mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla King) plantations on Mount Penanggungan, East Java. Drawing on 18 interviews with farmers, labourers, Perhutani staff and village institutional actors, observation and documents, we find that access rests on negotiated tolerance: staff refrain from enforcing rules on plot transfers and inputs, and farmers’ daily presence helps to protect the stands. Plots are inherited and sold as ‘cleaning compensation’, although canopy closure limits how long any plot can be cropped. Intercropping, fruit trees and livestock secure subsistence, but cash gains are modest for staple crops and volatile for chilli, and plots are recorded in men’s names although women do much of the work. A heritage hiking route to Kahuripan- and Majapahit-period sanctuaries diversifies benefits but concentrates them in village institutions and has become contested. Partial illegibility sustains this cooperation yet leaves farmers’ claims insecure as Java’s forest estate is reorganised.