Benefits Sharing For Landscape Management Project In Indonesia
A study on BSMs within Indonesia's evolving carbon market landscape, focusing on nature-based projects. The study aimed to identify perspectives, challenges, and best practices to inform equitable, inclusive, and transparent BSM design and implementation.
Background
Dala conducted research and analysis to support the planned activities and discussions with the Government of Indonesia (GoI) and other stakeholders regarding strategies for a fair transition away from coal in
Indonesia. We conducted an analysis drawing on secondary and primary data that was captured through a literature review, analysis of regulatory documents and plans, and other relevant sources. The secondary research was complemented with semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders and qualitative research
with communities in selected coal-dependent regions and localities to confirm, refute and enrich the information collected through the desk review.
The research identified the institutional, regulatory, and
political economy bottlenecks for a just transition; the positions, beliefs, and incentives of relevant stakeholders to support or oppose a just transition process; the expectations of the affected populations,
economic actors, and decision-makers about what the transition process should entail; and policy and programmatic options that could help GoI to mitigate the adverse impacts of a just transition, engage
effectively with citizens, and promote public support for this agenda.
Approach
The study was informed by participatory methods and explored how BSMs were conceptualised, negotiated, and practised across governance levels.
It examined how power and representation shaped outcomes for projects and participants, particularly in relation to access to information, decision-making processes, and benefit flows, as well as recognition of rights, roles, knowledge, and contributions of different social groups within carbon initiatives.
A Feminist Political Ecology (FPE) framework guided the analysis, emphasising how social relations (such as gender, indigeneity, and land and tenure relations) shaped participation and outcomes within carbon projects.
A multi-scalar and mixed-method approach was employed:
Task 1: An online multi-stakeholder dialogue (160 participants in total) capturing experiences and lessons from national, subnational, and project levels.
Task 2: Three case studies (119 participants in total) in Central Kalimantan, Jambi, and Aceh documenting local perceptions and practices of BSMs.
Results
BSMs were shaped by both project design and pre-existing social, cultural and political context among communities, government actors, intermediaries, and project developers. Several key factors supported or constrained equity or participation and outcomes for local communities, including the quality of informed consent processes, access to information, involvement in co-creation processes, and transparency and accountability. Limited access to information about carbon markets and BSMs rules reduced communities’ capacity to influence decision-making. Co-creation worked best when project developers invested in long-term, everyday relationship-building. Planning processes tended, in practice, to be shaped by technocratic and elite-driven structures that risked compounding existing patterns of inequality within communities. In the absence of careful co-creation processes, BSMs reproduced inequalities as these planning systems dictated who received benefits and whose preferences were prioritised.
In this research project, the Dala Institute team was supported by Salma Rizkya Kinasih and Luthfi Pamungkas, who served as Research Assistants.