Many development programs fail not because the technology is inadequate, but because the social foundation is weak. Social forestry, renewable energy, ecosystem restoration, and other nature-based climate solutions ultimately depend on one fundamental condition: secure land tenure and fair relationships with the communities who live in and depend on those areas.

For that reason, addressing tenure conflicts should not be viewed merely as an effort to resolve land disputes. It is a strategic precondition that determines whether a program can be accepted, implemented, and sustained over the long term.

In social forestry, success cannot be achieved simply by issuing permits. Communities need clear access rights, management authority, and recognition that is legitimate in practice. When community claims overlap with concessions or state forest areas, uncertainty grows, trust erodes, and stakeholders become reluctant to invest in long-term management. As a result, programs that may be fully approved on paper often stall at the field level.

A similar pattern can be seen in the transition to renewable energy. Hydropower, geothermal, bioenergy, and utility-scale solar projects all require land that is frequently located within areas managed or used by local communities. If land acquisition processes ignore the rights of Indigenous Peoples and long-established land users, the result is not public support but resistance, protests, project delays, and rising social and economic costs.

Tenure conflicts also pose a serious obstacle to environmental goals. Ecosystem restoration is unlikely to be sustainable when those who consider themselves owners, users, or managers of the land are excluded from the outset. Experience from many restoration initiatives shows that rehabilitation efforts are far more successful when they are preceded by participatory mapping, multi-stakeholder dialogue, and jointly negotiated management arrangements.

Global policy trends increasingly reinforce this point. The OECD, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), and various climate finance standards all recognize respect for land rights, Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), meaningful participation, and accessible grievance mechanisms as essential elements of credible project governance. The message is clear: technical success depends heavily on resolving social and tenure issues first.

In Indonesia, this recognition began to be institutionalized through the establishment of the Directorate for Tenure Conflict Resolution and Customary Forests (PKTHA) under the Directorate General of Social Forestry and Environmental Partnerships (PSKL) in 2015 within the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. The creation of PKTHA reflected an acknowledgment that tenure conflicts are structural challenges requiring dedicated, systematic, and long-term responses. When the Ministry of Environment and Forestry was transformed into the Ministry of Forestry in 2024 under Presidential Regulation No. 140/2024 on the Organization of State Ministries, PKTHA’s existence, mandate, and authority were retained.

Therefore, tenure conflict resolution should be positioned as an upfront investment in development, not as an additional task undertaken only after problems emerge. The costs of building dialogue, facilitating mediation, clarifying rights, and negotiating shared agreements are almost always far lower than the losses caused by prolonged and unresolved conflicts.

Ultimately, addressing tenure conflicts means building a foundation for collaboration, investment certainty, protection of community rights, and the achievement of environmental objectives at the same time. With a stronger tenure foundation, social forestry has a better chance to thrive, the energy transition is more likely to gain public acceptance, development becomes more inclusive, and nature-based solutions can deliver tangible benefits for both people and the climate.

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