Three targets, one map
Indonesia has committed to three things that are each reasonable on their own and collide on the ground: rice self-sufficiency, a 50 percent biodiesel blend, and a forestry and other land use sector that absorbs more carbon than it emits by 2030.
The land arithmetic is what makes them collide. Peer-reviewed modelling of the B50 target finds it would require converting 4.85 to 8.55 million hectares, while rice self-sufficiency through food estates could take a further 2.3 million — with notable overlap between the zones each would draw on. The associated emissions, 360 to 3,753 MtCO₂e for oil palm and 509 to 1,297 MtCO₂e for rice, are large enough to surpass historic emissions events and to put the FOLU Net Sink target out of reach.
FOLU Net Sink 2030 assumes deforestation falls sharply and degraded land is restored. Food and fuel expansion pursued sector by sector assumes the opposite. Either the three targets are planned against one map, or two of them quietly cancel the third.
What the initiative does
The premise is that the conflict is spatial and financial rather than ideological: there is a land allocation that comes closer to satisfying all three, and it can be found and paid for.
The first line of work is spatial optimisation — identifying where additional production can go without clearing forest or draining peat: degraded and idle land, yield gaps in existing plantations and paddy, and areas whose conversion cost in carbon and hydrology is lowest. Higher yield on land already opened is the cheapest hectare available.
The second is the trade-off accounting that lets ministries compare options on the same terms: what each production pathway costs in emissions, in forest area, in water, and in rural income, so that a decision to site an estate is made with its FOLU consequence visible rather than discovered later.
The third is institutional — the landscape approach applied to the estate scale, with district and provincial government, communities holding rights, and the companies operating concessions agreeing the allocation together and remaining responsible for it through implementation and monitoring.
The fourth is financing. Conservation and restoration have to be worth as much to a district as conversion is, which means carbon assets, ecosystem service revenue and blended public and commercial capital structured for the tenure restoration actually needs.
Land-use optimization for food security, bioenergy and forest conservation in Indonesia
The peer-reviewed modelling behind this initiative: the land and emissions implications of the B50 and rice self-sufficiency targets, and the overlap between the zones they draw on.
Warned by Nature, Recover with Nature
What the loss of catchment capacity costs when rainfall is extreme — the case for treating forest and riparian restoration as infrastructure.
Fire in the Horizon
The modelled economic impact of the 2026 super El Niño, including the agricultural losses that food security policy is meant to prevent.
Nature-Based and Ecosystem Services Program
3F sits under this programme, which carries it as a project under incubation alongside the wider restoration and ecosystem service work.
Climate Crisis Risks, Carbon Management, and Net Zero Strategies
Where the FOLU Net Sink accounting and the national emissions pathway work is done, including the second NDC contribution.
Landscape Carbon
Turns avoided conversion and restoration into verified carbon assets — the revenue that makes conservation compete with clearing.
Landscape Impact Finance for the Environment
Structures the blended financing that restoration and yield improvement need over the tenure they actually take.
The Landscape Approach
The spatial and participatory method behind the institutional design, carried from planning through monitoring and evaluation.
Nature-Based Resilience Growth for Post-Disaster Sumatera
The same restoration logic applied to recovery, where the cost of a degraded catchment has already been paid.