| Financing of Conservation under Decentralized Governance of natural resources |
 A national Conservation District (CD) task force was established by a decree of the Ministry of Home Affairs (TBI is one of the task force members) and has formulated criteria and indicators for the establishment of conservation districts. These criteria have been tested in 6 districts in Kalimantan, Java and Sumatra and 3 of them have formally declared themselves a Conservation District. Although these declarations have not yet convinced the national government to recognize the CD initiative as an important and genuine initiative, the idea of payment for environmental services has provided opportunities to make CDs work in practice. The general challenge is to define sustainable development based on the conservation of natural resources in CDs and create an administrative and financial framework that facilitates implementation. A key condition is deploying mechanisms to compensate districts, private stakeholders and central government for the opportunity cost of forgone unsustainable development, such as conversion to oil palm plantations, timber harvesting and mining. The district government and district population must be able to generate income that helps to improve the economy and wellbeing in the districts.The Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) decision adopted at the UNFCCC COP 13 in Bali is one of the options. Institutions and models will need to be developed to ensure compliance with REDD requirements at the district level. The conservation district model is a potential mechanism, but needs to be further developed. Issues to be addressed are the distribution of benefits between stakeholders and the district and between central and local levels. Some research questions generated in this project are:
Objective Duration Expected outputs Implementing Partners
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