Project/activity information

Indonesia is a country with the second largest tropical forests across the globe. The total extent of forests under protection and conservation in Indonesia is about 23 million ha, consisting of national parks, nature reserve and recreation forests. The Meru Betiri National Park is located in the southern part of East Java, Indonesia and has a total area of approximately 58,000 ha which is rich in biological diversity across several landscapes with different vegetation types, such as highland vegetation, lowland and coastal vegetation, swamp and mangrove. However, this Park has faced serious threat causing degradation and reducing the value of its various ecosystem functions. The major causes of the threat (especially forest degradation) are illegal harvest and encroachment. The illegal harvest of timber and non-timber forest product from the Park are mostly due to poor law enforcement and lack of sustainable income sources. This situation, directly or indirectly, contributes to rapid degradation and deforestation in the Park.

This project is designed to contribute to conservation of tropical forests for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and enhancing forest carbon stocks through enhanced community participation in conservation and sustainable management of the Meru Betiri National Park (MBNP) as an integral part of the larger landscape in which they live. To this end, the project specifically intends: (1) to improve the livelihoods of local communities living inside and in the surrounding area of MBNP through participation in avoiding deforestation, degradation and biodiversity loss; and (2) to develop a credible measurable, reportable and verifiable system for monitoring emission reductions from deforestation and forest degradation and enhancing forest carbon stocks in MBNP. Expected outputs of the project include: Participation of community in conservation forest management improved; alternatives sources of income to improve the livelihoods of local communities living inside and in the surrounding area of MBNP developed; illegal logging and forest encroachment reduced and reported; capacity in resource base inventory and carbon accounting improved in measurable, reportable and verifiable form; report on comprehensive baseline data and estimation of emissions reduction and carbon enhancement of the national park prepared; and system for monitoring emission reduction and enhancement of carbon stocks established and validated.

The project also seeks to find partners to facilitate its implementation through Public-Private Partnership in conserving tropical forests for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). The project results will be disseminated to relevant international societies and fora with a view to sharing lessons learned from this demonstration project and will be contributing to the implementation of the newly established ITTO Thematic Programme on “Reducing Deforestation and Forest Degradation and Enhancing Environmental Services”.