Stories from the seven landscapes | Penabulu REDD+ Programme

Field team walking a forest boundary with survey equipment at first light.

“The report says hectares rewetted. It doesn't say who spent three dry seasons proving the canal could be closed.”
Name pending · Role pending; quote requires attribution before launch

Placeholder image pending programme photography.

Canals closed by hand. Permits two generations late. A bird survey that stopped for four months over a question of consent. Reporting from the seven landscapes.

Sort by dateProvinceTheme

21 stories

Workers building a wooden dam across a drainage canal on tropical peatland.

An income that does not need the peat dry

A household that earns from drained peat has a reason to keep it drained. In Central Kalimantan, the programme is supporting paludiculture and fisheries instead.

Central KalimantanPeopleClimate8 October 2026 · 5 min read

Programme staff and community representatives in discussion.

Rattan, honey and river fish

Families stay on the Meratus ridge when there is income that does not rely on the mine. The programme is attaching buyers to rattan, honey and river fisheries.

South KalimantanPeoplePartnership2 October 2026 · 5 min read

A riverside village beside standing forest in the early morning.

The steepest plots, back to canopy

On the slopes above the safe farming contour, the programme is replanting deep-rooting native trees and publishing how many survive.

West JavaClimatePeople25 September 2026 · 5 min read

Forested karst hills meeting clear sea in Southwest Papua.

Consent that can be withdrawn

In Southwest Papua, clan consent is documented, held by the clan as well as the programme, and can be withdrawn.

Southwest PapuaConsentGovernance24 September 2026 · 7 min read

Three farmers holding paperwork at the edge of a shaded coffee plot in Lampung.

Coffee that pays for shade

Shade trees cost a farmer yield today. In Lampung, the programme is connecting farmer groups to buyers who pay for the canopy.

LampungPartnershipPeople17 September 2026 · 6 min read

Misty lowland rainforest hills and a river at dawn in Jambi.

From a line on a map to a signed agreement

An agreed boundary protects nothing until it is written down. In Jambi, village institutions and the forest management unit are turning maps into management agreements.

JambiGovernancePeople10 September 2026 · 6 min read

A forest ranger standing at the edge of a forest clearing in late afternoon light.

A fire watch that starts before the fire

Peat burns in dry years. In Riau, village fire teams are equipped and paid for the whole dry season, not called in after ignition.

RiauPartnershipClimate3 September 2026 · 5 min read

A survey team with binoculars and notebooks inside dense lowland rainforest.

A baseline that shows what is worth keeping

Southwest Papua is the least converted landscape in the programme. The first job is to record what is there, species by species.

Southwest PapuaBiodiversityCarbon19 August 2026 · 6 min read

Forested Meratus ridges beside a river, with a haul road cut along the near bank.

Watching the concession edge

Where a haul road meets the forest, new cutting shows up first. Community patrols in the Meratus log it with GPS points and photographs.

South KalimantanGovernancePeople13 August 2026 · 5 min read

Aerial view of smallholdings and terraces meeting protected forest in Lampung.

Counting what survives, not what was planted

Planting numbers are easy to report. In Lampung, the programme publishes how many shade trees are still alive two years later.

LampungClimatePeople6 August 2026 · 5 min read

Misty montane forest ridges above farmland in West Java.

Water is the argument

Thirty million people live downstream of West Java's remaining montane forest. The case for keeping it is made in water, and it wins locally.

West JavaClimatePeople4 August 2026 · 5 min read

Wide burned peatland with regrowth scrub under an overcast sky in Central Kalimantan.

Publishing the blocks that did not qualify

Trees planted on dry peat do not survive the next fire season. In Central Kalimantan, the programme plants only where the water table allows, and says where it does not.

Central KalimantanClimateGovernance30 July 2026 · 6 min read

Village residents seated around a large printed forest map during a mapping meeting.

A method someone else can repeat

Jambi's forest fragments only stay whole if everyone works from the same boundary. That starts with a mapping method anyone can check.

JambiGovernancePartnership23 July 2026 · 5 min read

Aerial view of a straight drainage canal cutting through peat swamp forest in Riau.

The survey before the first dam

Work in Riau began with a hydrological survey, not a planting target. On peat, the water table is the number that decides everything.

RiauClimatePartnership16 July 2026 · 5 min read

Workers building a wooden dam across a peatland drainage canal.

Thirty years of drying, one canal at a time

The crews closing a drainage network in Pulang Pisau are working against a scheme abandoned in the 1990s.

Central KalimantanClimatePeople12 June 2026 · 7 min read

Farmers holding permit documents beside their coffee plots.

Who holds the permit

Seven hundred households in West Lampung farmed protection forest for two generations. The paperwork has finally caught up.

LampungPeopleGovernance28 May 2026 · 6 min read

A survey team recording bird observations in lowland rainforest.

A bird survey becomes an argument about ownership

In Sorong, transect work stopped for four months while eleven clans decided who could consent to it.

Southwest PapuaBiodiversityConsent9 May 2026 · 8 min read

Montane forest above terraced farmland in West Java.

The forest above the valley

Twelve villages in Cianjur wrote their own rules for the slope above them, then had to hold the line through a wet season.

West JavaPeopleGovernance21 April 2026 · 5 min read

Village residents around a large printed forest map.

Two maps, one boundary

Merangin's forest edge exists twice on paper. Fourteen villages are documenting the difference.

JambiGovernancePeople2 April 2026 · 6 min read

A drainage canal cutting through peat swamp forest, seen from above.

Closing the canal at Sungai Pakning

A canal dug for timber in 1998 is being shut by the village that has lived with it since.

RiauClimatePartnership18 March 2026 · 5 min read

Forested ridges beside a river in the Meratus range, South Kalimantan.

The line in the Meratus

A customary boundary and a coal haul road now run within sight of each other. One of them is on the official map.

South KalimantanConsentGovernance26 February 2026 · 7 min read