Forest Restoration Conference in Indonesia

Indonesia has tens of millions of hectares of degraded land resulting from unsustainable land-use practices including logging, agricultural conversion, mining, infrastructure development, and fires. As a consequence, vast areas have experienced the loss of biological diversity and ecosystem services including carbon sequestration, water regulation, soil stabilization, and the provision of forest products to rural communities. While some of the forest loss was intentional, being considered an acceptable trade off for economic development, much of the deforestation and forest degradation have been unplanned resulting in a large area of degraded land that can be found in all land-use categories, including protected areas. From colonial times on, the government has implemented a wide variety of reforestation projects, but typically with limited success due to an array of technical, social and institutional problems.

In an effort to examine innovative reforestation approaches being conducted in Indonesia and across the Asia-Pacific region, ELTI hosted the conference, Restoring Forests for Communities, Biodiversity, and Ecosystem Services in Bogor, Indonesia on September 12. The event was held in collaboration with the Bogor Agricultural University and Tropenbos International-Indonesia Programme.

 The conference focused on efforts that employ local trees, are developed with communities, and that have fulfilled both social and ecological objectives, including restoring fundamental ecosystem services. The conference was followed on September 13 by a one-day workshop, which served as a forum to begin building a network of researchers, advocates, and project implementers working on forest restoration programs and projects. A needs assessment was also undertaken to help outline ELTI’s future course of action to facilitate forest restoration in Indonesia. The workshop was followed on September 14 by a field trip to the Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park’s “Adopt a Tree” program through which government, the private sector, and community actors are working together to restore forest cover on areas currently under cultivation within the Park boundaries.