Improved Forest Management in Indonesian Concessions

Updated 2026-11-02 · 3 min read · By the akar.earth specialist team

Improved forest management in Indonesia: IFM options for PBPH concessions, reduced-impact logging, logged-to-protected conversion and monitoring.

Improved forest management (IFM) earns credits when a forest manager changes practices so that more carbon stays in the forest than under business-as-usual logging, for example by switching to reduced-impact logging, lowering harvest intensity, or converting a logged forest to protection. In Indonesia, IFM is most relevant to natural forest concessions held under PBPH licences, where carbon can complement or replace timber income.

IFM activity types

IFM is one of the categories in the ICVCM CCP assessment. Check the ICVCM site for which IFM methodologies currently hold CCP approval before choosing.

The Indonesian concession context

Most production forest in Indonesia is state forest estate. Companies hold business licences, now called PBPH (Perizinan Berusaha Pemanfaatan Hutan), which can cover timber, ecosystem restoration and environmental services including carbon under a multi-business approach. See PBPH licences.

Key implications:

• Carbon rights and permissions come through the licence and forestry carbon trading regulations, now including Permenhut 6/2026. See carbon ownership in Indonesia.
• Legal harvest plans (annual and long-term work plans) define what business-as-usual looks like, which is central to the baseline.
• National registration in SRUK and alignment with FOLU Net Sink 2030 apply. See FOLU Net Sink 2030.
• Certification such as FSC or Indonesia’s SVLK legality system already requires some practices, which affects additionality.

Step by step for a concession

1. Review the licence and legal options for carbon activities.
2. Define business-as-usual from approved work plans, historical harvest and regional practice.
3. Choose activity and methodology: full protection, RIL, or a mix by block.
4. Assess additionality: is the change beyond legal requirements and common practice?
5. Inventory the forest with stratified permanent plots. See plot sampling design.
6. For RIL, measure baseline logging impacts: felling damage, skid trail area, haul roads, wood waste.
7. Model leakage: reduced timber supply may shift harvest elsewhere.
8. Assess permanence risk and buffer contribution.
9. Plan monitoring: remote sensing of roads and gaps, field checks of logging impacts, deforestation alerts.

Monitoring logging impacts

Selective logging is hard to see from space; a canopy may look intact while damage underneath is extensive. Combine:

• High-resolution imagery or drone surveys for roads, skid trails and log landings.
• Radar and optical change detection for canopy gaps.
• Field plots measuring damaged and killed trees per tree harvested.
• Harvest records and log tracking.

Combining IFM with other activities

Large concessions often contain different land conditions: intact forest, logged-over forest, degraded patches and open land. A combined design might apply IFM to productive forest, ARR or enrichment planting to degraded areas, and avoided deforestation where conversion threat is real. Verra allows methodologies to be combined within one project in some cases, but each activity must meet its own applicability and accounting rules. Map the concession into activity zones early, and avoid double counting between them.

Timber, carbon and community

Concessions sit within or next to village lands and customary claims. Changes in harvest affect local jobs and revenue sharing. Engage communities and local government on how carbon revenue will be shared and how forest access rules will change. See community engagement.

Common mistakes

• Using a baseline harvest above what the licence or work plan permits.
• Ignoring market leakage from reduced timber output.
• Assuming certification practices are additional when they are already required.
• Under-sampling high-biomass natural forest, leading to uncertainty deductions.
• Weak relations with nearby communities, which threaten permanence.

What good evidence looks like

A VVB expects: the licence and permits; approved work plans and harvest history; baseline justification; inventory data; RIL impact measurements where relevant; leakage analysis; monitoring records with imagery; and evidence of national registration. Buyers will also look for safeguards and community agreements.

Is IFM right for you?

IFM suits concession holders with intact or moderately logged forest, secure licences and willingness to change harvest practice. Where land is degraded, ARR or restoration may fit better; where threat of conversion is high, avoided deforestation approaches may apply. See ARR vs REDD+.

Our carbon strategy service assesses carbon options for concessions. More on the REDD+ hub.