I will investigate how and why good intentions of forest co-management initiatives in Indonesia lead to unintended consequences. I will examine the institutional culture of and relationships between organizations involved in co-management, and map how these initiatives provide an arena to strengthen, negotiate and contest claims to forest resources at the local level. The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and its co-management initiative in East Kalimantan will be the focal points through which these issues are examined. In doing so, I hope to understand the process of knowledge production about forests and forest dependent communities in Indonesia, as well as the consequences of that knowledge for forest dependent communities. The proposed study will contribute to theoretical debates concerned with power and knowledge, the culture and political economy of knowledge producing institutions, and the effects of that knowledge at global, national and local levels.