Herman Hidayat has been a Senior Researcher at Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), The Research Center for Society and Culture (PMB) since 1985. He obtained his professorship in December 2014. He completed his doctoral degree (Ph.D) in Laboratory of Forest Policy at the Department of Forest Science, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Japan in 2004. He publishes extensively in scientific and forest policy, land conflict, political ecology, and national parks in Indonesia, Southeast Asia, Japan and France. Over the last 20 years, he has published over 45 articles, 80 popular writings and 2 books on forestry issues, with most of his articles being published in international journals. He has also been actively involved as a Visiting Fellow in research institutes in Japan and France such as Kyushu University, Research Center for Comparative Education and Culture, Fukuoka (April 1991-March 1992), IDE-JETRO, Chiba (September 2006-February 2007), Kyoto University-CSEAS (November 2008-December 2010), Fondation Maison des Sciences de I’homme (FMSH-Paris, from October-November 2011), and a Visiting Professor at Kagoshima University, Research Center for the Pacific Islands (KURCPI) (November 2012-March 2013). Currently, he serves as a reviewer with the Journal of Forest Science, Kangwon National University, Chunchon, South Korea and Social Economic of Forestry Journal, Research Center for Social Economic Forestry, Ministry of Forestry.