Evaluating mangrove conservation with the land management intervention equation based on selected cases from Indonesia

Mangrove wetlands serve multiple ecological functions, such as carbon sequestration. Yet, at the same time, they are also suffering from poor and non-transparent restoration and preservation management, resulting in unnecessary losses. This article assesses how and where responsible land management can address this problem based on three different cases in Indonesia. It evaluates the cases through the lens of a descriptive and normative land management analytical framework of (de Vries 2021) with the equation form (∆LM = f(∆G, ∆L, ∆S, ∆E, ∆P, ∆B), The goal of the evaluation is to evaluate to how and to which extent major land interventions and mangrove preservation activities could align, and with which particular land management aspects improvements in this relation should start. The findings demonstrate that the alignment should begin with a more comprehensive and systematic pre-evaluation of possible impacts and effects, for all aspects which are changed by the intervention. Relying on a framework of responsible land management could support a better preservation of coastal mangrove areas.