Kusumadewi, Sonya Dyah

The pressure to create impact continued to emerge as the climate crisis worsened. To this end, various stakeholders, including the Government of Indonesia, set an ambitious target to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions through the restoration of wetlands, mainly mangroves and peatlands, over the last decade. Realizing this pledge calls for broader contributions, which research organizations can play a role in through their participatory action research (PAR). PAR employs the principles of adaptive collaborative management, where activities incur in an iterative process, allowing for corrective measures and open-ended outcomes. We conducted PAR on peatland and mangrove restoration in Riau and South Sumatra Province, Indonesia, in the last six years, focusing on experiential knowledge and co-creation of community-based restoration practices and livelihood transformation on the ground. We underscored the importance of commoning in implementing PAR, as we facilitate the participating community group defined and carried out their shared interests moving forward. Community participation, co-action, leadership, social capital, and local institutions persist to be the key factors driving the success of the intervention, under the umbrella of collective interests generated from the commoning process.