Daemeter announces a new report on feasibility of applying the Jurisdictional Approach (JA) to eliminate deforestation from Indonesia’s palm oil sector and promote wider improvements to land governance. Recent policy developments and revisions to Indonesia’s legal framework, together with zero deforestation pledges by major supply chain actors, provide a promising basis for accelerating transformation of Indonesia’s palm oil sector to a high yield, low impact production model. Yet, experience to date shows that implementing corporate commitments fully will require pro-active engagement with government at multiple levels to overcome barriers and mainstream new models of palm oil development. The JA offers a platform for achieving this.

The report presents results of a Scoping Study addressing:

• Goals of the JA and how it works
• Aspects of Indonesia’s legal framework and political environment that affect JA success
• How the JA is being applied in Indonesia and elsewhere, and lessons learned to date
• Considerations for the design of an palm oil focused JA at the district or province level
• Assessment of geographies where JA experimentation should be prioritized

The study included extensive stakeholder interviews, field research, and geospatial analysis to better understand JA opportunities and challenges at the jurisdictional level, and to prioritize provinces and districts for JA experimentation based on threats to forests and peat, local governance capacity and perceived entry points for engagement. One important finding of the study is that while the JA holds potential for achieving durable improvements in land governance, and while many sub-national leaders have committed to support JA activities, current incentives for key government actors to participate actively are weak. This reflects political support for sectoral expansion and resistance to forces perceived to impede this. We recommend actions that prospective JA proponents could usefully take to improve incentives, increase JA readiness at the jurisdiction level, and experiment with specific approaches to JA establishment.