Local actions lay the groundwork for REDD+ implementation in Kutai Barat, Indonesia

Posted on julio, 22 2014

 WWF-Indonesia is making major strides in partnering with local communities to demarcate and preserve vast sections of forest in the Kutai Barat area.
 WWF-Indonesia is making major strides in partnering with local communities to demarcate and preserve vast sections of forest in the Kutai Barat area. A recent visit to Linggang Melapeh village with members of the WWF Forest and Climate Programme including Policy Director Josefina Brana-Varela, Bruno Perodeau, Technical Lead for WWF-DRC’s work on REDD+, Flory Botamba, Project Manager for REDD+ for People and Nature at WWF-DRC, Zulfira Warta, Senior Advisor for WWF-Indonesia and Data Kusuma, Project Leader for WWF’s Kutai Barat work, set the stage for sharing challenges, lessons learned, and best practices of making REDD+ a reality as part of a broader green development program in Kutai Barat.

The island of Borneo is home to one of the most biodiverse landscapes in the world. In the Heart of Borneo—a wild, remote region at the island’s core that reaches into the nations of Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei—ancient tropical rainforests support a vast array of wildlife and 14 of the 20 watersheds that supply the island’s major rivers.

At least 11 million Borneans, including a million forest-dwelling indigenous people known as the Dayak, depend on the forest’s resources for their lives and livelihoods. Those resources, and the unique landscape that holds them, are rapidly disappearing. Indonesia alone is losing 1.17 million hectares of forest per year to unsustainable logging, mining, and the spread of oil palm and paper fiber plantations. The pressures driving deforestation are particularly intense in Indonesia’s Kutai Barat district, where 2.4 million hectares of contiguous tropical forest remain intact and where nearly half the land has been allocated for development through government-granted concessions.

The increase in global populations and expanding economic activities in the developing world are placing ever increasing pressures on land and its resources in the tropics, creating competition and conflicts and resulting in the unsustainable use of both land and resources. Many of these conflicts stem from the farm-forests frontier, where the need for agricultural expansion is pushing back the area covered by standing forests, while degraded land that could be restored to production remains unutilized.
In the village of Linggang Melapeh with a population of approximately 2000, sustainable forest management is a way of life, and is becoming more important every year. The community there owns 13,000 HA of land, approximately 400 of which are protected – 90 HA are formally categorized as forests with the highest level of protection, while the community is working to upgrade another 300 to a higher level of forest protection. Over the years, the community has seen marked changes in land use as pressure on the land has increased from oil palm companies and rubber harvesters. However, during the Forest and Climate Programme visit, members of the community highlighted the importance of conserving the area’s natural resources through stricter forest regulations rather than turning to the quick profits but potential long-term damage to the their lands.

Like many forest-dependent communities, the population of Linggang Melapeh is growing, and as these new pressures on the forests mount, people there are taking concrete actions to manage the land in a way that’s beneficial for their livelihoods and the environment. Most of the population in Linggang Melapeh relies on rubber plantations as the main source of income for the household. Villagers sell rubber latex to buyers who mostly come from outside the village and additional revenue streams may come from shops, food stalls, small gardens near their homes, and temporary employment. The community also maintains a few plots for harvesting other non-timber forest products such as rattan, vegetables and herbs.

Located near the regional capital city of Sendawar, Linggang Melapeh is a popular place for weekend visits from urban residents who take advantage of the hiking trails, a small, six-room guest house, and lake for boating, all managed by the local community. The government provided funding in 2012 for basic infrastructure projects to make the area more assessable and easy to navigate for both visitors and locals alike. As the population in Sendawar grows, the community could potentially see up to 20,000 visitors per year, providing a small but steady source of income that has the potential to increase as eco-tourism efforts ramp up.

While WWF started laying the foundation for REDD+ four years ago, as in any forest community, work on conserving and managing the area has been happening for generations. Monitoring is usually done on a weekly basis when people go check on farming plots near the forest or when they harvest non-timber products like rattan, vegetables, herbs, fruits or wild boar. During these regular check-ins community members keep a close eye on signs of wildfire, excessive hunting of the local animals such as wild boar by outsiders who then sell the meat at markets and damaging extraction practices that could potentially degrade the lands.

Establishing officially recognized forest protection status is a key part of preserving the resources. The community came together to adjust the status of the forest regulation in 2011 so that the level of protection would remain high. In 2012, a community board was established to explicitly implement forest protection regulations. The regulations have had a major impact because people feel a newfound motivation to safeguard the land and regularly remind each other not to damage the forest. The protected forest has become a source of pride for residents of the village that should be guarded now and for future generations. Today, this board also oversees sanctions for those who violate rules related to farming, cutting trees, or hunting deer and leopard. The board also manages forest educational and research activities in the area, and promotes the community land as a learning resource for local university students working on forestry issues.

Since WWF began working on REDD+ in Kutai Barat in 2010, it has focused on participatory land use planning and mapping as a means to build REDD+ readiness and secure a voice for local and indigenous communities in development policies and plans on the regional and national levels. The goal is to help communities gain awareness of the legal, environmental and economic issues surrounding their land use, skills and capacities for sustainable development and planning, and recognition of their traditional knowledge and customary rights.

As part of this ongoing monitoring work, Linggang Melapeh has developed three-dimensional maps of their customary lands that record and reinforce traditional knowledge and practices. Using simple materials—including newspapers, wood and glue—and, when available, satellite images, villagers crafted visual representations of their land and its uses. These have served as a valuable inventory of the community’s natural resources, and as a locus of dialogue about the land’s past and plans and concerns for its future.
Next year, the Indonesian government will distribute funding to communities to specifically tackle forest and critical land rehabilitation, and the community of Linggang Melapeh has been identified as one of the recipients. The programme empowers community members in that they are both beneficiaries and implementers of the work. As a first priority the community will focus on making 300 HA into protected forests. The community has prioritized this because authorities believe that this upgraded forest protection status could ultimately lead to increased income from eco-tourism, which could help keep younger families in the community from moving to urban areas in search of other jobs.

In addition to working on the local level with communities like Linggang Melapeh to lay the groundwork for REDD+, WWF is also supporting the implementation of sustainable development practices at a national level. For example, WWF is working across Indonesia to change the way oil palm plantations are concessioned and is pushing companies to use degraded lands for oil palm plantations rather than using forested areas or high conservation value forests for planting.

WWF-Indonesia, along with support from the WWF Forest and Climate Programme, is also collaborating on the submission of an Emissions-Reductions Programme Idea Note (ER-PIN) to the FCPF which would potentially unlock funding for emissions reductions payments. If approved, funding from the FCPF Carbon Fund would add significant momentum for jurisdictional or subnational REDD+ in Indonesia and could help bring access to credible international partners and to technical assistance.

As the visit to Linggang Melapeh village in Kutai Barat came to a close, and after many thoughtful discussions with local community members, government authorities and other stakeholders, the message was very clear – the work happening on the ground in Indonesia, both in small communities and at the national scale, demonstrates how REDD+ can be used as a tool to advance sustainable development while conserving forests and tackling climate change in a way that benefits both people and nature.

(Special thanks to the WWF-Kutai Barat team for their input for this piece) 

In the village of Linggang Melapeh sustainable forest management is a way of life, and is becoming more important every year.
© Courtesy WWF-Indonesia/Kutai Barat