Empowering Nationwide Public Participation for Restoration Assessment in Indonesia

Landscape restoration is a long process of restoring the ecological function of degraded land and improve the welfare of the people who live in the location. Restoration is relevant to various policies in Indonesia, related to climate change (Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC)) and sustainable development (Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)). The establishment of the Indonesian Peat Restoration Agency, the allocation of ecosystem restoration concessions and the granting of access to social forestry management shows the commitment of the Indonesian government to carrying out landscape restoration.

On 26 November 2019, RESTORE+ will launch a nationwide crowdsourcing campaign to collect data to inform forest and landscape restoration targets and strategies in Indonesia. Representatives from national and sub-national government offices, civil society organizations and universities throughout the country are invited to disseminate the campaign and discuss engagement modes that will maximize public participation through their respective institutions. The workshop will further present results of pilot data collection campaigns done in the provinces of South Sumatra and East Kalimantan. 

Throughout 2019, and in preparation for the national campaign, a series of crowdsourcing campaigns to identify potential restoration activities have been carried out in South Sumatra and East Kalimantan (more details can be found here). The first campaign was launched in April and focused on land cover analysis, followed by the second campaign in August which aimed at collecting detailed field information on targeted locations for peat degradation. Until now, more than 600 active users participated in the activities which resulted in more than 2 million interpretations of satellite imagery. With the launch of this campaign and based on the previous results, a similar approach will be tested for all provinces in Indonesia.

Media coverage:

• Reuters: Gotta catch 'em all: Pokemon-style app aims to save Indonesia's forests, 7 February, 2020
• The Jakarta Post: App seeks to crowdsource data on land use change, damaged forests, 5 February 2020
• The Jakarta Post: South Sumatran millennials encouraged to help forest, land restoration via app, 3 February 2020
• Katadata: Aplikasi Urundata Ajak Warga Berbagi Data untuk Pemetaan Lingkungan, 27 November 2019
• Tirto: RESTORE+ Ajak Masyarakat Pulihkan Hutan Lewat Aplikasi Urundata, 26 November 2019
• Antranews: Aplikasi Urundata Ajak Warga Berbagi Data untuk Pemetaan Lingkungan, 26 November 2019
• Antranews: Peneliti: Pemulihan lingkungan perlu variasi perspektif, 26 November 2019
• Antranews: Peneliti: Restorasi lingkungan harus disertai pencarian akar masalah, 26 November 2019
• IIASA: Crowdsourcing landscape restoration assessment in Indonesia, 26 November 2019

Last edited: 26 February 2020