Planet Indonesia

Planet Indonesia is an international non-profit that conserves at-risk ecosystems through village-led partnerships. We utilize a right-based approach to engage locally-led solutions and unlock the potential for Indigenous and rural communities to restore and retain balance within human-nature interdependence. Our journey as an organization began by listening, responding, and adapting to the opportunities and challenges faced by communities in Indonesia. From there, our approach was built upon the values, needs, and aspirations of communities that partner with us to address issues at the social-ecological nexus. We recognized the need for far-sighted solutions that transcended the boundaries of mainstream initiatives that side-lined communities in environmental conservation - acknowledging the future requires a shift towards an inclusive systems based approach. 

We do not limit our work to one ecosystem type, land-use issue, or social group. Rather, we focus on adapting our organization’s Conservation Cooperative Approach to create opportunities and address the needs within the landscapes of the communities that partner with us. We seek to remain agile and adaptive through addressing the underlying drivers and barriers that create imbalance between people and nature. Our founding team saw it was imperative to shift conservation from a symptomatic reactive model towards an inclusive proactive approach that positions communities behind the wheel in determining their social-ecological trajectory. 

Planet Indonesia consists of a US based non-profit organization (Planet Indonesia - USA) and Indonesian-based (Yayasan Planet Indonesia) non-profit. The mission, vision, and values are fluid between the two. This manual represents years of working alongside communities in Indonesia as well as decades of combined experience from our teams and partners. It is a living document, intended to help practitioners from a variety of backgrounds facilitate more impactful locally-led solutions. We have witnessed firsthand the beauty of collaboration, grassroots movements, and how transformative action via the Conservation Cooperative Approach paves the way for emerging leaders. It is our hope that this toolkit will provide new perspectives, challenge the status quo, and ignite excitement about the potential that community-led approaches offer for our planet.