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Agroforestry key to climate resilience at village level
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Climate resilience supporters: Posing together for a photograph on the sidelines of the UN Climate Change Conference in Madrid, Spain, held to discuss multistakeholder cooperation to fight forest fires, are (from left) the Center of People and Forests’ Indonesian country program director, Gamma Galudra, Maritime Affairs and Investment Coordinating Ministry office advisor Kartini Sjahrir, Environment and Forestry Deputy Minister Alue Dohong, Asia Pulp and Paper Sinar Mas chief sustainability officer Elim Sritaba, Dayak Misik Central Kalimantan organization chief Siun Jarias and Palangkaraya University lecturer Kumpiady. (Courtesy of the APP Sinar Mas)
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ndonesia strives to accelerate climate resilience at the village level by pushing forward the implementation of agroforestry cultivation principles, replacing the traditional slash-and-burn land clearance method.
That is the summary of a multistakeholder discussion during the ongoing United Nations Climate Change Conference in Madrid, Spain, which kicked off on Dec. 2 and will last until Dec. 13.
According to its official website, the parley is designed to take the next crucial steps in the UN climate change process to operationalize the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
On Dec. 5, Indonesia’s Environment and Forestry Deputy Minister Alue Dohong said that 50 percent of Indonesia’s population lived in the 83,000 villages across the country, thus giving villages a special role in bolstering climate resilience in the country.
This idea of developing climate resilience down from the village unit fits the conference’s main agenda, which is to explore ways to involve more state and non-state actors in climate resilience initiatives, true to its tagline of leaving no one behind.
These actors include central and regional administrations, international and domestic civil society organizations, private and state-owned business players and members of grassroots society and indigenous peoples.
According to Alue, recognizing the potent power of villages to create social change, the government is currently developing a Climate Villages Program (called Proklim in Indonesian).
“Through the Proklim program, we guide villagers to strengthen their capacity to adapt with climate change and reduce glasshouse gases. At the same time, Proklim also seeks to impact the welfare of villagers positively and empower village women along the way,” Alue said during his keynote speech in Indonesia’s pavilion inside the conference hall.
“To sustain the program implementation, we need support from all relevant stakeholders, including private entities,” Alue added.
Specifically, he said that the ministry was currently pushing private entities in Indonesia to set up communal task forces to prevent forest fires in line with Ministerial Regulation No. 32/2016 on the management of forest and land fires.
The ministry itself is also active in setting up such task forces, now spread across 28 provinces with a total of 10,569 members belonging to 704 task forces. It has registered 52 task forces set up by private entities, involving 1,533 people across eight provinces. All task forces have been equipped with facilities to control forest fires and receive regular capacity-building training.
Responding to Alue’s speech on the involvement of private companies, Asia Pulp and Paper Sinar Mas (APP) Sinar Mas chief sustainability officer Elim Sritaba stated that the company fully supported the government’s steps to develop Proklim.
In addition to that, Elim also explained the company’s program called Desa makmur peduli api (prosperous villages concerned on forest fires), its own communal task forces, which seeks to educate and empower villagers to carry out their role of protecting local forests.
To support the initiative, APP Sinar Mas also provides financial and technical support for villagers to shift from slash-and-burn land clearance techniques toward a more sustainable agroforestry practice.
Of late, APP Sinar Mas has invested more than Rp 46 billion (US$3.26 million) to support the initiative. Now, more than 18,040 households across more than 312 villages across the country have benefited from the initiative.
“We aim at reaching a total of 500 villages in 2020,” Elim said.
About 78 villages joining the company’s initiative have been registered under the national Proklim program. Of these villages, about 24 have received the Top Level Proklim Award and 46 of them have received the Middle Level Proklim Award for successfully implementing climate adaptation programs.
Elim added that currently, APP Sinar Mas is working closely with several organizations to leverage it from covering only the national level to a more international scale by cooperating with foreign organizations as well.
