M4CR Encourage Data Updates, Strengthen Forest and Land Rehabilitation Planning

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Forestry through the Directorate General of River Basin Management and Forest Rehabilitation (Ditjen PDASRH) encourages the acceleration of updating data for forest and land rehabilitation planning as a strategic step to respond to the dynamics of landscape changes as well as preparing a revision of the General Plan for Forest and Land Rehabilitation of River Basin (RURHL-DAS) and the preparation of the Annual Plan for Forest and Land Rehabilitation (RTnRHL).

The Secretary of the Directorate General of PDASRH, Muhammad Zainal Arifin, explained that based on the Minister of Environment and Forestry Regulation Number 10 of 2022, the RURHL-DAS is a document that serves as a reference in determining the direction and location of forest and land rehabilitation. Therefore, all stages, from planning, determining locations, to monitoring and evaluation are expected to refer to the document.

"This document is not just an administrative fulfillment. All stages of planning, location determination, to monitoring and evaluation of forest and land rehabilitation are expected to refer to the RURHL-DAS to support the realization of water resilience, food security, and mitigation of hydrometeorological disasters," said Zainal, quoted by Antara, Monday, July 20.

Zainal added that the dynamics of changing conditions in the field are challenges that need to be anticipated in the planning process in the form of the emergence of new open land due to certain reasons. This requires updating and synchronizing the database periodically to keep up with these changes, as well as simultaneously completing the consideration of the social and economic conditions of the community at the site level.

In answering this challenge, the Mangrove Rehabilitation Directorate through the Mangroves for Coastal Resilience (M4CR) program has taken a strategic role in supporting the socialization, coordination, and alignment of RURHL-DAS, especially in the four priority M4CR provinces, namely Riau, North Sumatra, East Kalimantan, and North Kalimantan.

This support is also strengthened through the preparation of RTnRHL documents at the River Basin Management Agency (BPDAS) as an operational planning instrument to ensure that annual planning for forest and land rehabilitation remains in line with the direction of national policy, targets, and planning parameters.

"In addition to rehabilitating mangroves, we and the M4CR team also mapped the socio-economic conditions of the local community. This community-based approach is important to ensure that the mangrove rehabilitation process considers the conditions and needs of the community, while supporting the updating of data for forest and land rehabilitation planning," said Director of Mangrove Rehabilitation, Nikolas Nugroho Surjobasuindro.

Furthermore, the Director of RM said that in the future, the validation of forest and land rehabilitation locations will be strengthened through the use of Decision Support System (DSS) as a supporting instrument for decision-making. Location determination is no longer based solely on biophysical conditions and land criticality levels, but also takes into account governance through comprehensive multi-criteria analysis.

The analysis includes, among others, overlaying land cover data, history of forest and land rehabilitation implementation, licensing areas, tenure aspects, and carbon scheme development potential. The integration of various data and information is expected to improve the accuracy of location determination as well as support the sustainability of rehabilitation results.

Through the integration and updating of these data, the revision of the RURHL-DAS which is targeted in 2027 is expected to be able to produce a more actual, implementable planning document and provide certainty in the implementation of forest and land rehabilitation activities.

As a follow-up step, M4CR will support the implementation of Technical Guidance (Bimtek) intensively in four priority provinces of the program. This activity is expected to increase the capacity of parties and accelerate the coordination and preparation of annual planning documents for forest and land rehabilitation in a timely manner.