by Myanna Benn & Farrah Soeharno
Why Restore These Ecosystems?
Mangrove and peatlands are among Indonesia’s most valuable and most threatened ecosystems. In their healthy state, these wetlands store vast amount of carbon in their soils, regulate water systems, support biodiversity, and underpin local livelihoods. These ecosystems function as a powerful natural buffer against climate change and environmental shocks.
When degraded, these same ecosystems become sources of risks. Drained peatlands dry out and burn easily, releasing stored carbon into the atmosphere and exposing communities to fire, haze and income loss. Degraded mangroves weaken coastal protection, increase vulnerable to flooding and reduce fisheries productivity (Mishra et al., 2021). Across Indonesia, large-scale land conversion and peat-incompatible agricultural practices have accelerated this degradation, with impacts that extend far beyond individual landscapes.
Restoring these ecosystems is therefore not only an environmental imperative, but also a strategy for reducing climate risk and strengthening socio-economic resilience. Restoration efforts that focus only on technical measures or standardised models often fail to deliver lasting results. Sustainable recovery depends on restoring ecological functions while reinforcing livelihoods, institutions, and long-term land management systems. Nature-based Solutions integrate these dimensions through scientific evidence, community knowledge, and continuous learning.
How I-CAN Implements the NbS Approach
Nature-based Solutions are actions to protect, restore, and sustainably manage ecosystems in ways that benefit both people and nature. At I-CAN, NbS is applied as an integrated approach that connects scientific evidence, community knowledge and long-term landscape management.
Working closely with local communities and partners, I-CAN focuses on restoring ecosystem functions while supporting sustainable livelihoods.
- In peatlands, this includes rewetting soils to raise water tables, replanting with native peatland species, and introducing peat-compatible agroforestry systems that reduce fire risk while generating income.
- In mangrove ecosystems, NbS emphasizes restoring natural hydrology and ecological processes, including rewetting of the soils, replanting on plots and applying social agroforestry.
Drawing on applied research from IPB University and field experience across Indonesia, I-CAN’s approach recognises that long-term ecosystem resilience depends on restoring hydrology, recovering vegetation, and aligning restoration with local economic realities and community priorities.
Our Living Laboratories
I-CAN implements NbS through Living Laboratories in Jambi and Lampung, including peatland restoration sites in Jambi and a mangrove restoration site in Lampung. These Living Labs function as real-world learning spaces where restoration approaches are co-developed with communities, tested on the ground, and refined over time.
Rather than applying a fixed model, Living Laboratories allow practitioners, researchers, and community members to observe what works, adapt interventions, and openly document successes and failures. Evidence generated from these sites informs improved restoration design, builds local capacity, and supports knowledge sharing that feeds into ongoing initiatives, planning processes, and policy implementation at district and provincial levels.
To provide a comprehensive overview of how these Living Laboratories operate in practice, access our publication “I-CAN Living Laboratory: Advancing Applied Nature-based Solutions Across Indonesia.” The publication documents restoration approaches in peatland and mangrove landscapes, outlines the collaborative framework applied across sites, and shares field-based insights on hydrological restoration, agroforestry development, community institution strengthening, and adaptive management.
Ecological Dependence of Nature-based Solutions
Effective Nature-based Solutions are not one-size-fits-all. Restoration strategies must respond to the ecological and social conditions of each site.
In peatlands, effective restoration begins with understanding peat depth, hydrology, vegetation, and local livelihood needs. Experience across Indonesia shows that success depends on landscape-scale water management, coordination among restoration actors, and attention to land tenure, governance capacity, and community use of peat hydrological units. Where these factors are ignored, restoration risks failure through poor water control, recurring fires, and weak institutional alignment. By contrast, approaches that combine sound biophysical assessment with community participation, adaptive management, and cross-sector collaboration are more likely to achieve lasting ecological recovery and socio-economic benefits (Lestari et al., 2024).
In mangrove ecosystems, this means prioritising the restoration of tidal hydrology, sediment dynamics, and elevation conditions that enable mangroves to regenerate naturally. Evidence shows that planting alone often fails when these underlying processes remain disrupted, whereas re-establishing water flow and allowing space for natural coastal processes can trigger recovery with minimal intervention. Replanting may play a complementary role where seed sources are limited or recovery needs to be accelerated, but only after habitat conditions are restored. This process-based approach recognises that durable mangrove restoration depends on working with natural systems and local context, rather than imposing uniform solutions across diverse landscapes (Winterwerp et al., 2025).
Targeting context-specific challenges, NbS is used to restore and create a future of sustainable ecosystems. By grounding NbS in site-specific ecological data and community knowledge, I-CAN supports restoration pathways that are environmentally sound, socially inclusive, and sustainable over the long term, ensuring that restoration addresses both ecosystem recovery and human well-being.
References:
Arifanti, V. B., Basyuni, M., Suharti, S., Slamet, B., Karlina, E., Sidik, F., … Ali, H. M. (2025). Assessing the Environmental and Socioeconomic Impacts of Mangrove Loss in Indonesia: A Synthesis for Science-Based Policy. Forest Science and Technology, 21(4), 430–446. https://doi.org/10.1080/21580103.2025.2536595
IUCN. (2024). Nature-based Solutions. IUCN. https://iucn.org/our-work/nature-based-solutions
Lestari, N.S., Rochmayanto, Y., Salminah, M., Novita, N., Asyhari, A., Gangga, A., Ritonga, R., Yeo, S. and Albar, I. (2024), Opportunities and risk management of peat restoration in Indonesia: lessons learned from peat restoration actors. Restor Ecol, 32: e14054. https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.14054
, , , et al. Degradation of Southeast Asian tropical peatlands and integrated strategies for their better management and restoration. J Appl Ecol. 2021; 58: 1370–1387. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13905
