Insights Into Landscape-Scale Actions: Lessons from the Riau Landscape Program, Indonesia

Angeline  Gloria; Yudo  Anggoro

doi:10.47540/ijsei.v6i2.2033

Authors

Angeline Gloria Business Administration Program, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia
Yudo Anggoro Business Administration Program, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47540/ijsei.v6i2.2033

Keywords:

Climate Change, Environmental Impact, Forest Conservation, Landscape Approach, Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration

Abstract

In recent decades, the world has faced increasing socio-environmental risks due to record-breaking global temperatures driven by climate change. These impacts, ranging from extreme weather, prolonged droughts, and biodiversity loss to food insecurity, displacement, and economic disruption, are expected to intensify without effective mitigation. One response is the landscape approach, promoting multi-stakeholder collaboration to balance commodity production, forest conservation, sustainable livelihoods, and community well-being. This study examines the successes, challenges, and lessons from Phase 1 (2021–2025) of the Riau Landscape Program by Earthworm Foundation and provides strategic recommendations to strengthen Phase 2 (2026–2030). Using a qualitative case study approach including semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and document review, the study identifies four key themes influencing implementation: program design and delivery, institutional and policy support, multi-stakeholder engagement, and internal governance and capacity. Applying the Five E’s Framework for effective landscape implementation, the study proposes five strategic recommendations: (1) evaluating progress and learning from Phase 1, (2) strengthening governance by clarifying roles and improving systems, (3) adopting adaptive, phased approaches, (4) engaging stakeholders to scale impact and align with policy, and (5) fostering dynamic processes with risk management and iterative learning. The study also highlights future research opportunities, including assessing landscape approach impacts on corporate supply chains and exploring innovative financing mechanisms such as blended finance, green bonds, and carbon credits within the Indonesian context. These findings contribute to the advancement of integrated landscape approaches that align environmental sustainability with inclusive economic development.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Adrianto, H. A. (2021). Discover the Relationships Between Fire Hotspot, Land Use and Land Cover in Riau Province, Indonesia (Doctoral dissertation, University of Leeds).

Aguiar-Hernandez, C., & Breetz, H. L. (2024). The adverse effects of political instability on innovation systems: The case of Mexico’s wind and solar sector. Technovation, 136, 103083.

Ajayi, V. (2023). A Review on Primary Sources of Data and Secondary Sources of Data. European Journal of Education and Pedagogy, 2(3).

Batidzirai, B., Trotter, P. A., Brophy, A., Stritzke, S., Moyo, A., Twesigye, P., Puranasamriddhi, A., & Madhlopa, A. (2021). Towards people-private-public partnerships: An integrated community engagement model for capturing energy access needs. Energy Research & Social Science, 74, 101975.

Bevacqua, E., Schleussner, C.-F., & Zscheischler, J. (2025). A year above 1.5° C signals that Earth is most probably within the 20-year period that will reach the Paris Agreement limit. Nature Climate Change, 1–4.

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2024). Supporting best practice in reflexive thematic analysis reporting in Palliative Medicine: A review of published research and introduction to the Reflexive Thematic Analysis Reporting Guidelines (RTARG). Palliative Medicine, 38(6), 608–616.

Braunschweiger, D., & Pütz, M. (2021). Climate adaptation in practice: How mainstreaming strategies matter for policy integration. Environmental Policy and Governance, 31(4), 361–373.

Calvin, K., Dasgupta, D., Krinner, G., Mukherji, A., Thorne, P. W., Trisos, C., Romero, J., Aldunce, P., Barrett, K., Blanco, G., Cheung, W. W. L., Connors, S., Denton, F., Diongue-Niang, A., Dodman, D., Garschagen, M., Geden, O., Hayward, B., Jones, C., & Péan, C. (2023). IPCC, 2023: Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, H. Lee and J. Romero (eds.)]. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (Fifth edition). SAGE.

Dede, M., Sunardi, S., Lam, K. C., Withaningsih, S., Hendarmawan, H., & Husodo, T. (2024). Landscape dynamics and its related factors in the Citarum River Basin: a comparison of three algorithms with multivariate analysis. Geocarto International, 39(1), 2329665.

Donaldson, T., & Preston, L. E. (1995). The Stakeholder Theory of the Corporation: Concepts, Evidence, and Implications. The Academy of Management Review, 20(1), 65.

Earthworm Foundation. (2024). Our work in landscapes. https://earthworm.org/our-work-in-landscapes

Effendi, R., Ilham, M., Ruhana, F., & Azikin, A. (2025). Collaborative Governance in the Implementation of Education in Rokan Hilir Regency, Riau Province. Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Studies, 7(3), 119–142.

Faisal, G., Subroto, T. Y. W., & Rahmi, D. H. (2023). The Symbolic Meaning of Tiang Tuo (old pole) in the Rumah Godang Traditional House of the Koto Sentajo Community, Riau, Indonesia.

Finke, T., Gilchrist, A., & Mouzas, S. (2016). Why companies fail to respond to climate change: Collective inaction as an outcome of barriers to interaction. Industrial Marketing Management, 58, 94–101.

Freeman, R. E. (2010). Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Freihat, L., Al-Qaaida, M., Huneiti, Z., & Abbod, M. (2024). Green human resource management/supply chain management/regulation and legislation and their effects on sustainable development goals in Jordan. Sustainability, 16(7), 2769.

Global Forest Watch. (2024). Global Deforestation Rates & Statistics by Country I GFW [Dataset].

Harvey, N., Garmestani, A., Allen, C. R., Buijze, A., & van Rijswick, M. (2024). Identifying untapped legal capacity to promote multi-level and cross-sectoral coordination of natural resource governance. Sustainability Science, 19(1), 325–346.

Indrajaya, Y., Yuwati, T. W., Lestari, S., Winarno, B., Narendra, B. H., Nugroho, H. Y. S. H., ... & Mendham, D. (2022). Tropical forest landscape restoration in Indonesia: A review. Land, 11(3), 328.

Kopáček, M. (2021). Land-use planning and the public: Is there an optimal degree of civic participation? Land, 10(1), 90.

Lamarque, P., Tappeiner, U., Turner, C., Steinbacher, M., Bardgett, R. D., Szukics, U., Schermer, M., & Lavorel, S. (2011). Stakeholder perceptions of grassland ecosystem services in relation to knowledge on soil fertility and biodiversity. Regional Environmental Change, 11(4), 791–804.

Masuda, H., Kawakubo, S., Okitasari, M., & Morita, K. (2022). Exploring the role of local governments as intermediaries to facilitate partnerships for the Sustainable Development Goals. Sustainable Cities and Society, 82(Jul-22), 1–12.

Mathys, A. S., Van Vianen, J., Rowland, D., Narulita, S., Palomo, I., Pascual, U., ... & Sunderland, T. (2023). Participatory mapping of ecosystem services across a gradient of agricultural intensification in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Ecosystems and People, 19(1), 2174685.

Menzies, L. (2023). Continuity and churn: understanding and responding to the impact of teacher turnover. London Review of Education, 21(1), 1–13.

Meyer, M. L., Louder, C. N., & Nicolas, G. (2022). Creating with, not for people: theory of change and logic models for culturally responsive community-based intervention. American Journal of Evaluation, 43(3), 378–393.

Montoya-Zumaeta, J. G., Wunder, S., & Tacconi, L. (2021). Incentive-based conservation in Peru: Assessing the state of six ongoing PES and REDD+ initiatives. Land Use Policy, 108, 105514.

Mugari, E., Nethengwe, N. S., & Gumbo, A. D. (2025). A co-design approach for stakeholder engagement and knowledge integration in flood risk management in Vhembe district, South Africa. Frontiers in Climate, 7, 1517837.

Octavia, D., Suharti, S., Murniati, Dharmawan, I. W. S., Nugroho, H. Y. S. H., Supriyanto, B., Rohadi, D., Njurumana, G. N., Yeny, I., & Hani, A. (2022). Mainstreaming smart agroforestry for social forestry implementation to support sustainable development goals in Indonesia: A review. Sustainability, 14(15), 9313.

Office of the United Nations High Commisioner for Human Rights. (2024). About Good Governance.

Oliveira, E., & Meyfroidt, P. (2021). Strategic land-use planning instruments in tropical regions: state of the art and future research. Journal of Land Use Science, 16(5–6), 479–497.

Pathak, S., Krishnaswamy, V., & Sharma, M. (2023). Big data analytics capabilities: a novel integrated fitness framework based on a tool-based content analysis. Enterprise Information Systems, 17(1), 1939427.

Permatasari, A. P., Fauziyah, D., Naufal, F., Afian, S., Nisa, S., Fetra, T., & Hadad, N. (2024). Strengthening Indonesia’s readiness to navigate the European Union Deforestation-Free regulation through improved governance and inclusive partnership.

Rahmawati, E., Bisri, M., Asmara, R., Prihanto, A. A., Siregar, N. A. M., Zamroni, S., Sanjaya, A., & Ahmada, S. (2023). Drafting and Implementation of Village Spatial Plan (RTRDes): A Case Study in Indonesia. International Journal of Sustainable Development & Planning, 18(9).

Ramirez-Corredores, M. M., Goldwasser, M. R., & Falabella de Sousa Aguiar, E. (2023). Carbon dioxide and climate change. In Decarbonization as a Route Towards Sustainable Circularity (pp. 1–14). Springer.

Reed, J., Van Vianen, J., Deakin, E. L., Barlow, J., & Sunderland, T. (2016). Integrated landscape approaches to managing social and environmental issues in the tropics: Learning from the past to guide the future. Global Change Biology, 22(7), 2540–2554.

Reyes-García, V., Fernández-Llamazares, Á., Aumeeruddy-Thomas, Y., Benyei, P., Bussmann, R. W., Diamond, S. K., García-del-Amo, D., Guadilla-Sáez, S., Hanazaki, N., & Kosoy, N. (2022). Recognizing Indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ rights and agency in the post-2020 Biodiversity Agenda. Ambio, 51(1), 84–92.

Riggs, R. A., Achdiawan, R., Adiwinata, A., Boedhihartono, A. K., Kastanya, A., Langston, J. D., ... & Tjiu, A. (2021). Governing the landscape: potential and challenges of integrated approaches to landscape sustainability in Indonesia. Landscape Ecology, 36, 2409-2426.

Sayer, J., Margules, C., Boedhihartono, A. K., Dale, A., Sunderland, T., Supriatna, J., & Saryanthi, R. (2015). Landscape approaches; what are the pre-conditions for success? Sustainability Science, 10(2), 345–355.

Sayer, J., Sunderland, T., Ghazoul, J., Pfund, J.-L., Sheil, D., Meijaard, E., Venter, M., Boedhihartono, A. K., Day, M., Garcia, C., Van Oosten, C., & Buck, L. E. (2013). Ten principles for a landscape approach to reconciling agriculture, conservation, and other competing land uses. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(21), 8349–8356.

Sayer, J., Boedhihartono, A. K., Langston, J. D., Margules, C., Riggs, R. A., & Sari, D. A. (2021). Governance challenges to landscape restoration in Indonesia. Land Use Policy, 104, 104857.

Singh, B., Yadav, S., & Aswal, D. K. (2024). Landscape and Status of Global Accreditation Bodies. In Handbook of Quality System, Accreditation and Conformity Assessment (pp. 529–573). Springer.

Tenny, S., Brannan, J. M., & Brannan, G. D. (2025). Qualitative Study. StatPearls Publishing.

United Nations. (2024). Causes and Effects of Climate Change.

United Nations Development Program. (2024). What is climate change mitigation and why is it urgent?