Sustainable Palm Oil and Landscape Program

Abstract

Palm oil is a commodity with a significant land area development. Thus, raises concerns about its impact on the landscape. This study uses a case study in South Tapanuli, a center of smallholder oil palm plantations with a high conservation value and an action plan for a sustainable palm oil program. This study uses a combination of a desk study of government publications and interviews with key stakeholders. The results show that the sustainable palm oil program can affect landscape sustainability through regional development and spatial plans. The sustainable action plan has altered strategic issues in the regional development plan by focusing on oil palm plantations management in forest areas. However, the strategic issues have has not been followed up by targets and programs. Coordination between the central and regional governments is lacking, and related local government organizations do not fully understand the plan. The annual plan has been completed with sufficiently detailed outputs and thus cannot use it as a reference for evaluating achievement stages. Therefore, although the sustainable palm oil program positively impacts regional planning in South Tapanuli, it still needs to be followed up by operationalization in synergistic programs.