Andrea Rawluk

Introduction: We examined how tropical peatland restoration initiatives have evolved over 25 years, particularly in their approach to livelihood contributions and women's participation. Objectives: Using the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF), we analyze the peatland‐restoration initiatives based on project documents, examining their short‐ and long‐term contributions to livelihood capitals and the extent to which women's participation was considered in livelihood‐supporting activities. Methods: We reviewed the gray and academic literature documenting livelihood‐supporting interventions associated with peatland restoration conducted between 2000 and 2024 in three villages in the Kapuas district, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. These degraded peatlands—part of the former Mega Rice Project—have high carbon sequestration potential and biodiversity values. Project interventions were disaggregated into site‐specific livelihood activities and assessed based on their intended contributions to SLF capitals. These findings were complemented by primary household census data to understand livelihood conditions and project participation. Results: Over two decades, restoration efforts in three villages in Kapuas District, as described in project documents, have evolved from infrastructure‐based peatland rehabilitation projects and basic livelihood support (2002–2013) to more diversified, community‐based, and livelihood‐oriented activities, and, although uneven, somewhat more gender inclusive activities (2014–2024). Yet despite decades of intervention, our household census data indicate that livelihoods are increasingly shifting away from forest‐ and agriculture‐based livelihoods toward precarious extractive and other non‐farm forms of income generation. This reveals the challenges of a degraded socio‐ecological system in which externally driven peatland degradation has narrowed local livelihood opportunities, yet restoration efforts have not reached all social groups to fulfill their local livelihood needs, to support sustainable livelihoods. Conclusions: Effective peatland restoration requires integrated approaches that strengthen multiple livelihood capitals, ensure equitable access to benefits, and account for the temporal and cultural dimensions of livelihood change to support effective and resilient social and ecological outcomes.

People and Nature is a ‘journal of relational thinking’. This editorial explores what relational thinking can mean and how it might be operationalized in the context of humans and the environment. Relational thinking may seem intuitive because it recognizes the world's inherent interconnectedness. However, the question of how to operationalize relational thinking in social‐ecological research is rich and multifaceted. This is because doing research that embraces and advances relational thinking can be complex, particularly when research expands beyond social science to human–nature relationships with diverse organisms and ecological systems. This editorial offers one synthesis of existing work on relational thinking and outlines practical suggestions for how to recognize and implement deeper relationality in research. It synthesizes nine themes that can offer guidance for researchers who aim to clarify and strengthen how their research employs and advances relational thinking.

Within a context of pronounced attention towards urban greening, the inclusion of food‐producing trees (FPT) in the public realm remains a marginal practice. In this paper, we consider why this may be the case. Building on recent scholarship investigating more‐than‐human care infrastructure (Alam & Houston, 2020; Power & Williams, 2020; Power & Mee, 2020), we consider the socio‐material relations that enable (and limit) care of, and by, FPT in the urban context. To do so, we draw on document analysis and interviews with council staff in metropolitan Melbourne to unpack how FPT come to be understood as offering and deserving of care (or not), and how such characterisations impact if, and how, FPT come to be ‘welcome’ in urban public places. Our analysis, first, highlights dominant ways in which urban trees are understood through local government strategy and policy, and how an orientation towards (care‐through) canopy works to exclude FPT. Second, we explore competing valuations of FPT and their capacity to contribute to sustainable cities. Across these accounts, FPT care and belonging remains ambiguous and contested. Third, we examine actual and imagined relations of FPT care and belonging, and how these work with but also remain limited by, dominant strategic directions and norms. Based on this analysis, we find that while an openness to FPT in council documentation is a significant step in enabling FPT inclusions, it is also necessary to recognise and value extant and/or potential care relations among people and FPT.

The Indonesian government has scaled up its devolution of forest management to local communities in the form of social forestry, with the aim of improving forest management while delivering nature‐based well‐being (including livelihood) benefits for local communities. We investigate the varied well‐being impacts of social forestry management rights—an expression of human–nature relationships—and how these are distributed among different social groups in Indonesia. In a study conducted in four different village locations with social forestry management right permits in Indonesia, we employed a mixed methods approach comprising interviews (semi‐structured and life story) (n = 80), focus group discussions (in‐person and online) (n = 44) and a survey of 100 households in each site (n = 400). We identified local conceptualizations of, and priorities for, well‐being. Our findings indicate that access to land and livelihood capitals that support productive and diverse livelihoods is central to well‐being. Good social relations are crucial for securing and utilising land to sustain a livelihood, and in turn, to achieve a good life. Material and social elements underpin other interconnected well‐being dimensions, including being able to perform religious pilgrimages, contribute to cultural and spiritual practices and provide security for one's children's future. Further, we found that social forestry secured land access, improved access to agricultural inputs and information, and diversified livelihoods of those who knew they were involved in social forestry—aligning particularly with material well‐being priorities valued locally. However, disparities in access to information meant that most villagers (67%) in areas granted social forestry permits knew little about the scheme. Active social forestry participants were from more well‐off households, while many less privileged people faced exclusions to participation and benefits. Unclear institutional processes, exclusionary enrolment practices and limited access to information hindered social forestry's potential to contribute to well‐being more broadly, risking increasing social inequalities locally. Policy implications: Our findings suggest the need for measures to ensure well‐being benefits from social forestry are distributed equitably. This is essential to avoid exacerbating social inequalities and to foster greater support for forest protection. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Indonesia's tropical peatlands are crucial global carbon stores but have been heavily degraded in recent decades. We present seven principles for equitable and resilient tropical peatland restoration in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, host to 19% of Indonesia's tropical peatland area, where local livelihoods, cultural practices, and indigenous social relations remain closely connected. Our collaborative methods employed a Delphi survey and focus group discussions with researchers from various disciplines to develop a shared vision for restoration. This vision served as a boundary object during interviews with diverse stakeholders involved in peatland restoration in Central Kalimantan, allowing for refinement and adaptation of the vision and the development of principles to achieve it. The principles emphasize inclusive and collaborative decision‐making, planning, and implementation; site‐specific approaches adapted to local social and ecological conditions; and ensuring the informed consent of and fair benefit distribution to all local social groups. They also emphasize a holistic, integrated, and long‐term approach to restoration that considers multiple aspects, including hydrological function, vegetation regeneration, fire prevention, locally appropriate livelihood benefits, inclusive governance, and adaptive management practices. These principles serve as a starting point for resilience‐oriented social‐ecological restoration practice and policy formulation, aiming to facilitate equitable, effective, and resilient tropical peatland restoration outcomes.

Tropical peatlands in Indonesia have attracted international and domestic attention and concern in recent decades. Indonesian peatlands provide globally significant climate regulation and biodiversity provisioning ecosystem services and are central to the lives of local communities, yet they have undergone significant degradation via drainage and fire. There is a growing call for scientific knowledge of the social, environmental and practice dimensions of peatland restoration in Indonesia. This Special Volume of Mires and Peat is a collaborative effort by an Indonesian and Australian team of biophysical and social scientists to showcase primary research and systematic reviews that engage with the complexity of tropical peatland fire, conservation and restoration in Indonesia. We explore lives above ground (people and plants) and below ground (microbes, plants and the dynamic peat itself) and identify the following four themes that cut across the individual articles: 1) Livelihoods and land use; 2) Community engagement; 3) Bringing together multiple knowledges; and 4) Carbon; and draw out globally applicable lessons. We suggest that these themes highlight future directions for research which engage with the complexity of tropical peatland restoration in Indonesia, while centring the voices of local communities to support equity and sustainability in the transition to rewet peatlands.