Enviro News Asia, Jakarta – Mangrove restoration requires the involvement of all stakeholders, including the private sector. The role of the private sector is particularly important, for example through the use of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, as the government’s budget for mangrove rehabilitation is very limited.
The Director of Mangrove Rehabilitation at the Ministry of Forestry, Ristianto Pribadi, stated this during the “Mobilizing the Mangrove Breakthrough in Indonesia” event held in Central Jakarta on Wednesday (April 16, 2025).
Of the approximately 14 million hectares of mangroves worldwide, about 23 percent—or around 3.4 million hectares—are located in Indonesia. Due to the crucial environmental, economic, and social roles mangroves play, the Ministry of Forestry continuously strives to protect and rehabilitate mangrove ecosystems across the country. The rehabilitation efforts follow a “3M” strategy: preserving 2.6 million hectares of mangroves within forest areas, enhancing 120,000 hectares of sparse mangroves, and restoring more than 300,000 hectares of lost mangrove areas.
“In the past five years, around 84,000 hectares of mangroves have been rehabilitated,” said Ristianto Pribadi. However, due to this year’s very limited budget, mangrove rehabilitation cannot proceed as intensively as in previous years. That is why the involvement of other parties is extremely important.
According to the 2024 National Mangrove Map, Indonesia currently has 3,440,464 hectares of mangrove ecosystems. Papua is recorded as having the largest mangrove area, approximately 1.5 million hectares, followed by Kalimantan with 720,000 hectares, Sumatra with 673,000 hectares, and Sulawesi and Maluku with about 375,000 hectares. Meanwhile, the regions of Java, Bali, and Nusa Tenggara have around 100,000 hectares of mangroves.
