From Product to Place-Spatializing governance in a commodified landscape

Area of Science:

• Environmental Governance
• Spatial Planning
• Agricultural Economics

Background:

• Large-scale commodity landscapes, such as oil palm plantations in Indonesia, present complex governance challenges.
• Existing policies are often sectorally defined, creating barriers to integrated landscape management.
• There is a growing need for innovative approaches to govern these landscapes sustainably.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the potential for landscape governance in Indonesian commodity landscapes.
• To conceptualize landscape governance as the spatialization of governance.
• To examine the emergence of new governance models through practical experimentation.

Main Methods:

• Case study analysis of an oil palm landscape in West Kalimantan, Indonesia.
• Conceptualization of landscape governance integrating natural-spatial conditions, actor constellations, and policy responses.
• Examination of productive bricolage in developing multifunctional concessions.

Main Results:

• A potentially new form of landscape governance is emerging from an ecologically responsible enterprise.
• Multifunctional concessions, integrating diverse land uses, do not align with current sectorally-defined policies.
• Developing new public-private institutional arrangements for multifunctional concessions is challenging due to contrasting discourses and policy frames.

Conclusions:

• The transition from multifunctional concessions to multifunctional landscapes requires intensive stakeholder engagement and policy dialogue.
• Indonesia's decentralization offers opportunities for landscape-level public-private arrangements.
• Successful landscape governance necessitates aligning diverse interests and integrating policy frames for sustainable land use.