1. Agricultural and Socio-
Ecological Landscape Change:
The Case of Oil Palm Expansion
Arya Hadi Dharmawan
Professor of Political Ecology – Faculty of Human Ecology,
Bogor Agricultural University (IPB University), Indonesia
21.07.2022
Australia-Indonesia in Conversation: Managing Environmental and Resource Challenges and Thinking
About Climate Future – Panel 4. Sustainable Agriculture Landscape
2. Outline
• Background
❖ Facts of Oil Palm Expansion in Indonesia
❖ Trends of Oil Palm Expansion in Indonesia
❖ Critical Issues linked to Oil Palm Expansion in Indonesia
❖ Drivers of Oil Palm Expansion and Landscape Changes
• Opportunity and Challenge
❖ Capacity, Resources, Ways to Support to Oil Palm Sustainable Landscape:
Government Support and Policy
❖ Process of Learning → Gap of Smallholders’ Readiness to
4. Trends of Landscape
Change Due To Oil
Palm Expansion in
Indonesia
The development of oil palm area in Indonesia is growing very
fast, steadily and significantly (covering ca. 15 Mio Hectares in
2020). Despite oil palm moratorium policy (Presidential
Instruction No 8 of 2018). Smallholders, in particular, continue to
expand their land (Putri et al, 2022)→ changing the ecological
landscape. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14031820
5. Facts of Land Cover
Changes and
Deforestation → have
long become critical
environmental issues
linked to oil palm
expansion led landscape
change
(Kutai Kartanegara 1990 – 2015)
At regional level, oil palm expansion has
led to a significant reduction of forest
area or at least forested area in many
regions of Indonesia --> spotted
expansion & concentrated expansion
mechanism (Dharmawan et al., 2020) https://doi.org/10.3390/land9070213
6. Three Critical Issues Linked to Oil
Palm Expansion Led Socio-Ecological
Landscape Change
• Social Issues → Agrarian Conflict involving
customary land (tanah adat), Overlapping
Claim, Livelihood Vulnerability (Single Out of
Income Source of the smallholders)
phenomenon.
• Environmental Issues → Carbon removal
from the forest, biodiversity loss, and carbon
emission (forest & land fires in the peatland).
• (Environmental & Landscape)
Governance Issues → Presidential
Instruction – INPRES 6/2019 on National
Action of Sustainable Palm Oil 2019-2024,
does not really work well. Presidential
Regulation - PERPRES 44/2020 on ISPO
mandatory certification – it needs more effort
of implementation on the ground.
7. Drivers of Oil-Palm-Caused
Landscape Change (political
ecological perspective)
1. Increasing number of population has put pressure on the
need for increased agricultural, (bio)energy and food
production → this leads to agricultural expansion issues
and livelihood changes (Sayer et al., 2012)
2. Ecological landscape has long been exposed to change from
intensive external-source economic penetration from
global economic players → leads to complex economic
network from local to global level (McCarthy et al., 2012)
3. Continuous land grabbing and land controlling
(encroachment) from a centered capital power that is
external to locality → landscape change (Hall, 2011)
4. (Sustainable) landscape governance as well as
commitments of the state and private sectors for supporting
sustainable landscape management is seen to be
insufficient (Padfield et al., 2016)
The Landscape continues to change
9. RQ 1-4: Capacity, Resources, Ways to Support to Oil Palm Sustainable Landscape: The
Problem of Government Support, and Policy → Decoupling of Governance System
undermining Sustainability Policy
1. There are three-four layers of government system
that does not fully connect to each other when
thinking about sustainability of landscape.
2. There was a phenomenon of too many regulations
at national level but less regulation at the sub-
national levels → provincial and district levels.
3. There was less (vacuum) regional-level regulation
that connected the operationalization of the
sustainability standard certification (e.g., ISPO) from
the center to the sub-national regions.
4. Local and regional governments could not
immediately respond to the central governments’
policies due to poor incentive, lack of financial,
human resources & technical supports.
5. Rural people at the local level had an interest in
continuing the expansion of plantation and changing
the landscape due to meeting livelihood needs.
https://doi.org/10.3390/su14031820
DECOUPLING OF GOVERNANCE SYSTEM
11. EU
RI
Palm oil
trade
restriction
Policy in EU
Counter attack
High Political
Tension
• Oil Palm is partly considered as High-Risk ILUC Feedstock source of bioenergy
• RED II – EU Policy → palm oil freezing policy in EU member state-countries
• (Some) Indonesian Palm Oil is considered not sustainable
• RSPO vs ISPO implementation → ISPO is state-promoted sustainability certification.
• Indonesia is reactive defensively → trade restriction is the problem of national dignity –
existential stature for Indonesia
• RED II Policy is a “Trade war Policy” and “Protectionism Policy” → sunflower, soybean,
rapeseed oil, canola have never been considered as driver of landscape change in the
originating regions.
• Establishing → Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries (CPOPC) with Malaysia.
Paving The Way to Increasing Credibility
of Indonesia Palm Oil Standard Sustainability
Multi Stakeholders Dialogues
Attack In November 2016, the European Commission published its ‘Clean Energy for all Europeans’ initiative. As
part of this package, the Commission adopted a legislative proposal for a recast of the Renewable Energy
Directive. In December 2018, the revised renewable energy directive 2018/2001/EU entered into force →
EU Energy Policy for 2020-2030 is known as RED II
12. Closing Remarks
• Agricultural and Socio-Ecological Landscape will continue to change as
population, needs for food & energy and capital investment remain increase
steadily.
• There is a complex causes of landscape change that makes the sustainability
solution is not easy to find on the ground.
• There is a serious issue of governance system inside Indonesia that slow-down
the process of agricultural landscape sustainability
• International sustainable policies enter to force Indonesian policy on landscape
governance system.
13. Thank you
Arya Hadi Dharmawan
adharma@apps.ipb.ac.id
https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=dEnFt9sAAAAJ
