Comparison of social capital of different community forest managements and their impact on community participation in the Social Forestry (SF) Program in Indonesia

Abstract Social Forestry (SF) Program is a sustainable forest management implemented in different management types by community forest organizations (CFOs) in Indonesia, namely collective and individual management types. This study aimed (1) to compare the social capital of different management types of the SF program; and, (2) to evaluate the relationship between social capital and community participation. The study was carried out in four CFOs in four villages in North Sumatra Province from 2019 to 2020.The data were collected from 73 respondents from the collective type and 113 respondents from the individual type. T-test was used to evaluate the social capital of the different management types, while the relationship between social capital and participation was evaluated by multiple regression analysis. This study found that the CFOs that implement a collective management possess a better social capital compared to an individual management. The collective management has more intensive meetings that can increase social interactions. The collective management also possess the wider networks and the more varied community activities that improve the social capital of the CFOs. The community features such as the more homogenous communities and the smaller size of the collective type communities may cause the stronger social capital of SF groups. Furthermore, social capital significantly influences community participation in the SF program. For the collective type, social interaction, trust, reciprocity, and leadership are the determinant factors that can improve community participation. In contrast, for the collective type, they are only social interaction, trust, and reciprocity.