Working Landscape Project: Promoting sustainable use of forests and trees for people and climate
Starting in 2019, Tropenbos Indonesia involves in a project called “Working Landscape, Promoting sustainable use of forests and trees for people and climate”. This project promotes climate smart landscapes in the tropics and contributes to climate change mitigation, adaptation, improved livelihoods and environmental integrity, which are crucial to support the achievement of the world’s commitment to Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
This project aims to increase number of people who have secure access to natural resources, adopt climate-smart practices, and involved in inclusive governance and business arrangements. Direct contribution to improved landscape governance and land-use practices and livelihoods is expected to reach over 19 million ha of forested landscapes across six countries that will have relevant impacts to more than 200 million ha of areas in Southeast Asia, West and Central Africa, and Latin America.
Indonesia will be one of the six countries to implement this project besides Vietnam, Ghana, DR Congo, Suriname, and Colombia. The implemented strategicpriorities will include generating knowledge, building capacities, and facilitating informed dialogue which leads to impacts. Targets of activities focus on women, indigenous community, famers and producer organizations.
Collected documentation of best practices related to forests, trees, and climate change will be submitted as recommendation to national decision and policy makers and to support national multi-stakeholder dialogues to clarify relations between adaptation, governance, FLEGT and REDD+, as input to the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) revision and implementation processes. The intended outcome is the adoption of the revised NDCs that has been operating within the concept framework of climate-smart landscapes.
Summary of Working Landscape Workplan 2022
| Indonesia - Ketapang and Kayong Utara Landscapes |
| Ketapang and Kayong Utara are adjacent districts, that together cover 3,5 million ha. It is a heavily deforested area with important remaining primary forests and a large percentage of peatlands that are particularly important for climate due to their high carbon content and susceptibility to fire. The landscapes are a reflection of what is happening in many other parts in Indonesia by seeing a very strong proliferation of cash crops (oil palm), including a rapidly increasing uncontrolled expansion of independent smallholders, which has led to conversion, degradation and fragmentation of forests, with severe consequences for biodiversity. Natural resource governance is poor, existing policies, regulations and multi-stakeholder processes do not function effectively, and local communities have limited participation in decision-making processes. These landscapes should present an integrated landscape model demonstrating forest and peatland conservation and smallholder agriculture in an intensely managed agrocommodity landscape. |
| Vulnerability to climate change Communities in Ketapang District are vulnerable to impacts of climate changes and climate hazards in different ways, including in both of the main landscapes of WL . Upstream communities are vulnerable due to the continuous exposures to climate-related hazards such extreme and erratic seasons and floods, the latter being exacerbated by human factors of forest and land conversions. Communities in the lowland areas are particularly vulnerable to climatic hazards of fire, especially in peatland areas, in dry seasons and floods in rainy season, both exacerbated by human factors of conversion and degradation of peatlands and forest. |
| Summary of workplan 2022 |
| Model 1: Demonstration of an oil palm landscape that protects and connects High Conservation Value (HCV) and High Carbon Stock (HCS) areas in the form of an agro-ecological connection zone in production areas (APL), known as essential ecosystem areas (KEE), which is collaboratively managed by multi-stakeholders (government, estate companies, civil society and local communities), within and outside the landscape. |
In 2021, with the facilitation of the West Kalimantan Environment and Forestry Agency, we were successful in reactivating the Multi Stakeholders Platform (MSP) after more than one year of inactivity. The MSP consists of several government agencies, one forest production company (PT. MPK) and two oil palm companies (PT. KAL and PT. BGA). We managed to convince the MSP that local communities should be at the centre of forest protection within the wildlife corridor. As a result, each company agreed to select villages as their facilitation areas and to start to source products from five villages in the KEE. To follow up on this, in 2022, we will support two selected villages to develop community-based forestry business plans, organize the involvement of village representatives as MSP members, and facilitate their participation in MSP meetings. We will urge companies which share boundaries with villages (PT. MPK, PT. KAL and PT. BGA) to work together to conduct patrols in KEE areas to prevent fire and illegal logging. To respond to Kayong Utara District government’s request to facilitate a KEE surrounding PT. Pacific Agro Sentosa as wildlife corridor (11,056 ha), in 2022, we will make sure that KEE-related processes are inclusive with the involvements of villages’ and community groups’ representatives, and we will facilitate the MSP to have a common vision to protect and restore the wildlife corridors and make action plan together. Finally, we will conduct lobby and advocacy aimed at the province government to develop a regulation on the management of HCV areas and to issue sanctions for large-scale oil palm plantations that hold less than 7% of their concessions as HCV areas (as mandated by the provincial government), by facilitating discussions involving relevant stakeholders. Also, we will continue to stimulate the central government’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF) to develop a Ministerial Decree on KEE and its monitoring. |
| Model 2: Restoration of degraded peatlands and improvements of peatland-based agricultural practices to reduce the risk of fires and towards sustainable peatland management. (Wildfire Programme) |
In 2022, Proposition 2 is completely merged into and funded by the Fire Project, hence the revised model statement. In addition to the community-based model, the updated Proposition 2 recognizes bigger roles of governments and private sector and emphasizes the primary processes through Multi Stakeholders Working Groups (MSWGs) at district and landscape level. We will develop a common vision for fire prevention through peatland restoration approaches, while acknowledging the need for fire suppression in fire events. In 2022 we will continue our work with the Peatland and Mangrove Restoration Agency (BRGM), which is a key actor for fire prevention through the adoption of peatland restoration. We will facilitate the involvement of BRGM at the district and landscape levels, with MSWGs, with district offices (for non-state forest lands), and with Forest Management Units (for state forest lands). As a follow up of the proposed action plans of forest fires prevention in Peatland Hydrological Unit Pawan Pesaguan (PHU PP) that were discussed in multi-stakeholder focus group discussions in 2021, we will conduct lobby and advocacy through a series of meetings with the core team to adopt the action plans into feasible district instruments. These meetings will be used to develop suitable district instruments (e.g., under the Ketapang Planning Agency domain) that adopt the restoration approach for fire prevention. At the landscape level, through Formad Lingkar MSWG and the village governments, we will seek to obtain FPIC of local communities regarding the rewetting approach. We will strengthen a system of ‘smart patrol’, which includes the monitoring of peatland water levels, and we will use the trials in our landscape to develop a monitoring system that can be implemented at district level. To improve peatland agricultural practices, we will intensify Farmer Field School (FFS) to reach Pematang Gadung Village and organize the establishment and maintenance of five 2-ha demo-plots to cover exercises and monitoring on peatland-smart or peatland-adaptive practices, including no-burning clearing and water management. We will continue facilitating the marketing of (organic) produce of community-based horticulture and focus on upscaling to other villages and farmer groups. We will support oil palm smallholders in the landscape with applying the standards of ‘no-fire good agriculture practices’ and link them to buyers that can offer a premium price. For the remaining peat swamp forest in the three Village Forest areas, we will strengthen existing protection approaches by organizing training and constructing boundary marking activities for Village Forest Management Units to prevent encroachment and illegal gold mining. This is in addition to the financial support for Village Forest protection through the Remediation and Compensation Procedure (RaCP) of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). Continuing initial discussions with oil palm companies in the landscape and their buyers, in 2022 we will ensure their participation in a district-level MSWG, to sustain no-burning practices and apply water level management for oil palm in peatlands, as part of a joint effort to achieve a fire-smart landscape. |
| Model 3: Implement a jurisdictional village-cluster-based zero-deforestation model for ISP producers integrated in the palm oil value chain, based on sound village-level planning and adoption of good agricultural practices, complying with appropriate standards and ESG performance criteria. |
| [Dropped in 2022] This model is dropped for 2022. However, under Model 2, ISP is a major practice in the peat landscape. Strategies and interventions to existing ISP will continue as part of improvements of peatland agricultural practices for reduced fire and sustainable peatland management. |
| Model 4: Protect the indigenous community (Dayak) forested areas and traditional land uses based on sustainable management and business models for NTFP and Ecosystem services. |
In 2021, several intervillage collaborative activities have proven successful, such as forest patrol in Gunung Juring Protection Forest (GJPF), village boundary and Social Forestry (SF) mapping, and climate-smart business development. In 2022 we will build on this, by establishing a Social Forestry status for GJPF in Kamora and Batu Daya Villages, aiming to maintain traditional agroforestry systems, based on NTFP trade, ecotourism development and RSPO’s RACP, and avoid conversion into oil palm plantations. We will support rubber producers to establish a Collective Rubber Processing and Marketing organization (UPPB), creating linkages of rubber producers with responsible buyers. We will also support women handicraft (NTFP) production in two villages (Mekar Raya and Gema) through E-commerce. Finally, we will work with a locally operating credit union to increase access to finance for agroforestry in general and the UPPB in particular. |
| Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) |
In 2021 we facilitated Sungai Pelang to be recognized as a Climate Care (‘Proklim’) Village while Sungai Besar has been registered (Proklim is an MoEF effort to promote mitigation and adaptation in 2500 villages). In 2022 we will continue to provide support to these villages so they can meet the Proklim requirements and increase their contribution to climate change mitigation and adaptation objectives. We will document lessons while working with BRGM and Ketapang District stakeholders on fire prevention through peatland restoration (see model 2), which is expected to contribute to climate change mitigation and landscape resilience. We will then share these lessons with other districts governments, West Kalimantan province and research organizations, as input for Indonesia’s NDC adjustment/formulation. Simultaneously, we will work with a researcher of the MoEF to develop and publish a policy brief to improve the awareness among national stakeholders about NDC implementation. This is expected to help the MoEF with the formulation of a strategy for climate-smart management of agriculture, forests, and other land uses (involving smallholders, indigenous communities, women, and youth), and should also contribute to the National Adaptation Plan (NAP). |
| Gender equality and youth engagement |
| Kegiatan gender dan pemuda kami terutama terkait dengan model 2 dan 4, karena ini melibatkan masyarakat lokal secara langsung. Kami akan fokus khusus di Sungai Pelang, Pematang Gadung dan Mekar Raya. Kami akan memastikan bahwa perempuan dan pemuda memiliki kesempatan untuk terlibat dan berkontribusi pada kelompok kerja multi-stakeholder. Selain itu, kami bertujuan untuk memaksimalkan keterlibatan perempuan dan pemuda dalam kegiatan tingkat komunitas kami (acara peningkatan kesadaran, sekolah lapangan petani, pelatihan pertanian cerdas iklim, dll.), misalnya melalui program khusus atau sesi diskusi untuk perempuan dan pemuda saja. Kami juga akan menerapkan program khusus untuk meningkatkan keterampilan desain dan pemasaran kelompok kerajinan wanita. Terakhir, kami akan bekerja sama dengan kelompok pengelola perhutanan sosial (LPHD) yang sudah ada, sehingga mereka menjadi lebih sensitif dan responsif gender. |
Duration
2019 - 2022
Objective
The objective of the proposed programme is to promote transformational change towards climate-smart landscapes in the forested tropics, to help achieve the climate goals as defined in the Paris Agreement, while also contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals.