Barriers to Preventing Deforestation and Degradation of Indonesia’s Tropical Rainforests and Peatlands

Abstract

Indonesia has undertaken a range of measures to address the country’s high rates of deforestation and land degradation, but significant barriers remain to meeting the targets set out by these measures and by international agreements. This report summarises available evidence on the continuing barriers to effective implementation of laws and policies to address deforestation and degradation of Indonesia’s tropical rainforests and peatlands. Following a brief background to deforestation and land degradation in Indonesia, the remaining sections of the report are structured around four categories of barriers that are prominent in the academic and policy literature: governance barriers resulting from Indonesia’s decentralised governance system and from corruption; economic barriers driven by the demand for agricultural and forest-related products and by livelihoods demands; barriers resulting from land rights and land reform challenges and barriers to effective participation in policies and programmes to address deforestation and land degradation.