Land use based development projects, such as the Nusantara Food Region (Kawasan Pangan Nusantara or KPN), also known as Food Estate, which is part of the National Strategic Projects (Proyek Strategis Nasional or PSN), should ensure sustainability across economic, social, and environmental dimensions. Besides aiming to boost the regional economy, these projects must be managed in ways that support environmental conservation, protect local biodiversity, safeguard the rights of smallholder farmers, secure the tenure rights of local communities, and prevent potential social conflicts arising from development.
As an innovative solution, these projects must meet various fundamental requirements. The existence of legal frameworks, feasibility studies, administrative permits, funding, and institutional support alone are insufficient. To gain legitimacy from the community, active involvement, meaningful participation, and respect for the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities are essential. Therefore, to guarantee sustainability, a set of social and environmental safeguards is necessary.
These safeguards are designed to ensure that the KPN project as a National Strategic Project is implemented in a socially and environmentally friendly manner. Furthermore, the safeguards also play a role in ensuring that the project delivers tangible positive impacts for the community and environment, including the protection of the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities, and other vulnerable groups. The safeguards in this study are divided into two main aspects: socio economic and environmental, adopting the principles of the Cancun Safeguards and incorporating inputs from discussions and interviews with various stakeholders.
The social safeguards include compliance with regulations, transparency and effective governance, protection of the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, and meaningful participation from all parties. Meanwhile, the environmental safeguards cover principles of natural forest conservation, biodiversity protection, and mitigation of both ecological and non-ecological disasters.
Each principle is elaborated into indicators and verification mechanisms that function to assess and monitor the fulfillment of social, economic, and environmental aspects of the KPN project. It is expected that these social and environmental safeguards will serve as guidelines for oversight, assessment, and evaluation of the social and environmental impacts of the KPN Desa Talaga project implementation by the affected communities, government, civil society, and other stakeholders.
