Thriving communities
“The community-led governance body program supported by Planet Indonesia has helped us with savings and loans, sustainable farming, and education. It gives new hope to our village community.”
Creating a just socio-ecological system for humans and nature.
Evidence shows that when Indigenous peoples and local communities manage their own resources, social conditions improve, deforestation is reduced, and biodiversity thrives.
We strive to always be community-led. This begins with radical listening, designing and building programs with communities based on their needs and desires. Initiatives are implemented directly with community members through governance bodies, ensuring they have the control to manage the work adaptively with access to the data they help inform.
It is undeniable that rural communities in Indonesia have been marginalized for generations and are often victims of unfair and unsafe supply chains. A lack of access and opportunities to engage in livelihood diversification, poor financial management practices, lack of land tenure, and poor governance structures create disincentives and barriers for communities to conserve surrounding forests and natural resources. Some of these communities live on less than $2 a day. Often, to overcome suffering caused by socio-economic inequalities, poverty traps and lack of access to basic services such as healthcare and education, marginalized rural communities are forced to exploit or sell off their surrounding natural resources just to survive. As vulnerable communities deplete their surrounding natural resources, they create a feedback loop that deepens their growing inability to meet basic and financial needs and weakens them to the severe impacts of climate change, leading to further resource extraction culminating in spiraling poverty and environmental injustice.
By supporting communities to establish governance and management practices that are entirely community-led, helping them access and take ownership of their surrounding ecosystems and by supporting resilient livelihoods and financial systems we aim to create the enabling conditions to effectively conserve biodiversity, combat climate change, and ensure equitable access to life-sustaining resources which are the backbone for community wellbeing.
The following data comes from participatory impact assessments, finance and livelihood data direct from governance bodies, many surveys, our decade of research and our new governance index scoring system. Keep reading to see how the Core Model impacts the lives of those living within the world’s most at-risk ecosystems.
We are currently working with 42,000 families (fig 1.) and our goal is to increase this to support 65,000 families by 2026.
Fig 1. Families reached by year. The goal is to support 65,000 families by 2026.
Livelihoods and financial Security
The median amount of income sources the smallholder farmers and fishers we work with have is 3.6. This tells us to focus on strengthening existing livelihoods and providing access to equitable financial services, instead of focusing on ‘alternative livelihoods’ or constantly introducing new commodities to communities.
Planet Indonesia has been pioneering financial inclusion as a tool to strengthen livelihoods and advance community conservation for the past decade. Differing from traditional approaches in a number of ways, we catalyze community-run ‘Individual Savings & Loans’ and ‘Group Grants & Loans’. You can learn more about our financial inclusion system here.
People take out loans for a variety of reasons, for those looking to work holistically and touch many aspects of peoples lives, community finance can support livelihood to health to education (fig 2).
Fig 2. Why loans are taken out, data from 10,010 individual loans and 265 grant groups.
Ibu Suhaidah, in her small business she started with funds from her savings and loans group.
These loans turn into profit. On average, community members who took our business loans had a 19% Net Profit Margin. From global data 10-20% profit is considered successful, putting Planet Indonesia's approach well above global averages in financial inclusion programs. Businesses include things such as chicken farming, setting up small shops, producing cassava snacks for local cities, to motorcycle rideshare businesses.
To communities, financial inclusion goes beyond feeling financially secure. Through participatory impact assessments communities linked financial inclusion and community finance program activities to a variety of different outcomes (fig 3). Without the stress of debt and with improved financial security it is encouraging to see these linkages to improved governance, health, and the environment.
As of June 2024, 3,701 community members (of 46.5% women) have participated in these finance programs, 10,010 individual loans and 265 group grants have been administered by communities.
By strengthening their existing livelihoods, increasing profits and having an emergency fund they can use for medical expenses or their daily needs, this is how a community build resilience.
Fig 3. Data from participatory impact assessment, communities linked financial inclusion and community finance programs to a variety of incomes.
There are important links between natural resource management
and economic security as many people rely on natural resources for their livelihoods.
Fisheries
In the coastal area of Kubu Raya mud crabs are the single largest fishery in terms of value and volume. Small-scale fishers from six villages have been actively managing the mud crab fishery together since 2017, implementing temporary mud crab fishery closures and establishing 900 hectares of permanent no-take zones in the mangroves. This fishery represents around $150,000 - $300,000 in income per year for all small-scale mud crab fishers. Ensuring its effective management is key to sustaining the small-scale fisher and community livelihoods that depend on it.
Before working with these villages, fishers shared that they had been catching less than in the past, indicating declining catches from overfishing, ecosystem degradation, or some combination of both. Fishers’ perceptions and knowledge are often early warning signs of changing conditions in the fishery, so we should pay attention to what fishers are seeing and saying.
Now having worked with these fisheries for 6 years to understand the long-term impact of our work and to assess whether the mud crab fishery has gotten healthier we combined all of our fisheries & social data. The results are slightly conflicting.
Fig 4. CPUE (in kg/trip) during the period 2021-2023.
Fig 5. Results showing catch and sexual maturity of mudcrabs.
Importantly, this fishery is being governed well at individual village and multi-village levels, and the mean weight of crabs has increased from ~290 grams in 2018 to slightly over ~400 grams (data from 2023) (fig 4). This tells us that fishers are catching more per day and per pot, and the mud crabs are getting bigger by weight.
When we looked at the data from our mud crab surveys, the results were slightly more concerning. These surveys showed that the mean carapace width (the best-known indicator for identifying the size at sexual maturity of mud crabs) was around 10 cm, well below the minimum size limit set by the government and a crab’s sexual maturity. This means that the average mud crab caught in Kubu Raya is too young and has not yet had the chance to reproduce.
The mean weight of mud crabs, while statistically higher in 2023 at ~400g compared to 2017 roughly ~290g, is still too small and much lower than other parts of Indonesia where the mean weight of mud crabs was ~700g (Siahainenia et al. 2016). If the Kubu Raya fishery continues fishing in this way, there is a potential that the fishery will collapse as there are not enough adult-reproducing crabs to replenish the population.
So what do we do?
Ultimately for us, it is clear that there is an urgent need to engage with fishers on this, share the results of these analyses, and discuss how to proceed. Our role in the governance and management of small-scale fisheries is as a partner and advisor to these communities. Therefore, we have a responsibility to share this data back and provide our recommendations, following which fishers and communities would exercise their agency in determining what to do. In this case, we see the self-enforcement of the minimum size limit of 12 cm carapace width by fishers as a low-cost and easy-to-implement management action that would be priority number one.
Farmers
In both the terrestrial sites most community members we work with are small-scale subsistence farmers. The average monthly household income from selling surplus agricultural products, such as pepper, corn, and rubber is US$70-210. Be it for subsistence or market, farming is fundamental to the way of life in these communities. This is likely why when in focus groups, community members in Gunung Nyiut ranked Climate Smart Agriculture activities the highest among all participated activities of Planet Indonesia on significance for daily life (fig 6).
The use of slash-and-burn agriculture, harmful pesticides, and chemical fertilizers are devastating West Kalimantan’s soils and crop yields, creating a painful negative feedback cycle. When farmers begin to face low crop yields from nutrient-poor soils and high rates of erosion, they try to turn forests into new farmlands in an attempt to regain what they lost through unsustainable farming practices. Additionally, the ecosystem goods and services that such rural communities depend on are at risk of or already collapsing due to climate vulnerability thereby further removing the lifeline that underpins local livelihoods and well-being.
Planet Indonesia helps in the creation of farmer groups; with ‘Farmer Mentors’, and provides technical support that delivers Climate Smart Agriculture training. This includes but is not limited to, shifting to multi-crop systems, improving land management for drought resistance, temporal planning, producing organic fertilizer and pesticide, transitioning away from slash and burn practices, tree planting, and agroforestry.
By supporting climate-smart agriculture training communities develop resilient food systems that directly support short-term climate adaptation strategies.
Fig 6. Activities mentioned in the FGDs and the total score for significance for everyday life, across all Participatory Impact Assessments in Gunung Nyiut.
Farmer interviews revealed a number of positive changes, the most significant being:
improved agricultural practices, including increased harvest rates,
reduced spending on agricultural inputs (up to 56%)
a decrease in the use of harmful chemicals, pesticides, and fertilizers,
and new techniques to create their own organic or semi-organic fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides. Farmers reported this, not only greatly reduced their reliance on middlemen providers, but also their overall spending as they shifted towards products that could be created with materials from their village landscape.
When we look a little deeper at the participatory impact assessments from Gunung Nyiut, improved agriculture was the second highest change perceived by community members (fig 7).
Fig 7. Number of times a significant change was reported in each outcome category across all FGDs, disaggregated by FGD profiles (leaders, mixed, women-only).
The positive changes mentioned include increased agricultural yields, new engagements with agroforestry for sustainable income, better access to agricultural tools, and improved knowledge about agriculture and the production of organic pesticides.
Importantly there were negative changes perceived too including difficulty to sell farmed produce and some lack of support for farmers. This feedback allows us to adapt our programs as necessary and, with the communities, find solutions.
Participating in climate-smart agriculture not only directly improves agriculture, but it influences almost all categories of outcome (fig 8). For example, it was explained that better access to capital, credit, and new agricultural techniques reduces the need to engage in extractive activities in the forest, having more resilient agricultural techniques that improve yield improves financial security, and strong community governance may be due to increased farmer groups working together to improve farming collectively.
Fig 8. Influence matrix showing the strength of the connections between all types of activity (vertical axis) and outcome areas (horizontal axis) as estimated by community members. The colors represent the average scores awarded to each combination in the different FGDs, not considering those FGDs in which the connection was not made.
Over the years, we have provided training to over 2,316 farmers (67% men, 33% women). We aim for 20% increase in farmer harvest rates and are defining methods of measuring and evaluating this.
“Before, farmers had no place or person to discuss agriculture with. After, a discussion with lead farmers, it helps to find solutions or solve problems.”
Rights and ACCESS
The lack of legal recognition of Indigenous customary institutions and self-governance systems is underpinned by insecure tenure rights over ancestral customary territories. Our team partners with communities and helps them navigate the tricky legal process to support customary rights through community forests, social forestry, locally managed marine areas, and agrarian reform. We encourage regulations that recognize community rights to natural resources in terrestrial and marine ecosystems.
Through the social forestry licenses, communities have management and access rights, and the individual village forest management institutions oversee the implementation of temporary closures and permanent no-take zones. Rules are enforced in accordance with local norms and customs.
Communities in Kubu Raya identified tenure rights (social forestry) as the second most important activity for daily life and their motivation to join Planet Indonesia’s initiative from all activities (fig 9). However, it was also perceived to be a large time burden for communities.
Fig 9. Combined scores from participants in Kubu Raya who were asked to create a list of all the activities they could think of, and to agree how to score them in terms of (1) importance for daily life, (2) importance as motivation to engage with the community governance group and (3) time expended on this activity. These questions were designed to (1) understand local priorities, (2) help interpret varying levels of participation and (3) understand the perceived time burdens of different activities. Scores were given on a scale from 1 (very low) to 4 (very high).
To date, Planet Indonesia has helped communities secure 33,654 hectares and have another 47,885 proposed in West Kalimantan.
Fig 10. Secured hectares and proposed hectares in West Kalimantan.
“Before we had Village Forest Rights in Dange Aji, illegal logging was very high, we had healthy large trees here. We are grateful for the existence of LPHD so that illegal logging is almost no longer a threat and we can utilize sustainable HHBK such as Rattan, Bamboo, Damar, and others.”
When communities are denied land rights and free prior informed consent.
The communities of Gunung Nyiut live within and around a Nature Reserve. When the Reserve was established, some settlements found themselves as far as 7 kilometers within its boundaries. Although its rules and boundaries have remained unclear to most residents, the Reserve has severely restricted their access to basic government services such as infrastructure development, healthcare, and education. Moreover, Reserve regulations strictly prohibit hunting, land clearing, mining, and logging. Nevertheless, in practice the natural resources in the Reserve have been subject to high levels of exploitation, partly because many local community members don’t understand or view these regulations as legitimate, and partly because there are few economic alternatives (see Novick et al 2023). (Evident from negative changes mentioned in focus group discussions in fig 7 above).
Because of a lack of local consultation, involvement, or mapping of customary land ownership, many community members feel that their rights have been unjustly taken away by the establishment of the Reserve. Furthermore, restrictions on resource use and access undermined traditional management practices and local stewardship and eroded trust in public authorities and conservation. These fraught relations between local community members and the Reserve have significantly shaped our work in the landscape.
Today the formal management rights of the Reserve are held by a government conservation agency and the social forest scheme is not available to communities. The lack of land rights are a major barrier and challenge to progress for communities (paper in publication).
The influence matrix (fig 8) showed that activities related to “ecosystem monitoring and surveillance” had a strong negative impact on “improved forest/land rights”. One important reason for discomfort with patrols was a fear among community members that the patrols would lead to the exclusion of people from their farmlands by management authorities.
These findings highlighted the need for more and clearer communication about the position of Planet Indonesia and community-led governance institutions in relation to the contentious issue of land rights within the Nature Reserve. In addition, PI has been vamping up efforts to provide tenurial security for communities, exploring possibilities for setting up a Conservation Partnership (Kemitraan Konservasi, made possible by recent regulatory changes) between villagers and the government, and facilitating participatory land use mapping efforts, which were used to advocate for revising where core protection zones, ecosystem restoration zones, and community-use zones should be placed.
Inclusive Governance
Supporting and growing local institutions that act as the governance body over social-ecological systems is a vital pillar of our Core Model. Good governance is the backbone for the long-term success of community-led conservation. It is how decisions are made, how community ownership over programs grows, and how services are delivered.
Reflecting on a decade of supporting communities, one dilemma we have is: when do we step back? We had to figure out what exactly Governance institutions need support with, and when they can stand independently. Introducing the Governance Index (fig X).
Once a community can be assigned a governance score, does it strengthen over time and how does governance impact conservation and socio-economic outcomes? With our governance index, it becomes straightforward to test these hypotheses directly and through correlation.
These four graphs tell an important story.
1. Forest Loss Decreases with Improved Governance
2. The Governance Index score increases with time
3. Good Governance Correlates with Lower Deforestation
4. Good Governance Correlates with better social-environmetal outcomes
Preliminary analyses are very encouraging. The longer communities partner with Planet Indonesia, the higher the governance index; and the higher the governance index, the healthier to forests and communities.
Our aim is 75% of the governance institutions we support will have 80%+ of the good governance mechanisms in place by the end of 2026.