Livelihood on peatland often involves unsustainable practices such as drainage and extraction, causing peatland degradation. Indonesia’s peatland restoration approach therefore includes interventions for livelihood revitalization and transformation. This paper describes lessons learned in facilitating sustainable livelihood transitions for restoring peatland using the Sustainable Business Model for Communities (SBMC) canvas as a tool. We utilized Participatory Action Research (PAR) methods, where we engaged in intensive focus group discussions, surveys and facilitation of the action or implementation of the business model. SBMC is a useful tool that facilitates the community mapping their ideas and exercising collective action for restoring peatland while generating green business for the community groups in Siak Regency, Riau Province. Our finding suggests that to successfully transform peatland practices and restore ecosystems, a business model should balance economic motives with restoration objectives, enhance community collective action, improve transparency, and increase adaptability. Embracing uncertainty and complexity in community-based peatland restoration can provide an opportunity for learning and improving the community’s business model. Viewing business model development as an iterative process enables the community group to revisit and refine their model in response to landscape adaptation.
Tag: community involvement
Community-based fire prevention and peatland restoration in Indonesia: A participatory action research approach
The vast majority of peatlands in Southeast Asia are located in Indonesia. They are currently classified as degraded and at risk of fire. Fire prevention and the restoration of degraded peatlands have therefore been part of the national government’s agenda for the last two presidential terms. With the immense pressure of anthropogenic challenges, interventions to restore degraded peatlands and prevent fire combine biophysical and socioeconomic considerations. This paper explores the implementation of community-focused interventions and participatory processes in fire prevention, peatland restoration and sustainable livelihood improvement in Bengkalis Regency, Riau Province. We used Participatory Action Research (PAR) and an Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework to foster an on-the-ground and inclusive process for behavioral changes that result in not using fire in agricultural land preparation and to advance awareness of and participation in restoring degraded peatlands. Our findings reveal that PAR, with an IAD framing, can catalyze change. Four critical aspects are required for this: (a) demand for the intervention; (b) adequate political support; (c) community participation, leadership, social capital and local institutions; and (d) business models for sustainable livelihood transitions. This paper provides lessons on scientifically driven and evidence-based participatory processes for restoration.
A policy framework to facilitate integrated Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) to enhance local livelihoods in Indonesia
In Indonesia, an integrated Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) approach has been proposed as one of the solutions to address degraded lands, including 14 million ha of critical and very critical lands (Ministry of Environment and Forestry (2019). However, the land use competition has been quite high and intensive, particularly between sectors. This situation has provided serious challenges for the implementation of FLR on the ground. In the absence of integrated policy and regulatory frameworks for the landscape approach and FLR at the national level, various organizations have initiated a range of programmes and strategic approaches in moving forward to implement these approaches. Per our review, there are opportunities and challenges for the application of a landscape-based approach, FLR and a combination of the two.
In Search of Common Ground: adaptive Collaborative Management in Cameroon
Community-based environmental protection in the Brazilian Amazon: Recent history, legal landmarks and expansion across protected areas
Globally, community-based initiatives are effective in protecting ecosystems and the species within them. In this paper, we analyze the emergence and large-scale expansion of a community-based environmental protection system (the Voluntary Environmental Agents Program – VEA Program) in the Brazilian Amazon and identify factors that have determined its success since its inception, 25 years ago. Collective actions to protect the environment in the region have been undertaken by local people for at least 40 years, before their legal regulation in 2001 by the federal government of Brazil, and by the Amazonas state in 2007. The system is based on territorial surveillance and monitoring, and on guidelines for the better use of the territory and its natural resources. Between 1995 and 2020, the VEA Program expanded into the two protected areas where it was first implemented reaching approximately 9 thousand km2 of area protected by the system. The number of people participating also grew in this period by around 2050%, as did the participation of women, which grew by 5600%. The system was replicated in 37 protected areas in central Amazonia, and currently covers almost 200 thousand km2 of Amazon rainforest. From our analyses we unveil four main factors that may have allowed the VEA Program to expand and flourish: (a) the communities’ previous demand for an effective control system, (b) its legal formalization and regulation, (c) the support from external institutions, and (d) the consolidation of community-based management programs to fund actions. These factors shall be further investigated as to confirm their critical role in the success of the VEA Program. We demonstrate that this community-based environmental protection system has established itself as a legitimate form of social control, and as a mechanism of socio-environmental governance in the areas in which it operates. By allowing more effective protection of territories, it generates consensus amongst users for the adequate management of natural resources, especially in contexts where government’s actions are absent or inefficient. We claim that this system can be replicated in various parts of the world.