Local Voices Lead the Way: 10 Lessons Learned From the Field
29 Sep 2025 - Stories From the Field
We may be only 5 years into the 30-year Rimba Collective project, but already positive developments are emerging from the field. From patrol teams and forest rangers to farmers, biodiversity experts and educators, the message is clear: collaboration with the Rimba Collective offers a pathway to progress at scale.
In the landmark tenth edition of our Stories From the Field series, we take a moment to pause and reflect on this progress, providing snapshots from the five projects within the portfolio that have been the subject of documentary visits this year, along with 10 lessons learned from the series so far.
1. Long-term Partnerships are Rare
Many of the communities contacted through this documentary series share a common experience – they have been stung before by short-term partnerships, which ended as soon as the money ran out. Rebuilding trust is therefore essential. Pak Didimus is the head of a village forestry management unit (LPHD) in Tamao Village, West Kalimantan. He put it like this: “without trust, there is no communication; and without communication, there is no progress.”
The strength of the Rimba Collective's approach lies in its long-term vision, its equitable partnership model and its faith in the people who live in and around the forests themselves. Working to a 30-year timeframe, these communities are able to achieve lasting impact at scale. Most importantly, through long-term partnerships with project operators, the Rimba Collective have entrusted these communities to follow their own path.
Read More: Community-led Nature Restoration in West Kalimantan
2. Where Communities Collaborate, Nature Bounces Back
In West Kalimantan, peatland fires on the borders of forests are still clearly visible in the landscape, but so too are signs of progress. With funding support from the Rimba Collective, Tropenbos Indonesia has begun a programme of canal blocking which has inundated the landscape, preventing the peat soils from drying out and making them less vulnerable to fire. When a new fire started in June 2024, a new fire prevention team made up of local community members sprang into action, putting out the flames before they spread into the neighbouring forest.
In areas where the canal blocking has been implemented, monitoring teams in Ketapang District have reported high animal and plant biodiversity. Sightings include orangutans, bears, clouded leopards, proboscis monkeys, deer, tarsier and various birds. As Jaspriandi, head of the LPHD for this region explains, “animals find it easier to access drinking water and, in places where fires burnt away plants, we can see them growing back – it’s like the landscape is coming back to life.”
Read More: Stories of Hope and Restoration in West Kalimantan
3. From Founding Partners to Field Teams: Everyone Has Role to Play
Throughout the Rimba Collective portfolio, local NGOs, communities and implementing partners are working together to deliver lasting, verifiable benefits across the board, from nature conservation to community empowerment, reforestation and supply chain resilience. This ‘bundling of units’ enables us to take a holistic approach to landscape management, recognising the interconnectedness of conservation, restoration and livelihoods.
Through our collaboration with BITRA Indonesia and the Jambo Papeun Village project in Aceh, Sumatra, we’ve been able to demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach, and the myriad benefits it can offer to conservation, communities and corporate interests. “One of the reasons we were attracted to the Rimba Collective,” explained one of our founding partners during a visit to the project in April 2025, “was the potential to achieve multiple impacts, rather than focusing exclusively on one area. The Rimba Collective brings industry, NGOs, communities and individuals together, and everyone has a different but equally vital role to play.”
Read More: P&G Visits Community-led Project in Sumatra
4. Local Knowledge is Key to Understanding the Drivers of Deforestation
In rural areas all over Indonesia, forest boundaries are being pushed back by slash-and-burn. In many places, this land clearance is not due to expansion, but rather the replacement of existing crops; a knee-jerk response to fluctuations in the prices of agricultural commodities. “The issue is one of short-sightedness,” explains 26-year-old Andi Sudirja; a dedicated farmer and member of an LPHD supported by SATUNAMA in Jambi, Sumatra. “When cinnamon prices go up, people plant cinnamon; when coffee goes up, they switch to coffee; as a result, nothing gets looked after properly and they don’t get good yields because there’s no long-term focus.”
Through his work in the LPHD, Andi is already sharing workable multi-cropping solutions with his neighbours and helping them to create long-term plans for their lands. Here, and throughout the project portfolio in Indonesia, Rimba Collective project partners are helping farmers to follow a path that prioritises regular, sustainable yields over short-term gains; nature preservation over exploitation; and livelihoods rooted in steady growth.
5. New Livelihoods Can Be the Catalyst for Women’s Empowerment
A key component of the Rimba Collective approach is empowering women to become financially independent, more active in decision-making processes and more engaged in conservation activities. The establishment of social forestry business groups (KUPS) by projects puts a strong emphasis on women’s leadership. One example among many is a women’s collective growing medicinal plants in the village of Semuntai in East Kalimantan – since being established in January 2023, this group of 15 horticulturalists has received seeds, a greenhouse and an electric oven to kick-start their business. With funding from the Rimba Collective, KBCF continues to support their growth through regular mentoring and skills development.
“This group is opening doors for women,” explains Ibu Tutik Januarti, the group’s leader. “Most of the women here used to stay at home,” she says, “they only knew how to wash clothes, cook and take care of their children; but after they joined the KUPS, they found a community they can be a part of, and a profession that can help them develop their skills and achieve economic independence.” It is this emphasis on collective learning that Tutik prizes most highly. As she puts it, “knowledge is more valuable than money.”
Read More: Empowering Women and Developing Sustainable Livelihoods
6. Man-made Problems Require Nature-based Solutions
In Aceh, nutmeg farmers have firsthand experience of how environmental degradation can lead to financial hardship. The loss of one local bird – the white-rumped shama (Copsychus malabaricus) – to the pet trade has had a cascading effect; without its natural predator, a beetle grub (Batocera hercules) has bored its way through the region’s nutmeg plantations, destabilising livelihoods that for generations had depended on natural balance.
In response, the Rimba Collective has partnered with BITRA Indonesia to establish a field school for nutmeg farmers and, for those who wish to transition into new commodities, KUPS groups focused on rattan, durian and patchouli. At the same time, BITRA is developing a programme to raise awareness and return the missing birds back to the wild – restoring balance to the ecosystem through nature-based solutions. “When we preserve the environment,” said one local farmer, "we also safeguard our livelihoods.”
Read More: Song of the Forest: Restoring Harmony With Nature in Sumatra
7. Forest Health and Community Wealth are Entwined
“A healthy forest means healthy bees and healthy communities,” says Yuliana, member of a beekeeping KUPS supported by BKT II in West Kalimantan. “If the forest is damaged, the bees suffer, and so do we; protecting the environment is crucial; If we invest in this now, it can provide a reliable source of income for our children and grandchildren.”
One of the most effective ways to reduce pressure on the forest is to create employment opportunities in forest-frontier communities, while also improving access to healthcare and education. By channelling Rimba Collective funding into these activities, project operators are helping remote communities like Yuliana’s to move away from destructive extraction of forest resources and into sustainable, long-term solutions that connect ecosystem health to economic wellbeing in the community.
Read More: Connecting Forest Healthy to Business Wealth in West Kalimantan
8. Moving Beyond CSR, Partnerships are the Future
In the Merangin District of Sumatra’s Jambi Province, Rimba Collective funding has enabled local NGO SATUNAMA to strengthen community-led forest management institutions through capacity building for village governance. Here, improved reporting and enforcement is also helping to protect the forest from illegal mining and logging operations, while the creation of new fire prevention strategies and patrol teams is protecting community forests from fires associated with land clearance.
Key to this approach has been close collaboration with local people. SATUNAMA is taking a patient, stepwise approach to ensure the needs of rural communities are clearly identified, then addressed by activities that are co-designed and implemented by the people themselves. As one farmer said recently, “I have seen that this programme is a joint effort, and it comes from within the community. We don’t want a gift – that’s not what it’s about – it’s about collaboration; I hope the support is long-term, because real change takes time.”
9. Scalable Solutions, From Root to Branch
Arguably one of the most positive aspects of the Rimba Collective impact model is its scalability. From project selection through to needs assessments, work plans, implementation, monitoring and reporting on results, the framework can be adapted to fit a range of landscapes, livelihoods and cultural contexts. This gives the Rimba Collective the ability to achieve lasting impact at scale, but it also creates networks of interconnected communities at ground level, united by a common cause and connected by shared experiences.
“The most positive impact I’ve seen so far is we can communicate more directly and more effectively within the community,” explains Supardi, Human Resources Coordinator at the LPHD for Pematang Gadung in West Kalimantan. “We are also seeing young people becoming interested in beekeeping and fish farming – they are beginning to recognise the health benefits of honey, and the economic rewards activities like beekeeping and aquaculture can bring.” With support from the project operator (in this case Tropenbos), members of these KUPS can access training in entrepreneurship, business development and marketing to build their skills and further the reach of their business activities over time.
Read More: The Power of Long-term Partnerships
10. The Rimba Collective is Already Making a Difference
All over Indonesia, community-led projects established with Rimba Collective funding are working to protect forests, conserve biodiversity and develop sustainable livelihoods. Already, more than 312,000 hectares of forests have been committed to protection and restoration by the 17 projects in the portfolio, and we are well on our way to reach half a million hectares by 2026. Every milestone on this journey is the result of steps being taken by communities working at ground level. Their local knowledge, their commitment – and sometimes, even their scepticism – is what makes the Rimba Collective work and drives it forwards.
Pak Mezron Boaz is head of an LPHD in Karangan Hilir, East Kalimantan. His team split their time between education in the community, forest patrols and biodiversity surveys. In each of these areas, he has seen signs of progress. “We are already seeing positive changes,” he explains, “both in terms of biodiversity and the attitudes of local people towards the forest.” Here and elsewhere, continuous nurturing will be needed if this positive momentum is to be maintained. However, as Pak Mezron explains, “where there is collaboration, there is always hope.”
Read More: The Art of Conservation
You can find all nine instalments of our Stories From the Field series here:
- Story 1: ‘It’s like the landscape is coming back to life’ (Tropenbos Indonesia, West Kalimantan)
- Story 2: The Power of Long-term Partnerships (Tropenbos Indonesia, West Kalimantan)
- Story 3: The Art of Conservation (KBCF, East Kalimantan)
- Story 4: Empowering Women Through Sustainable Livelihoods (KBCF, East Kalimantan)
- Story 5: Song of the Forest (BITRA, North Sumatra)
- Story 6: Commitment in Action (BITRA, North Sumatra)
- Story 7: Everything Flows Into the Community (BKT II, West Kalimantan)
- Story 8: We’re Building It Together (BKT II, West Kalimantan)
- Story 9: From the Ashes (SATUNAMA, Sumatra)
ABOUT THE RIMBA COLLECTIVE
The Rimba Collective is an innovative, long-term collaboration between leading consumer goods manufacturers, NGOs and forest-dependent communities in Southeast Asia. Our aim is to protect landscapes, livelihoods and biodiversity through a portfolio of high-quality conservation and restoration projects. Over the next 25 years and beyond, this approach will achieve lasting, long-term impact at scale, with over 550,000 hectares of rich forest landscapes protected and 32,000 local livelihoods improved.
To find out more, and to join the Rimba Collective, please get in touch.