The establishment of Forest Management Units (Kesatuan Pengelolaan Hutan/ KPH) represents one of Indonesia's most significant forest governance reforms, covering the 120 million hectares of designated Forest Areas. Sharing features with the Landscape Approach, KPHs are expected to reduce deforestation and forest degradation through improved forest planning, oversight, open access avoidance, and fire prevention and response. This paper assesses the impact of KPHs on the reduction of forest loss, including forest loss due to fire, and the factors that influence this impact (e.g. KPH's primary objective, deforestation risk). We use remotely sensed data to estimate difference-in-differences models accounting for differences in baseline characteristics and multiple time periods. Our case study, Sulawesi Island, is primarily shaped by smallholder farmer land use, where KPHs can exert significant influence. We do not find evidence of an overall effect of KPHs on deforestation. However, we observe intriguing heterogeneous effects depending on the year, including significantly less deforestation in already-established KPHs during the El Niño years of 2015–16, and a notable impact on the reduction of forest loss due to fire in some early-established KPHs. These findings warrant further investigation.

中文翻译：

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印度尼西亚森林管理单位对减少苏拉威西岛森林损失和森林火灾的影响


森林管理单位 （Kesatuan Pengelolaan Hutan/ KPH） 的建立是印度尼西亚最重要的森林治理改革之一，涵盖 1.2 亿公顷的指定林区。KPH 与景观方法共享功能，有望通过改进森林规划、监督、避免开放通道以及火灾预防和响应来减少森林砍伐和森林退化。本文评估了 KPH 对减少森林损失（包括火灾造成的森林损失）的影响，以及影响这种影响的因素（例如 KPH 的主要目标，森林砍伐风险）。我们使用遥感数据来估计差异中的差异模型，该模型考虑了基线特征和多个时间段的差异。我们的案例研究苏拉威西岛主要受到小农土地利用的影响，KPH 可以在其中发挥重大影响。我们没有发现 KPH 对森林砍伐有总体影响的证据。然而，我们观察到不同年份的有趣异质性影响，包括在 2015-16 年厄尔尼诺年份，已经建立的 KPH 的森林砍伐明显减少，以及对减少一些早期建立的 KPH 因火灾造成的森林损失产生显着影响。这些发现值得进一步调查。