Arguing that effective planning and implementation of forestry programmes requires a balance between governmental and local objectives, this paper gave a detailed description of the structure and functioning of the hierarchy of institutional structures responsible for the social forestry programme in Java, Indonesia. The three major problems faced by the programme, which focused on reforestation and agroforestry, were inadequate numbers of field staff, misperceptions among middle management and failure to involve the poorest farmers. Nonetheless, the attempt to find a compromise between bottom-up and top-down approaches, and between local autonomy and continued forest protection, showed promise.