This district profile includes key data related to sustainability in Sintang district in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, and and a brief assessment of its progress towards jurisdictional sustainability. The profile has been developed collaboratively by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Sintang Government, Earth Innovation Institute, Sustainable Districts Association (Lingkar Temu Kabupaten Lestari, or LTKL) and the civil society organization coalition Forum Komunikasi Masyarakat Sintang.
Starting to be conceptualised in 2018, Sintang Lestari (Sustainable Sintang) Vision seeks to optimize socio-economic benefits while maintaining integrity of natural resources and the environment. Its key implementing regulation, Sintang Lestari Regional Action Plan (RAD-SL), aims to facilitate a systemic transition to sustainability; it is the basis for government agencies to implement work and strategic plans to achieve this vision. Designed with inputs from various stakeholders and facilitated by Conservation Strategy Fund (CSF) Indonesia, RAD-SL has seven “missions” aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with performance indicators, goals/targets, and a roadmap to 2030.
A multi-stakeholder forum (Joint Secretariat, or SekBer) involving representatives from the local government, CSOs and its Forum, indigenous peoples, and the private sectorhas been established as a transparent institutional governance system to encourage the implementation of RAD-SL, improve local government capacity, and bridge communication between stakeholders.
This chapter from the book “Transforming REDD+: Lessons and new directions” highlights how jurisdictional approaches (JAs) to sustainable development seek to protect forests, reduce emissions, and improve livelihoods and other social, environmental and economic dimensions across entire governmental territories: states, provinces, districts, counties and other political administrative units.
The study explored 39 subnational jurisdictions across 12 countries, which together contain 28% of the world’s tropical forests, and found that all had made formal commitments to reducing deforestation. Most (38 of 39) had also taken concrete actions to implement these pledges. The majority of these sampled jurisdictions have developed and implemented integrated jurisdictional strategies, robust jurisdiction-wide multistakeholder processes, and quantifiable, time-bound targets that define their vision of sustainability – despite a scarcity of international climate finance to support these and other interventions.
Annual deforestation decreased between 2012 and 2017 in just under half of jurisdictions (17 of 39), although any links between actions taken by subnational governments and observed trends in deforestation are yet to be analysed.
This report provides an overall synthesis of jurisdictional sustainability across the tropics based on research in 39 subnational jurisdictions where there are intentions in place towards implementing a low-emission development agenda. These jurisdictions, spread in 12 countries, encompass 28% of the world’s tropical forests and vary widely in both their deforestation rates and the amount of their forest that is remaining.
The study found that nearly all (38 of 39) jurisdictions have signed formal, international scale commitments to slow deforestation and/or accelerate reforestation or forest recovery. Many are financing and implementing innovative policies and programs, prioritizing indigenous peoples, local communities, and smallholder farmers as key beneficiaries of these interventions. Deforestation has declined in half (19 of 39) of the jurisdictions below official projected subnational forest reference levels. These declines in deforestation represent approximately 6.8 GtCO2 e of avoided carbon emissions, attributable to both subnational and national policy interventions and private-sector actions.
This document aims to introduce the jurisdictional approach (JA) and its potential to accelerate the implementation of national priority agendas in Indonesia in its medium-term development plan (RPJMN) for the period of 2020-2024, particularly to achieve sustainable food and agricultural production. Jurisdiction-based multistakeholder approach is offered as an innovative new development model to assist Indonesia achieve SDGs, from the initial perspective of sustainable food and agriculture. The concept note was formulated through a series of meetings and discussions with CSOs facilitated by Indonesia’s Sustainable Districts Association Lingkar Temu Kabupaten Lestari (LTKL) to provide inputs to Indonesia’s National Development Agency (Bappenas).
The concept note elaborates on the definition and components of JA, including the lens of sustainable commodities used in its development, and the benefits and beneficiaries of JA for sustainable food and. It also discusses existing legal basis for the approach in Indonesia, enabling preconditions for its success, and examples from various JA initiatives developed by developmental partners and CSOs throughout Indonesia. Section 6 will provide the reasoning behind the proposal to use this while also demonstrating its potential for other sectors in the future.
This paper focuses on the Rio Branco Declaration (RBD) and the 30 first-order subnational jurisdictions located in Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, and Peru that signed it between 2014 and 2018, committing to reduce deforestation 80% by 2020, conditional upon adequate support from the international community. The authors assess each study jurisdiction’s progress toward that commitment in terms of reducing deforestation, and examine a subset of the potential factors supporting or slowing progress, including the existence of commensurate targets within jurisdictions’ legal frameworks and the international financial support pledged to jurisdictions.
The authors found that progress toward achieving the target was slow and likely unattainable in most jurisdictions outside of Brazil. Among the four jurisdictions likely to achieve the target under current deforestation trajectories, only Mato Grosso State has a target within its legal framework that is more ambitious than the RBD target. They also found that the international response to the RBD was sluggish and likely inadequate – with only one financial pledge made in direct response to the declaration and the majority of funding to support jurisdictional efforts coming from one source. The authors explore what may explain individual jurisdictions’ performance with respect to the target, including specific jurisdictional circumstances, national context, and international support.
Jurisdictional approaches have become popular in international forums as promising strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation and to guarantee sustainable commodity supply. Yet, despite their growing popularity, up to now, there is little consensus on how such approaches should move forward in specific jurisdictions.
In this paper the authors examine two contrasting municipal-level case studies in the eastern Amazonian state of Pará where jurisdiction-wide efforts are underway to reduce deforestation. By developing detailed forest governance intervention timelines since 2005, conducting semi-structured interviews with key informants, analyzing municipal deforestation trends, plus extensive examination of project reports, governmental documents and other secondary sources, this paper performs two main analyses. First, it characterizes the processes in each municipality by linking context and forest governance intervention timelines to deforestation trends. Second it provides a systematic comparison of processes based on (1) the role of the government, (2) multi-stakeholder participation and inclusiveness, (3) adaptive management, (4) horizontal and vertical coordination, and (5) alignment of public and private (supply-chain) initiatives. In so doing, this article answers some of the imperative questions on how to implement and improve jurisdictional approaches aimed at halting deforestation in the tropics.