BANGKOK, October 9, 2026: Indonesia’s climate transition will depend not only on national policy or large-scale finance, but on whether local districts can build economic models that allow communities to improve their livelihoods while protecting the forests, watersheds and natural resources on which those livelihoods ultimately depend, according to Ristika Putri Istanti, Head of the LTKL Secretariat.
Speaking to CarbonWire for the Climate Dialogues series on the sidelines of Bangkok Climate Action Week 2026, Istanti said LTKL’s work is centred on a fundamental development paradox facing resource-rich regions across Indonesia: districts often possess significant natural wealth, yet local communities do not necessarily experience corresponding improvements in welfare, while extractive economic models can progressively weaken the ecosystems on which future prosperity depends.
LTKL currently works with nine districts across Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi, with the goal of helping local economies transition towards models that protect important ecosystems while creating viable opportunities for communities. Its 2030 ambition, Istanti said, is to demonstrate pathways through which districts can protect around half of their forest areas while improving the welfare of people living close to those ecosystems.
At the heart of that effort is a shift away from treating climate action as a series of isolated projects towards creating local economic systems that can continue functioning after individual programmes, grants or interventions come to an end.
Beyond project-based climate intervention
Istanti was clear that LTKL does not see itself as an implementer in the conventional sense. Instead, it acts as an ecosystem builder and enabler, bringing together government, businesses, communities, researchers, financial institutions and other partners around proof-of-concept models that can eventually operate independently.
That distinction matters because one of the recurring weaknesses of development and climate programmes, in her view, is that they often perform well while external funding, consultants or project teams remain in place, but lose momentum when the programme formally ends.
“We want to break the silo about the project-based approach,” Istanti said. “After the project is coming, everything is going well. But after the project ended, everything is ended.”
LTKL therefore begins by examining what the wider system requires rather than simply identifying a project to finance.
Its proof-of-concept approach considers several interconnected components, including land-use management, community readiness, local institutions, research and innovation, enterprise development and access to finance. It also seeks to bring private-sector buyers, researchers and other partners into the same process, using data and local knowledge to develop models capable of surviving beyond the initial intervention.
The ultimate objective is to turn these lessons into a broader blueprint for what a sustainable district could look like by 2030.
The economic model behind environmental degradation
The need for such systemic change becomes particularly visible in West Kalimantan, where LTKL works with several districts linked to the Kapuas River watershed.
Istanti described how the region has faced drought, forest fires and haze while also experiencing long-term changes in land use associated with extractive industries and monoculture plantations.
“The tragedy of the commons is connected with the economic model,” she said, arguing that local economies can become heavily dependent on industries that generate income in the short term but leave communities and ecosystems increasingly exposed to climate and environmental risk.
The challenge, therefore, is not simply to tell districts to reduce extraction or protect more land. They need alternative sources of income that can compete economically with existing models.
This is where LTKL’s work increasingly focuses on building nature-based local enterprises capable of linking conservation with jobs, value-added production and market demand.
From watershed protection to local enterprise
Istanti highlighted an emerging aquaculture model in West Kalimantan as one example.
The initiative is being developed across three districts connected to the watershed and brings together young entrepreneurs, research and development companies, incubators and training centres.
One of the products involves snakehead fish, which is processed to extract albumin and then developed into nutritional products, including biscuits intended for health and stunting-related applications. The products have begun entering local markets through cafés, restaurants and hotels.
The significance of the example lies less in the product itself than in the system being built around it.
Rather than extracting a raw resource and sending value elsewhere, the model seeks to create local processing, entrepreneurship, knowledge, jobs and market linkages, while tying economic activity to the health of the watershed.
Istanti said several such products are now being developed and that lessons from the district-level model have begun influencing policy at the provincial level. West Kalimantan has 14 districts, and the provincial government is considering how nature-based product models tested in LTKL member districts could be adopted more broadly.
That is precisely the type of progression LTKL is seeking: start with a proof of concept, strengthen the local enterprise and institutional system, connect it to policy, and then create the conditions for replication.
Economic transformation must retain local identity
Istanti emphasised, however, that sustainable enterprise cannot simply be imported into a district as an external business model.
“The economic must be connected with their identity,” she said, adding that social and cultural context needs to remain fundamental to the process.
This becomes especially important in rural areas where economic activity, culture, land and community relationships are closely intertwined.
A technically sound climate solution may still fail if it does not fit local aspirations, institutions or ways of working.
For LTKL, this is one reason systems change requires more patience than conventional project delivery. It involves changing relationships and incentives rather than simply introducing technology or funding.
Why systems change is difficult
The biggest obstacle, Istanti said, is often human rather than technical.
Governments, civil society organisations, businesses and younger generations can approach the same issue from very different perspectives, while leadership changes and political cycles can disrupt long-term plans.
Local administrations can change substantially every five years, bringing new priorities and regulations. At the same time, many young people leave districts after completing school because they believe better employment and career opportunities exist in major cities.
Both factors make continuity difficult.
“If we talk about system change, not many people understand how to create the system or how to leverage the system,” Istanti said. LTKL’s role, she added, is to identify leverage points that allow the system eventually to work independently.
Her benchmark is demanding: if a local economic model continues to depend permanently on an external enabler, then the transformation is not complete.
That also requires climate practitioners to question their own approaches. Istanti pointed to the persistence of forest fires despite decades of interventions as evidence that responsibility cannot simply be assigned to government.
The wider ecosystem of practitioners, businesses and organisations also needs to ask whether past interventions have addressed the system itself or merely treated its symptoms.
Young people as the “movers and shakers”
One of the more hopeful elements of LTKL’s experience has been the growing role of young people in district economies.
Istanti said the organisation initially worked primarily with local governments and civil society organisations but gradually realised that lasting transformation required engagement with local “movers and shakers”, many of whom are younger people.
The challenge was to give them the imagination to see a future in their own districts rather than assuming that success required moving permanently to a major city.
That required a different engagement model.
Young people in Jakarta or another major urban centre may have very different ambitions and experiences from young people living in rural districts, Istanti noted, meaning programmes have to reflect local identity and circumstances rather than apply a generic youth entrepreneurship template.
Across LTKL’s nine member districts, she said, a growing number of young people are now remaining locally and finding roles as entrepreneurs, conveners, community leaders and government officials.
That shift could prove critical because sustainable district economies will ultimately require a new generation capable of connecting local knowledge with markets, technology, finance and policy.
A different model of climate transition
The broader significance of LTKL’s work is that it challenges a common assumption about climate and development: that environmental protection and economic growth necessarily sit on opposite sides of the equation.
Istanti’s argument is that the real challenge is to redesign the economic system so that preserving forests, watersheds and biodiversity becomes compatible with creating local income.
For Indonesia’s districts, that means moving beyond conservation projects that exist separately from the economy and building businesses, institutions and policies that make ecological protection part of the economy itself.
The West Kalimantan example is still a proof of concept rather than a finished model, but that is precisely the point.
LTKL’s approach is deliberately iterative. Some ideas will work, others will fail, but the learning needs to remain within the system so that subsequent interventions become stronger.
By 2030, the organisation hopes those accumulated lessons can form a blueprint for sustainable districts capable of protecting significant areas of forest while generating better livelihoods.
For climate action across Southeast Asia, the principle may have wider relevance.
The region does not simply need more climate projects. It needs local economies that can continue delivering environmental and social value after the projects have gone home.