Smallholder Telecoupling and Climate Governance in Jambi Province, Indonesia

Abstract

Current debates on climate change have led to an increased demand for sustainable commodities. Serving this demand, sustainability certification schemes and eco-friendly labels have become prominent mechanisms of climate governance. Smallholder farmers in Jambi province, Indonesia, producing palm oil and rubber as the two dominant smallholder crops, are impacted by this distal demand. Zimmerer et al. (2018) suggest analyzing the potential sustainability in such a context with the multilevel smallholder telecoupling framework. Applying this framework to case studies from Jambi province, our first case reveals that smallholder certification for so-called sustainable palm oil does not necessarily influence smallholder towards more sustainable management practices. One explanation might be a discrepancy in sustainability perception between sender and receiver systems. The second case is the setup of an allegedly eco-friendly rubber plantation. The establishment of this model plantation is implemented by a transnational corporation in collaboration with a nature conservation organization, impacting the access to land for adjacent smallholders. The struggle over access to land is not only negotiated between smallholders and the corporation producing “eco-friendly” rubber but also between smallholders and big land mammals lacking access to land since the rubber plantation began to be established. We argue that the concept of sustainability as demanded by the receiving system does not mirror management practices in the sending system, even though the products reach the Global North as supposedly socially and climate-friendly. The smallholder telecoupling framework is helpful for assessing potential sustainability but can be expanded towards conflictive spillovers, second order effects, and a mismatch in sustainability perceptions in order to draw a more comprehensive picture.

Environmental, Economic, and Social Consequences of the Oil Palm Boom

“…Another problem is that the schemes are not yet sufficiently smallholder inclusive (Garrett et al 2016). Smallholders producing under contract with large palm oil companies can be certified more easily, but independent smallholders often lack land titles, information, and training on specific management practices, which are important preconditions for certification (Brandi et al 2015, Kunz et al 2019). These problems can be addressed through improvements in design and implementation.…”

Sustainable Palm Oil Certification Scheme Frameworks and Impacts: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Despite plantations being certified, there was no evidence to support sustainability in biodiversity conservation and the reduction of fires [39,41]. A study in Jambi, Indonesia showed that the requirement of good agricultural practices in the RSPO certification does not necessarily influence smallholders to uphold management practices for increased sustainability [42]. However, based on research in Colombia, evidence of enhanced environmental practices was found amongst certified producers at the farm level, including the substitution of synthetic fertilizers with organic.…”

“…From a social perspective, the adoption and impact of certification on smallholders from various aspects including livelihood, management, compliance with certification and agricultural practices, has been widely explored [32,41,42,[45][46][47]. The impact of the RSPO on smallholders has been studied by Hutabarat et al, [32], Brandi et al [45], Hidayat et al [48] and Hidayat et al [49].…”

Deconstructing sustainable rubber production: contesting narratives in rural Sumatra

“…The province hosts two privately managed ERCs and three REDD+ projects involving NGOs (Hein, 2019). The RSPO has certified companies and smallholders managing oil palm plantations in the province (Brandi et al, 2015;Kunz et al, 2019). However, recent studies indicate that sustainability certification has not led to significant changes in land management (Kunz et al, 2019) and the privately managed ecosystem restoration initiatives and REDD+ projects are highly contested (Hein, Adiwibowo, Dittrich, Soetarto, & Faust, 2016;Hein, Faust, Kunz, & Mardiana, 2018;Kunz, Hein, Mardiana, & Faust, 2016).…”