Keywords

1.1 Environmental Governance in Indonesia

As in many parts of the world, degradation of the environment is a wicked problem for Indonesia. Indonesia is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and is experiencing an ongoing dilemma in balancing development and the conservation of its environment. Indonesian citizens are dependent on natural resources that were once abundant but continuously degraded due to mostly unsustainable management and ineffective governance. The 2022 World Economic Forum in its latest global risk report (2022) has stated environmental risk as the top three most severe environmental risks: climate action failure, extreme weather, and biodiversity loss. These, too, are the factual major environmental risks in Indonesia.

Environmental issues in Indonesia range from deforestation, forest degradation, unsustainable agriculture, and unsustainable energy sources, to pollution, emission, mining, and climate change. The increasing intensity and frequency of disasters are also alarming, including flooding, erosion, drought, and wildfires. These disasters are both the cause and effects of environmental degradation. These issues urged Indonesia to better govern its environment and act swiftly to avoid heavier consequences to humans and the ecosystem.

Among the prominent threats in Indonesia is the destruction of carbon storage and biodiversity loss. Indonesia’s natural ecosystems such as the unique peat swamps forests on Sumatra and Kalimantan islands store huge amounts of carbon that is threatened by agricultural land conversion (including palm oil) and resulting forest fires. At the same time, biodiversity is lost through climate change, habitat change, invasive alien species, overexploitation, pollution, and poverty as key drivers (ACB, 2010), not to mention capitalism greed.

Following the political reformation era in 1998, Indonesia is struggling to adjust its position from a centralized, power-based, and market-based paradigm (Nguitragool, 2012), to decentralized governance that values autonomy and self-expression at present. Despite the tug of war and resulting pendulum-like power balance between centralized and decentralized movements, the nation is moving toward the goal to achieve sustainable development (see Li & de Oliveira, 2021; Morita et al., 2020; Kurniawan & Managi, 2018). Participation, legitimacy, and accountability became the accepted norms, especially in the race to achieve good status in environmental governance (see Panjaitan et al., 2019; Handayani & Rachmi, 2013).

The ambition to achieve good environmental governance, however, is challenged by the complex social and natural systems and their interactions. Indonesia, as a large archipelagic country, is vastly diverse both in terms of geographical features and sociocultural systems. Indonesia consists of more than 17,500 islands with over 81,000 kilometers (km) of coastline with approximately 273 million population from more than 500 tribes (Purbasari & Sumadji, 2017). Each group has its own culture and beliefs, which includes ways to interact with and manage its environment. The system is also truly dynamic, and environmental problems are transboundary. These features posed a challenge in governing the commons (Ostrom, 1990), especially in terms of achieving inclusive governance with an equal share of resources and benefits (Holzhacker et al., 2016; Triyanti et al., 2017).

The dominant instrument of governing environmental issues in Indonesia is dispositive through institutional and administrative apparatus (Dwiartama, 2018). As a newly democratized country, this approach seems to be logical, which is still preserving the power of the national government to manage the environment. The newly adopted Omnibus law is living proof of this statement. This law has merged different national regulations, including the law 32/2009 in environmental protection and management and the central government gained ultimate power over most of the environmental aspects, which turned out to be beneficial for the extractive companies. An example is an implementing regulation for an environmental impact assessment that weakens the involvement of local authorities and communities, environmental activists, and experts in its process. Despite the power of national regulations to rule the overall environmental governance directive, customary laws are operational on the ground. The uptake of these customary laws into national and subnational law, however, needs significant improvement, particularly the involvement of local and indigenous people in policymaking (Rola & Coxhead, 2005; Syarif, 2010; Bettinger, 2015).

1.2 Dealing with Systemic and Future Challenges: Way Forward

It is clear that the environmental governance in Indonesia needs reforming. To adapt to ever-changing environmental challenges, there is a need to reconceptualize human–nature interactions and ways of managing and governing such complex, dynamic, diverse, and inter-scale problems. Politics and power dynamics are important to explore as it defines the overall governance profile, starting from inherited governance modes (top-down, hybrid, bottom-up governance), problem framing, actors and interactions and actions through regulatory and financial instruments, the consideration of norms and values including social justice, human rights, legitimacy and accountability, and how it all manifested in the implementation on the ground. The question regarding how knowledge is governed and helps inform the decision-making process and efforts to increase human and governance capacity become increasingly relevant.

A major environmental challenge ahead for Indonesia is to meet the Paris Agreement (UNFCCC, 2015) and to ensure that its 1.5-degree pathways can be successful. Indonesia has a strong commitment to limiting global warming to 1.5-degree to meet the Paris Agreement. It is shown by the development of a long-term strategy to potentially achieve net zero in 2060 (Indonesia LTS-LCCR 2050, 2021). However, there is still an ambition gap to fill, especially in order to achieve the national target. Even with the current climate policy in place, Indonesia still needs to decline its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions immediately to reach 30–48% reductions by 2030 (Climate Action Tracker, 2019). The success of the Paris Agreement among other inter-related global commitments, including reducing disaster risk through the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR, 2005), will be crucial in achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development through Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (UN, 2015).

Against these backgrounds, a new way of thinking is needed, both regarding the development of scientific concepts on environmental governance that fits with the unique context of Indonesia and regular updating of the inventory of good practices in governing the environment. These include how to increase the governability of the emerging environmental issues for sustainability and transformation through innovation, such as energy transition, nature-based solutions, and agricultural and social innovation, among others. Considering that environmental governance is shaped by a diversity of contexts, worldviews, agencies, instruments, and actions, the ideal process to gather usable knowledge is through interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary knowledge. The role of private sectors in environmental governance in Indonesia should also be explored further, especially in increasing their environmental, social, and governance (ESG), focusing on measurable outcomes such as sustainability reporting. In this book, over 90 authors have joined forces to share their research and perspectives. This edited book is presented as our first attempt to compile existing knowledge on environmental governance in Indonesia, unfold the complex and systemic nature of environmental problems, and to trigger more debate and collaboration between different scientific disciplines and societal stakeholders.

1.3 Structure of This Book

This book is divided into six parts: (1) Emerging concepts and perspectives; (2) Marine, coastal, and wetland; (3) Forest; (4) Urban; (5) Climate; and (6) Social and technological intervention.

1.3.1 Part I: Emerging Concepts and Perspectives

Mahaswa and Kim discuss the idea of the Anthropocene and the pluriverse as an opportunity to give serious consideration to the ontological thesis that “social” relations are constituted by “more-than-human” beings. They suggest that an “ontological politics” toward the recognition and preservation of many kinds of worlds can be understood in Indonesia as a struggle to deepen Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity), which is the modern Indonesian state that has long professed to be one of its foundational principles. This chapter is followed by Nugraha et al. discussing the emerging earth system governance (ESG) and the state-of-the-art how the notion interacts in and with Indonesian academia. The chapter elaborates on the potential of the ESG framework to inform the corpus theory of sustainable futures in the Indonesian context. The third chapter by Permana et al. discusses the idea of post-politicization of the environment. It starts with an exploration of the current intensifying threat of ecological disaster due to excessive natural resource exploitation and environmental damage in Indonesia and the importance of the existing tools to evaluate local government performance on natural resource and environmental management. This chapter highlights the critics of the technocratic mode character as a disguise to facilitate politico-business linkages and oligarchical interests that damage the environment.

1.3.2 Part II: Marine, Coastal, and Wetland

Saputro and Kurian investigate the implications of climate change impacts on the lives of women and men in a small and vulnerable coastal community on Pramuka Island, a part of the group of Seribu Islands, Jakarta, Indonesia. This study examines how changes in women’s and men’s employment, income, and time management reflect how environmental changes, including climate change, shape the everyday lived experiences of vulnerable local communities of small islands. Adhuri et al. highlight the issue of land and coastal grabbing as a global concern. They argue that while most studies focus on grabbing and their socioenvironmental impacts, their chapter demonstrates the process of “re-grabbing” where the local community, supported by NGOs and other agencies, took back control over the coastal mangrove forest taken and converted by a private company for palm oil plantation. This chapter further explains the process and strategies employed by coastal communities in Langkat, North Sumatra in resisting the palm oil plantation’s presence that had impacted their fishing and coastal livelihoods seriously. Yuniarti et al. analyze current management performance to achieve a sustainable lake ecosystem-based management. The chapter focuses on the goals of reduced cage aquaculture and improved water quality in the lake, despite the presence of formal regulations for reaching these goals. It provides lessons learned through interdisciplinary research (environmental–social science, ecology, and ecological economics), evaluating cage aquaculture management scenarios to facilitate sustainable cage aquaculture management in Lake Maninjau, Indonesia.

1.3.3 Part III: Land and Forest

Nurhidayah et al. explicate the role and challenges of community-based fire management and peatland restoration based on the Community Fire Brigades or Masyarakat Peduli Api (MPA) through case studies of six villages situated in two fire-prone provinces in Riau and Central Kalimantan. A cohesive fire management strategy model has been employed as a lens to understand the challenges and effectiveness of a community-based fire management strategy in Indonesia. The result has shown diverse challenges that reduce their capacity to prevent and control forest and land fires and proposed a suggestion for the Indonesian government to prioritize funding support for MPAs to ensure the effective operationalization of community-based fire control and prevention in fire-prone provinces. Additionally, they highlight the importance of strengthening the role of the private sector and NGOs to step in to address the gap in support for community-based fire management and peatland restoration. Ramli Ramadhan et al. apply the governance approach to understanding changes in the forestry sector using four modes of governance, including hierarchical governance, closed co-governance, open co-governance, and self-governance. Through the case of the forest management unit, the study revealed that although forest use is increasing and being entrusted to nongovernment actors, the governance remains hierarchical, whereby the central government is the dominant actor enacting regulatory mechanisms guiding actor interactions and participation and has not yet departed from previous modes of governance. Rizky Ramadhan et al. discuss the topic of biofuel development and indirect deforestation. They investigate the land-use changes in the Riau and Central Kalimantan Province as the largest palm oil producers, using the geographic information system (GIS). The findings of this research are intended to understand indirect deforestation, local plantation practices, and their role in the surrounding community and solve the unintended consequence of policies aimed at improving environmental conditions such as the Biofuel Program. Sari et al. employ a political economy approach to explore how the interactions between the political economy structure, institutions, and actors have resulted in the slow implementation of green policy commitments, particularly in reviewing the compliance of land-based industry licenses and acknowledging customary (adat) areas in Papua Land. The findings suggest that the reform is mainly driven by development partners and limited numbers of bureaucrats. The small coalitions were successful in focusing their effort on enacting green policies in the two provinces. However, the study highlights constraints posed by these actors to turn the policies into actions. Hapsari explores how knowledge co-production works in the emergence of permaculture movements in Indonesia within the broader literature on social movement and counter-hegemonic politics. This study is based on the experiences of four permaculture communities in Indonesia. It reveals that the formation of permaculture movements in Indonesia involves negotiated boundaries among different ways of knowing in the epistemic relations surrounding permaculture practices. The critical distancing that develops between the movements and the hegemonic knowledge structure seeks to transform agro-industrial knowledge practices toward an alternative knowledge system. Salman and Mori discuss the concept of knowledge co-production further through the case of the Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) as a product of knowledge co-production. This study use the principles for high-quality knowledge co-production for sustainability to look more into the cooperation and compliance gaps providing additional nuance on why such gaps exist. The findings show that on top of the existing operationalization problem, ISPO is a knowledge co-produced to endorse the government’s predetermined agenda and discuss the way forward to achieve sustainability.

1.3.4 Part IV: Urban

Mulyana et al. develop the conceptual models of dynamic governance model in urban water governance. This research uses a qualitative method by utilizing a soft system methodology (SSM) to develop a dynamic conceptual model that can be useful to implement in an urban area. This chapter also showcases the result of the adapted model in Bandung Metropolitan Urban Area as an implementation strategy in a fast-growing urban area. Setianto and Widianarko further discuss the role of the civil society movement in environmental governance in Indonesia. Through literature review, the research provides a theoretical framework for the dynamic adaptations occurring in the Indonesian government concerning the emerging civil society movements and the political turmoil (from authoritarian to more democratic governance) associated with them. This study demonstrates that civil society movements are not a single homogeneous entity and dissemination of power among governmental structures is not merely a technical matter aiming to provide a better service but also a notion of political power contestation. Finally, the dynamic relationships within civil society organizations, the multilevel governmental institutions, and the various stakeholders in the private sector have led to a mode of governance called the “governance by accident,” instead of “governance by design” as a new model of environmental governance.

Pambudi and Kusmanto in their chapter discuss the challenge of urban water governance in Indonesia and provide a comprehensive review of laws, regulations, and policies associated with water conservation and how they play out at the implementation level. They argue that the underlying problem is not so much a lack of policies but rather the prevalence of overlaps of regulations, leading to weak and uncoordinated implementation. Clegg et al. explore the issue of flood governance in Indonesia. Through the case of the Ciliwung River in Java, Indonesia, they identify decentralized governance as a significant challenge to achieving integrated river management to mitigate flooding, where plans need to be carefully coordinated and high levels of collaboration are required, and improved transboundary river management is needed. Abdulnabi Ali et al. discuss the problem of global solid waste in the global south. Using the case of Jakarta, the study analyzes how participative processes within sustainable solid waste management efforts in Jakarta are executed to investigate potentials and obstacles that evolve during the implementation. The results reveal that the waste problems in Jakarta are complex, interrelated, and multilayered. While participatory procedures have been acknowledged by the organizations to be highly relevant for waste management, such approaches should be adapted depending on the local circumstances and actors.

1.3.5 Part V: Climate

Firdaus et al. analyze the fate of climate actions during the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia and develop a crisis management framework to provide insights about governing climate change under the Covid-19 pandemic while seizing the opportunities to achieve the climate target. The chapter ends with a proposal for redesigning climate policies, including financing mechanisms and improving the governance in climate adaptation and mitigation. Karuniasa et al. explore the issues of capacity building in the context of a highly complex governance setting of Indonesia’s more than 500 districts, each with their specific issues around mitigation and adaptation that pose challenges for both top-down and equally important, bottom-up approaches. The chapter suggests that the institutionalization of capacity-building is key in highlighting the role of civil society networks—especially those that can reach the far-flung districts of Indonesia—in creating trust in the regions where they are distributed. Finally, Ridwansyah et al. examine the strategy for urban climate mitigation. The chapter explores the case of Kupang City as one of the cities in Indonesia that is vulnerable to disasters caused by climate change. In this study, the geographical, demographic, and socioeconomic characteristics of Kupang City are analyzed to find the shortcomings and the challenges faced to implement policies related to climate risk reduction. This study comes up with seven priority sectors that should be considered to resolve the disasters and challenges caused by climate change, including climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, water and sanitation, energy and transportation, solid waste management/municipal waste, sustainable use of resources, GHG emission inventory, and financing.

1.3.6 Part VI: Social and Technological Interventions

Turner-Walker unravels the local-level governance characteristics and interactions influencing climate change adaptation prevalent in marine-agrarian coastal island resource bases. Drawn through comparative case studies of coastal area communities in Central Java and Central Maluku, the chapter explores how local resource governance drives the ability to deal with environmental pressures, conflict, and change. The chapter is relevant for understanding how the ways of governing, innovating, and engaging strategies of adaptation to change throughout rural and coastal regions of Indonesia.

The chapter by Rahmani et al. discusses the management of sustainability transition that emerges in various types of community-scale projects. The study was conducted on the implementation of solar water pumping systems (SWPS) project in Yogyakarta Province, Indonesia, and showed some governance challenges, including insufficient training and lack of funds for damage repair. It highlights the need for an iterative process of learning and network building. To achieve the sustainability transition, they argue that it is imperative to build a vision and deep networks within local government rather than simply replicate the number of project installations.

Asmara et al. focus on the implementation of photovoltaic (PV) innovation as one of the main renewable energy sources aimed to achieve a national electrification ratio in Indonesia. This study finds that PLTS/ SHS projects face unresolved classical problems over the years to sustain PV projects in Indonesia. This study proposes a regional innovation system (RIS) and sectoral innovation system (SIS) as the Indonesian comprehensive policy strategy to sustain national PV projects. Network governance (NG) perspective is a lens to capture how actors of academic, business, government, and community (ABGC) interact and collaborate mutually. Santoso et al. further highlight that the dimensions of the triple bottom line approach to sustainable development contain inherent conflicting goals in implementation and fragmentation. This study serves to overcome fragmented approaches by using a holistic, sustainable governance transition process for integrating urban and port–industry governance concepts. A novel online platform, VIDEL (Virtual Dashboard of Environmentally Logistics-Port-City), is designed as a smart system that engages all stakeholders. This platform binds the requirements and interests as well as harmonizing actors in the interactions of urban with port and industry to secure innovative and environmentally friendly ways. It will become a digital control tower for a sustainable governance system in a port city.