Sumahadi

Sumahadi (8 November 19432 March 2019) was an Indonesian forester who served as the Minister of Forestry and Plantations in Suharto's last cabinet, the Seventh Development Cabinet. He was a career bureaucrat in the Department of Forestry, serving in a number of prominent positions in the department such as the Director General of Reforestation and Land Rehabilitation from 1993 to 1995 and Director General of Forest Inventarization and Land Use from 1995 to 1998.

Early life and education Born in Pekalongan on 8 November 1943, Sumahadi completed high school at his birthplace before pursuing higher education at the Faculty of Forestry, Gadjah Mada University (UGM). Notably, Sumahadi was the only student in his cohort to graduate without submitting a traditional thesis, as his “management practice report” was deemed equivalent by his advisor, Soedarwono. Sumahadi later continued his studies at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran, receiving his Master of Business Administration in 1992.

Career Sumahadi began his professional experience as a civil servant in the Central Kalimantan Forestry Office on 1 October 1972, serving as the chief of forestry guidance. Sumahadi had been named as a strong candidate for forest minister by the media since 1997. As minister, Sumahadi proposed using forest areas as a foundation for national food security, by focusing on integrating rice cultivation within forest lands through an intercropping system. His proposal, which was known as the food reserve forest concept, drew on his experience in Perhutani. However, this concept was never implemented due to his very brief tenure.

Sumahadi, along with several other ministers in the cabinet, signed the Bappenas declaration which pressured President Suharto to resign. Sumahadi lost his position in the department upon Suharto's resignation, and he became a senior instructor in the department's training agency.

Sumahadi died on 2 March 2019 at the Puri Cinere Hospital in Depok, West Java, after suffering sickness for one and a half years. He was buried at the Giritama Cemetery.

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