General

Introduction Ketapang and Kayong Utara are adjacent districts, covering 3,500,000 hectares in the province of West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Over the past 20 years, the landscape in Ketapang and Kayong Utara (referred to as the K-KU landscape below), has experienced massive degradation, mostly due to the expansion of oil palm monoculture plantations on forested lands, including peatlands. Conversion and degradation of peatlands is particularly problematic, because of their high carbon content and susceptibility to fire. Peat fires present a significant source of CO2 emissions and haze. The area under independent smallholder oil palm plantations has also increased rapidly and this presents additional challenges in the landscape, due to uncontrolled growth and unsustainable practices. Overall, oil palm expansion has led to conversion, degradation and fragmentation of forests, with severe consequences for biodiversity, including the endangered Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii). Natural resource governance in both districts is poor, and existing policies, regulations and multi-stakeholder processes do not function effectively. The participation of local communities in land-use decision making processes is limited. Like in many areas in Indonesia, unclear land tenure contributes to poor landscape governance; many communities experience tenure insecurity, and conflicts over tenure are common. The K-KU landscape reflects what is happening in many other parts of Indonesia; poor governance allows for the establishment of large-scale oil palm plantations at the expense of forest and peat areas, followed by uncontrolled expansion of smallholders. Through our work in partnership with various landscape actors, we aim to contribute to a climate smart K-KU landscape, while also providing a model of climate-smart landscape development that can be applied in other areas of Indonesia. We envision a climate smart K-KU landscape, where deforestation is halted, degraded peatlands are restored and managed sustainably, and the remaining patches of forest are connected by ecological corridors. Smallholders maintain or adopt agroforestry practices, using indigenous species for wet or rewetted peatlands. Oil palm plantations, both large-scale and small-scale, are governed under zero-deforestation principles and are managed sustainably. Land-use planning and decision making are based on participatory, inclusive and bottom-up processes, and consistently promote climate-smart approaches. Facilities such as well functioning Village Business Units effectively support Smallholder farmers and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) for their climate-smart practices and practices that promote trees in the landscape.

Objectives

Building on promising local initiatives we will develop models for improved practices in the K-KU landscape, providing options for local stakeholders to achieve a climate-smart landscape. Simultaneously, we will develop joint efforts with actors and organizations at the sub-national and national level, to improve policies and regulations, mainstreaming and upscaling the models. In the programme, we will work on three main pathways to achieve climate-smart landscapes. 1. First, the way oil palm estates are integrated in the broader landscape must improve and their contribution to deforestation must stop. We will demonstrate that oil palm plantations can be combined with effective protection and connection of High Conservation Value (HCV) and High Carbon Stock (HCS) areas. 2. Second, further degradation of peatlands must be stopped and reversed, through the effective community-based protection and sustainable management of peatland areas. This requires income-earning models that link peatland conservation and restoration with sustainable development. Villages and communities need to be supported to protect carbon stocks under the Indonesian NDC, and to use the income as incentive to strengthen community-based peat-swamp forest protection and peatland-adapted agriculture, where local men and women farmers adopt wet-peatland species to restore degraded peatland areas. 3. Third, land use by local communities (small-scale oil palm plantations, agroforests, community forests) should not cause further degradation, and new livelihood options should be developed through sustainable management and restoration.

General

Indonesia accounts for the third largest forest area in the world (ca. 127 million ha) , with designated forest lands covering 60% of its land area, yet it also has one of the highest rates of deforestation globally (around 1.17 million ha per year). To date, economic growth has been sustained through a strategy which builds on the use of Indonesia’s abundant natural resources. Commodities comprise more than half of exports, and agriculture (15%) and mining (12%) are key contributors to the national Gross Domestic Product. Agriculture and forests are vital for livelihoods, and employ more than a third of the working population. Millions of people (33,000 villages) depend on the forest and forest commodities for their livelihood without any recognition of access and/or use of the natural resources. However, in 2015, the government launched an ambitious program targeted at allocating 12.7 million hectares of forests to be managed by communities through social forestry schemes, more than 2.5 million hectares each year. The GLA partners in Indonesia have selected three landscapes which represent the general problems and livelihoods strategies in the country very well: ‘Mudiak Baduo’ in the West Sumatra Province, ‘Gunung Tarak’ in the West Kalimantan Province and ‘Lariang’ in the Central Sulawesi Province. The three landscapes face the following shared issues: (1) a rapid expansion of agro-commodity oil palm and other land-based investments at the expense of forests; (2) tenure insecurity and long arduous bureaucratic procedures for obtaining Social Forestry (SF) permits; (3) uncertainty about what communities will do with their SF permits and how they will use forest environmental services to create better lives; and (4) lack of forest-based sustainable livelihood options surrounding conservation areas which has led to rampant illegal logging and encroachment.

Objectives

The outcomes envisaged by GLA in Indonesia contribute to the three overall conditions for sustainable and inclusive governance of forested landscapes as described in the international ToC for the GLA: (a) security of land tenure/access to land and resources use for local communities, addressed through interventions related to Village Forestry and community participation in the management of plantations; (b) communities and CSOs included in decision making on land use throughout, through collaboration or through access by justice; (c) implementation of nature based approaches to the management of forested landscapes in the implementation of sustainable management of village forests, and of the High Conservation Value (HCV) approach in the spatial planning of land investments. This is to be achieved by strengthening CSO capacities for lobbying and advocacy for (1) equitable and sustainable spatial planning; (2) the application of HCV as the key tool for sustainable production investments and regional development by private sector and government to; (3) sustainable management of oil palm concessions, and sustainable palm oil supply chains; (4) supporting village governments and community groups in equal participation in sustainable agro-industry; and (5) local communities to have a greater involvement in the sustainable management of forest areas.

Other

During 2017, TBI Indonesia will work with CSOs in the Gunung Tarak Landscape in West Kalimantan Province to contribute to improved landscape level conservation planning and implementation, and improve the natural resource governance of forest lands that have been allocated to villages and communities. Related activities will be carried with other GLA partners in Mudiak Baduo Landscape (West Sumatra) and Lariang Landscape (Central Sulawesi). The focus of landscape conservation planning (LCP) will be to develop a large scale vision of conservation and development priorities in Gunung Tarak Landscape based on the High Conservation Value (HCV) approach. The map will be used as a basis for CSOs to coordinate their strategies, and influence government and oil palm companies to establish, conserve and manage high value areas in a coherent way including designing Essential Ecosystem Areas (EEA), ecological corridors, inter-villages forest protection. We will enhance knowledge and capacities of CSOs, CBOs and government actors on the HCV concept and identification through training, facilitation and technical assistance. With regard to local level natural resource governance, we will work with CSO partners to facilitate bottom-up spatial planning in three villages located in the corridor area between two remaining forest blocks. We will collaborate with CBOs and oil-palm management units to facilitate the establishment of inter-village regulations to manage forests sustainably. We will also support villages to manage their newly established village-managed forests; at the same time, we support community and villages governments to apply for village forests rights. Most activities will be carried out as a coalition with CSOs and CBOs; we will support joint planning, coordination and learning in the coalition to pursue our goals. We will build our own capacities in implementing policy influencing strategies, communication skills, engagement with private sector actors, coalition building and gender issues.