Tectonics literally and figuratively create rhythms for living in the seismically active nation of Indonesia where shifting plates generate landforms around which cultures construct their homelands. Eastern Indonesian communities who have built their societies around the region’s dynamic watersheds have constructed traditional ecological knowledge and place-based skills for accessing freshwater. What is the water-related knowledge and skills of Indigenous societies who live in the tropical monsoon climate zone of Nusa Tenggara Timur Province (NTT)? How have communities living on Sumba Island in southern NTT adapted to their homelands where they find water to pose the most difficult challenge to survival? How do Sumbanese continue adapting to ongoing natural and anthropogenic changes in their island’s hydrological systems? Ecological rhythms inform cultural constructions of freshwater ecosystems and the ways people manage water. Despite the dynamism of tectonic and oceanic-atmospheric processes, they are steadier in some ways than misguided anthropogenic developments. We describe changes that have occurred over the past quarter century in the ways Sumbanese interact with and manage freshwater following the premise that socioeconomic transformations coincide with changes in freshwater ecology. We focus on the culturally specific management of water within the North Kodi Subdistrict of the South West Sumba Regency and the hydrological setting of residents’ lives. To understand the latter, we reviewed scientific literature and to study the former we conducted ethnographic fieldwork. Our findings show the impacts of hydrological developments on communities reflect existing social structures. In stratified societies, development has uneven impacts. Our research reveals anthropogenic change to be nonlinear. While people may adjust their water-related practices to novel developments, they also may revert to historically proven behaviors when developments fail. Resilience is an inherent quality of cultural adaptations to hydrological systems in the dry tropical biomes of Indonesia.

Many social forestry projects have failed to produce expected outcomes. In many cases, they do not suit specific local contexts, problems, and needs because they only articulate the interests of powerful actors outside local communities. In this study, we examine how nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) affect social forestry implementation. In many cases, NGOs are characterized as benevolent actors, often claiming to represent voiceless groups, including poor local communities, in the social forestry context. We are specifically interested in analyzing the ways by which the studied NGOs have shaped the implementation of social forestry models in the forests managed by the state company of Perhutani. We focus on how the NGOs operate and their motivation and strategies nuanced around their power relations vis-à-vis the state company, how they have been shaped and readjusted. We found that due to competition for funding some of the analyzed NGOs were ably persuaded to alter their initial idealistic motivation of serving the best interests of local communities, while the others were simply motivated by financial self-gains from the resource-full state company. Even when the central government pushed the company to implement an innovative scheme, with greater rights and access granted to local communities, NGOs continued to favor the company’s interest by successfully persuading locals to continue with the old social forestry scheme. The study findings enhance the growing literature on the diverse roles of NGOs as interest groups in forest/environmental policies beyond the old characterization.

In 2016, the Colombian government signed a peace agreement with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) that included the implementation of a Comprehensive Rural Reform (CRR) with the purpose to allocate and formalize land for peasant populations. In parallel, Colombia was committed to implement the global environmental agendas, including efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by reducing deforestation in the Amazon. Campesino communities in Colombia have historically been marginalized and pushed into forested lands and protected areas. This study seeks to understand the configuration of land-use conflicts in the Amazon Forest Reserve Zone (AFRZ) - a land management category in the Colombian Amazon - amid the implementation of the global environmental agendas and the Peace Agreement, with a focus on the environmental justice implications for peasant communities. After undertaking a historical review of peasant colonization of the Amazon, we focus on the administration of the former president Iván Duque (2018-2022) in which military operations were deployed to counteract the increase of deforestation. These operations resulted in the destruction of private and community infrastructure, and the stigmatization, criminalization, and even homicide of rural inhabitants. Militarization is only the most obvious of the conservation strategies that limit access to nature by peasants, who depend on it for their livelihoods. We further explore the environmental justice implications of this military conservation approach through a case study in the village El Camuya, located in San Vicente del Caguán (Caquetá), in the Colombia’s “arc of deforestation”. Using qualitative methods, we demonstrate how the Comprehensive Rural Reform included in the Peace Agreement has been insufficient to fulfill the needs of Amazonian peasants and that, when intersecting with the environmental agendas, it has fostered land use conflicts that can be understood as environmental injustices.

This study employs a political ecology approach to analyze the dynamics of land ownership in Indonesia, focusing on the Tana' Ai community in Sikka Regency, East Nusa Tenggara province. We argue that agrarian change is driven by external actors, including private companies that religious institutions and government agencies own. The latter often impose their will on indigenous populations, which can result in land conflicts, marginalization, and uneven capital accumulation. In particular, the church's status as a land use permit holder from the colonial era complicates the Tana' Ai ethnic community's ability to assert its ancestral land rights. To understand this further, this study examines the interactions between the church, local communities, and the state in land management and their impact on the dynamics of power and resistance of ethnic Tana' Ai communities to social and policy change. We ask, is land managed by the community or the church? The research contributes to the growing body of literature. It fills a significant gap on land disputes in Indonesia, which also appear to be conducted by religious institutions, and the long-term impacts of such conflicts on indigenous societies. We used qualitative methods, including interviews, participant observation, and archival analysis, across 3 villages in Sikka Regency. This understanding is crucial for addressing the socio-political and cultural challenges the Tana' Ai community faces in reclaiming their land rights and ensuring their sustainable livelihoods.

Indonesia established the Peatland Restoration Agency (BRG, now BRGM) in 2016 to address land and forest fire issues through measures to develop and strengthen the implementation of policies to restore some part of the 24 million hectares of the country's damaged peatlands. BRGM was presented as a response to the transboundary haze issue and was applauded globally, with substantial success claimed in delivering changes in local land management behaviours. However, limited detailed analyses have been conducted regarding how the BRGM programme is implemented. Employing concepts drawn from work exploring multilevel governance strategies and actor-network theory (ANT), we explore how the BRGM’s programmes were implemented in seven different district locations in Riau province. We focus on local actors' views concerning the programme to assess local perceptions and responses to BRGM initiatives. Our findings show that multilevel peatland governance, as implemented by BRGM, encounters significant obstacles and challenges. Key issues were linked to poor coordination and synergy between different levels of governance and the actors involved, which in turn hampered collaboration efforts. In addition, problematic implementation due to formal and informal power struggles linked to actors' diverse interests also inevitably impacted local responses to the programme and, hence, its performance and efficacy. We suggest that these underreported factors inevitably affect the BRGM programmes' capacity to deliver on their formal aims sustainably and may hinder the achievement of justice and equity outcomes in the community.

REDD+ projects are viewed in environmental discourse as a centralized framework to assist ongoing initiatives to stop deforestation and forest degradation and to advance sustainable forest management. This case study captures the intricacy of REDD+ narratives and their practical implications through a qualitative methodology that includes in depth interviews and document analysis. We used snowball sampling to identify participants with diverse perspectives on REDD+ discourses. The interviews were conducted with 25 key informants who represented a variety of stakeholder groups. Discourse analysis was applied to examine contrasting perspectives of ecological modernization and civic environmentalism storylines and narratives on REDD+ implementation. Additionally, it utilized content analysis to explore diverse viewpoints on REDD+ key dimensions and strategic aspects to gain valuable insights from different stakeholder coalitions. We identified three primary discourse coalitions: promoters, moderators, and opponents. The promoters, predominantly consisting of government agencies and international organizations, view REDD+ as a market-driven, technocratic solution to climate change. The moderators, comprise mostly of regional authorities, universities and local institutions, who tend to advocate for a more balanced approach, emphasizing social justice, local empowerment, and sustainable livelihoods. Opponents primarily include the private sector, civil society networks, scholars, indigenous communities and small-scale farmers, express concerns about the potential negative impacts of REDD+, including on land tenure, cultural disruption, and increased inequality. Our analysis reveals the power dynamics at play, with dominant discourses often overshadowing local perspectives. We argue that a more nuanced understanding of these competing narratives is crucial for effective REDD+ implementation. By considering the diverse perspectives of stakeholders and addressing underlying power imbalances, it makes it possible to harness the potential of REDD+ to promote both environmental conservation and social equity in the Bale Eco-region.

Social forestry is envisioned as a governance reform to empower rural communities to improve both the forest condition and their quality of life. In Indonesia, however, its implementation has been plagued by a number of governance-related issues including corrupt practices among various actors. Drawing on programs implemented in Java, we delve into the types and mechanisms by which corruption has occurred (or occurs) in various social forestry activities. Tracking experience across several phases of social forestry, the corrupt practices were initially performed among the field foresters and the higher hierarchies. These corrupt practices were later imitated by other actors, who increasingly considered them as normal and acceptable practices. In contemporary social forestry programs, corruption is conducted by diverse stakeholders, including smallholder farmers, public officials and other authorities among the bureaucracy, as well as non-government organizations. Corruption has significant bearing on policy initiatives and programmatic outcomes, as it inhibits the implementation of formal rules and norms of social forestry. Our historical tracing provides better insights into why corruption is not only a social forestry-related challenge but also a part of a larger societal problem as it has been normalized and deepened over decades.

With growing awareness that export revenues derived from non-renewable oil and gas resources are in decline, Timor-Leste seeks to develop a more sustainable and diversified economy. Sandalwood holds significant cultural, economic and historical importance for the Timorese people, and is representative of an internationally competitive export product. Livelihood diversification can alleviate the prevalence of poverty among smallholders in Timor-Leste. Within this context, and with a focus on forestry, we sought to determine the institutional support and smallholder interest and capacity for restoring over-exploited sandalwood. Interviewed households were acutely aware of the high value and benefits derived from sandalwood and expressed strong interest in planting the species for income generation. Land tenure security, essential for long-term forestry investments, was high among those surveyed and not considered a limitation. Improved forestry extension can address many of the respondent-identified risks which were biophysical (lack of water, pests, livestock, and fire destruction). Legal marketing of planted sandalwood, which is currently prohibited, can help growers maximise benefits from their investments and provide a market signal to stimulate wider planting of sandalwood among smallholders.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the greenhouse gases that causes global warming with the highest concentration in the atmosphere. Mangrove forests can absorb CO2 three times higher than terrestrial forests and tropical rainforests. Moreover, mangrove forests can be a source of Indonesian income in the form of a blue economy, therefore an accurate method is needed to investigates mangrove carbon stock. Utilization of remote sensing data with the results of the above-ground carbon (AGC) detection model of mangrove forests based on multispectral imaging and vegetation index, can be a solution to get fast, cheap, and accurate information related to AGC estimation. This study aimed to investigates the best model for estimating the AGC of mangroves using Sentinel-2 imagery in Benoa Bay, Bali Province. The random forest (RF) method was used to classified the difference between mangrove and non-mangrove with the treatment of several parameters. Furthermore, a semi-empirical approach was used to assessed and map the AGC of mangroves. Allometric equations were used to calculated and produced AGC per species. Moreover, the model was built with linear regression equations for one variable x, and multiple regression equations for more than one x variable. Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) was used to assess the validation of the model results. The results of the mangrove forests area detected in the research location around 1134.92 ha, with an Overall Accuracy (OA) of 0.984 and a kappa coefficient of 0.961. This study highlights that the best model was the combination of IRECI and TRVI vegetation indices (RMSE: 11.09 Mg/ha) for a model based on red edge bands. Meanwhile, the best results from the model that does not use the red edge band were the combination of TRVI and DVI vegetation indices (RMSE: 13.63 Mg/ha). The use of red edge and NIR bands is highly recommended in building the AGC model of mangrove forests because they can increase the accuracy value. Thus, the results of this study are highly recommended in estimating the AGC of mangrove forests, because it has been proven to be able to increase the accuracy value of previous studies using optical images.

Peatland stretches across approximately 8% of Indonesia’s land area. Peat fire disturbance, which affects the carbon dynamics of the ecosystem, will determine the country's vision for a long-term strategy for low carbon development. While the impact of excessive draining on peatland fire is well-known to the scientific community, much less is known about peatland fire regimes in distinctive land management systems. We examined the effect of land use, land management, and climatic factors in peatland fires. The examination was performed at the Peat Hydrological Unit at Gaung–Batang Tuaka, Riau, Indonesia. We used a semi-automatic approach to determine the area of burned peatland and used a spatial analysis tool to analyze the spatio-temporal pattern of peatland fire in the region. Our results demonstrate an increasing trend of peatland fires between 2001 and 2020, with 33% of the burned peatland undergoing multiple fires. The bulk of the burned land was covered by either wet shrubs or estate crops, with the area of burned wet shrub-land cover was two times higher than the burned estate crop-land cover. Concerning peatland draining, this study found a positive correlation between draining intensity, as represented by canal density, and burned area in peatland forests. In managed and unmanaged land, canal density had no apparent correlation with the area of peatland burned; however, we found that the weighted area of burned peatland was, on average, seven times higher in the unmanaged area compared to the managed area. These findings urgently demand an increase in community participation in the utilization of unmanaged land and prompt execution of peatland rewetting in drained peat forests. While the government of Indonesia has developed a social forestry and agrarian reform scheme to enable the legal utilization of unproductive land in forest areas, we argue that greater impacts can only be achieved if environmental services incentive schemes escalate non-party actors' participation.