Andika Putraditama

And in this case, the more they use palm oil, the more they have to contribute to this RIMBA collective fund.

And it allows us to have this scalable, large-scale, long-term financing, but it also introduces this sense of shared responsibility and proportionate responsibility across the supply chain.

And our aim is to be able to deliver the conservations of around half a million hectares of forest in Southeast Asia over the next 25 years.

while also providing local livelihood for the communities that depend on it and preserving the habitats of critically endangered species in the forest area.

And RIMBA Collective is not just a concept.

So we've been doing this for three years now, and we're now actively financing around 220,000 hectares of forest in Southeast Asia.

But it is not without its challenge.

Finding a good

infestable forest conservation project is challenging.

The first thing that you need to do is to identify forests that already have land management rights, at least over the next 20 years.

Because we want to ensure that any kind of interventions, any kind of investments that we made to protect the forests can sustain over the long term.

The second challenge is that some of these forests are located in a really remote location.

I happened to visit one of our projects that is considered as accessible in the western coast of Sumatra, and it took me two-hour flights to get to the province from the capital of Jakarta, and then another 12-hour car ride just to arrive to the village, and then another full day's hike just to reach the border of the projects.

Other projects might require us to get on a boat, a full day's boat ride, just to arrive to the village.

Imagine finding good local organizations or local companies who can deliver robust conservation, who knows the landscape, but also able to navigate a complex international certification system.

Not many organizations can do that.

And so we have to build an ecosystem of capable organizations that can deliver these conservations.

Second challenge is on the demand side.

So when we're talking to companies to invest in funds like RIMBA Collective, some of them are still thinking that maybe protections and the restorations of nature is not our responsibility.

Or maybe they think that conservation is cheap.