conversion Archives - Resilient Landscapes (RL)

System dynamics model for sustainable rice estate development to achieve food security with low carbon emissions

Key messages

We developed a system dynamics model – sustainable rice estate for food security with low carbon emissions (SECURE) – to explore different scenarios and develop plans for food security, especially for rice, while minimizing the impact of carbon emissions.
The baseline simulation shows a clear need for Indonesia to be food self-sufficient (swasembada pangan), particularly for rice. There will be a gap of 4.2 million metric tons of rice needs by 2030, and the gap will continue to increase after 2030. Climate change, increased population, and shrinking paddy rice fields widen the supply and demand gap.
Our system dynamics model highlights that food estate development in Papua and Kalimantan requires caution as it could undermine Indonesia’s climate change commitment through FOLU (Forest and Land Use) Net Sink 2030, which aims to have net-zero emissions in 2030.
Simulating conversion of convertible production forests (Hutan Produksi Konversi – HPK) to rice estates contributed to most of the emissions, including in Kalimantan and Papua. Although this is a legal conversion, our model shows that it will potentially emit 301 million metric tons of CO₂e, as HPK still consists of forest cover.
We propose scenarios for food–climate solutions by examining land areas with fewer or no trees and developing rice food estates. In our simulation, the combination of rice planting in non-forested areas with increased rice yield productivity and staple food diversification is the best option to fulfil rice demand, along with reducing emissions.
We identify institutional arrangements for this scenario under the current administration.

The Impact of sectoral development on natural forest conversion and degradation: the case of timber and tree crop plantations in Indonesia

This paper examines the conversion of Indonesia’s natural forests to timber and tree crop plantations, notably oil palm. The principal aims are to understand the impact of this process on natural forest and on forest-dwelling people, and to establish whether past and present policies governing this process are meeting their objectives. The key findings of the study are: (1) timber plantation development policies legitimate the degradation of natural forests; (2) subsidies are ultimately unnecessary for the development of timber plantations; (3) tree crop plantation developers request more land than they need to obtain added profits from the timber on lands to be cleared; (4) overlapping and chaotic forest land use classification systems work to the benefit of private plantation developers at the expense of the rights and livelihoods of forest-dwelling people; and (5) resolution of these problems is hampered by the persistence of the government’s top-down approach and non-recognition of traditional land use rights. It is recommend that: remaining natural forests on conversion forest lands be reclassified as permanent forests; plantation development take place only on unproductive production forest lands; and forest land use redistribution be devolved to the local level.

How does replacing natural forests with rubber and oil palm plantations affect soil respiration and methane fluxes?

Replacement of forest by agricultural systems is a major factor accelerating the emissions of greenhouse gases; however, related field studies in the tropics are very scarce. To evaluate the impact of forest transition to plantations on soil methane (CH4) and respiration (CO2) fluxes, we conducted measurements in an undisturbed forest, a disturbed forest, young and old rubber plantations, and an oil palm plantation on mineral soil in Jambi, Sumatra, Indonesia. Methane fluxes and their controlling variables were monitored monthly over fourteen months; soil respiration was measured less frequently. All of the plantations were managed by smallholders and had never been fertilized. To assess the effect of common management practices in oil palm plantations, we added urea at a rate of 33.3 kg N/ha and thereafter monitored intensively soil CH4 fluxes. The soil acted as a sink for CH4 (kg CH4‐C·ha−1·yr−1) in the undisturbed forest (−1.4 ± 1.0) and young rubber plantation (−1.7 ± 0.7). This was not the case in the other land‐use systems which had fluxes similar to fluxes in the undisturbed forest, with 0.4 ± 0.9, −0.2 ± 0.3, and 0.2 ± 0.7 kg·ha−1·yr−1 in the disturbed forest, old rubber plantation, and oil palm plantation, respectively. In the oil palm plantation, there was no inhibitory effect of nitrogenous fertilizer on methanotrophy. Annual soil respiration (Mg CO2‐C·ha−1·yr−1) was higher in the oil palm plantation (17.1 ± 1.9) than in the undisturbed forest (13.9 ± 1.2) while other land‐use systems respired at a similar level to the undisturbed forest (13.1 ± 1.4, 15.9 ± 1.7, and 14.1 ± 1.0 in the disturbed forest, young, and old rubber plantations, respectively). Substrate (litterfall and soil) availability and quality exerted a strong control over annual fluxes of both gases along the land‐use gradient. Temporal variation in CH4 was extremely high and in respiration fluxes was moderate, but was not specifically linked to seasonal variation. Further comprehensive and long‐term research is critically needed to determine more thoroughly the direction and magnitude of changes in soil trace gas emissions as affected by forest‐to‐plantation conversion in the tropics.

Stay ahead of the curve