Rural Community Involvement in Indonesia

Carbon Market
Dimas A. R. Prawiranegara1*, Tri Abdul Hidayat2
Directorate of Special Region Development, Ministry of Village, Development of Disadvantaged
Regions, and Transmigration1,2
dimas.aji@kemendesa.go.id1*, tri.abdul@kemendesa.go.id 2

Abstract
Carbon credit trading is one way to mitigate climate change that dividing into varied project including
Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) and renewable energy. In Indonesia, NBS potential spread in forests,
mangroves, peatlands and karst covering 154 million ha mostly in rural areas that are able absorbing
approximately 113 billion tons carbon emissions and generate 8000 trillion rupiahs revenue. Optimizing
carbon credit provides enormous benefits for rural community including improving air and water quality,
energy and food security, and economic stability inline to villages SDGs number 1, and 12 to 15.
However, despite its benefits, rural community involvement and publications in supporting carbon trading
development are still limited causing its potential is not optimized well. This study aims to discuss rural
community involvement in optimizing Indonesia carbon credit potential and suggests stakeholder actions
through analysing published literature and field report data of programs indirectly increase carbon
sequestration. Indonesia government collaborating with various institutions has implemented programs
involving rural communities which indirectly increase carbon sequestration such as train native people
changing their livelihoods that minimize deforestation rates through Green Economic Growth Papua and
mangroves development that mitigate natural disasters. Rural community involvement plays significant
role increasing the efficiency, effectiveness, self-reliance, and sustainability of these projects. The authors
propose stakeholders to extend community capacity building that trains rural community from only
protecting environment to generating revenue through carbon trading and assisting village-owned
enterprise (BUMDes) in accessing licenses for carbon credits collaborate with local government and
private that have successfully monetized carbon such as the Kantingan-Mentaya Project in Central
Kalimantan. Moreover, stakeholders should deepen regulations and policies that involve rural
communities to increase carbon sequestration and broaden NBS projects with other potentials including
karst landscapes. Discussion presented in this study may serve as guideline for stakeholders formulating
policy achieving village SDGs through carbon trading market development.

Keywords: Carbon Credit, Carbon Trading, NBS, Rural Community