B8 – The Nexus Opportunity: Social Forestry as an Innovative Strategy to Stregthen the Customary and Local Communities Roles to Enrich Climate Action

About

A. Abstract

Indonesia’s tropical forests are a vital source of food, fuel, shelter, and employment for more than one-fifth of the country’s population, and a crucial resource in the fight against climate change. But many of the communities that rely on the world’s third-largest tropical rainforest for their livelihoods face economic challenges, including elevated poverty rates and limited opportunities to develop surrounding land. The Indonesian government’s Agrarian Reform Program seeks to reduce poverty and promote rural economic development by granting local and indigenous communities’ legal access to forest areas. The Social Forestry Program, launched in 2015, was a significant step toward these goals.

 

The Social Forestry refers to sustainable forest management systems in state forest areas or Private/Adat Forests with customary and local communities or groups as the main actors, intended to facilitate improvements to the welfare, environmental balance, and socio-cultural dynamics through the establishment of Village Forests, Community Plantation Forests, Customary/Adat Forests, and Forestry Partnerships. In order to ensure community sustainable forest management, it should be supported with 3 (three) activity components, which are: land use access, capacity building to human resources, collaboration for investment/ micro finance, and market opportunities.

 

The Social Forestry Program aims to provide communities with legal access to 12.7 million hectares of state forests, allowing them to sustainably manage these resources for their livelihoods and forest conservation. By September 2024, more than 10,000 Social Forestry permits had been issued nationally, covering more than 8 million hectares, including 286.106,91 hectares of customary/Adat forests, referring to forests situated within the lands of indigenous peoples.

 

In 2023, the policy breakthrough emerged through the Presidential Regulation number 28 Year 2023 regarding The Acceleration of Social Forestry Management. This policy emphasizes an innovative strategy to entangled collaboration between ministries/agencies, provincial and district governments and related parties in accelerating the achievement of social forestry management targets implemented holistically, integratively, thematically and spatially planned in an integrated manner. Integrated planning to accelerate social forestry management includes: 1) legal access distribution; 2) social forestry business development; and 3) facilitation. 

 

Furthermore, since 2021, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF) has developed a systematic and integrated approach in order to managing forests and other land-use sectors towards emission levels called Indonesia FOLU Net Sink 2030. This approach is projected to contribute nearly 60% or equivalent to -140 million tons CO2eq (or net sink) by 2030 of the total greenhouse gas emission reduction targets that Indonesia aims to achieve through its own efforts. In line with the plan to achieve the 2030 Social Forestry target of 12.7 million hectares, the contribution of social forestry is expected to be around 24.6 tons of CO2 equivalent or 18%. Since then, several activities as well as measurements have been developed to support climate actions within communities.

 

In addition, customary as well as local communities are custodians of unique knowledge systems, innovations and practices that have been passed down through generations and have allowed different cultures and communities in many parts of the world to live sustainably, emphasizing the balance between humans and the natural world. Many customary and local communities’ traditional practices are rooted in a deep understanding of and respect for ecological systems and promote sustainable resource use. These practices have a minimal impact on the environment and are highly adaptive to ecological changes, fostering healthy and resilient ecosystems.

 

In order to strengthen the enrichment of climate actions in social forestry program in Indonesia, several projects have been developed and implemented in order to advance mitigation efforts, enhance adaptation strategies and build resilience. Furthermore, those projects can also complement scientific data with precise landscape information that is critical to evaluating climate change scenarios through social forestry programs.

This workshop will focus on how Social Forestry develops the innovative strategy and become an international role model for recognizing and managing customary and local communities in order to enrich the climate actions.

 

Keyword: social forestry, local community, customary community, innovative strategy, climate actions

B. Aims

In particular, the aims of the talk show are as follows:

  1. Promote and publish the innovative strategies of social forestry program in Indonesia in order to support the climate actions.
  2. Sharing experiences and lessons learned from social forestry Indonesia and its success in order to implement the community-based forest management and support the climate actions.
  3. Mainstreaming the actions of customary and local communities in order to enrich the climate actions.
  4. Building international community (awareness) of the community-based forest management/Social Forestry program as a real action against climate change.

C. Target and Audiences

  1. UNFCCC Member Countries.
  2. International Institutions/NGOs.
  3. Social Forester.
  4. Participants of UNFCCC.
  5. General Public.



D. Talkshow Method

The talk show will be held offline/factual, with short presentations from each resource person and discussions involving general participants.

  • Opening by Moderator (5 minutes)
  • Keynote Speech (5 minutes)
  • Brief explanation of the resource person’s profile by the Moderator (5 minutes)
  • Presentation of the resource person (40 minutes)
  • Discussion with participants (30 minutes)

Live Stream

Presentations

Speakers

Mahfudz

Director General of Social Forestry and Environmental Partnership

Enik Eko Wati

Director of Conflict Interest Tenurial Affairs and Customary Forest Management

H. Andi Pramaria

Head of Provincial Forestry Service, West Nusa Tenggara Province

Tini Gumartini

World Bank Expert

Mathieu Vanrijn

FAO – Project UNREDD Indonesia

Moderator

Tubagus Ajie Rahmansyah

Deputy Director for Preparation of Community Forests and Community Plantation Forests, Directorate General of Social Forestry and Environmental Partnership