Regional Forest Ecosystem Management Centres: PERMENHUT 9/2026

The Minister of Forestry has amended Ministerial Regulation Number 1 of 2024 on the Organisation and Work Procedures of the Ministry of Forestry. Regulation Number 9 of 2026, signed in Jakarta on 13 July 2026, adds a new tier to the ministry's structure: a network of Forest Ecosystem Management Centres, each responsible for one type of forest ecosystem within a defined regional working area. The amendment is organisational. It creates offices, assigns their tasks and functions, and maps their working areas, but it does not impose new obligations on permit holders or the public.

Issue

The preamble states the purpose directly. The ministry considers that forest ecosystems should be managed in an integrated and effective manner to improve the quality of forestry governance, and that this requires Forest Ecosystem Management Centres within the ministry. The preamble also records that the formation of these centres received written approval from the Minister of State Apparatus Empowerment and Bureaucratic Reform, which is the standard precondition for any change to a ministry's organisational chart. The legal basis cited includes Pasal 17 paragraph (3) of the 1945 Constitution, the State Ministries Law as amended in 2024, Presidential Regulation Number 175 of 2024 on the Ministry of Forestry, and the 2024 organisation regulation being amended.

Key Provisions

The amendment works in three moves. First, it revises paragraph (2) of Pasal 7 so that the ministry's organisational chart is replaced by a new Annex I. Second, it inserts a new Chapter XVIIIA between Chapters XVIII and XIX, containing nine parts and 105 articles numbered Pasal 533A through Pasal 533DA. Third, it replaces the annex of the 2024 regulation with the new annexes.

Pasal 533A sets the institutional position of the centres. They are supporting units that sit under, and report to, the Minister through the Secretary-General, and each is led by a Head of Centre. The same article lists eight ecosystem types: swamp and heath forest; monsoon forest; mountain forest; tropical rain forest; mangrove and coastal forest; savanna forest; Wallacea forest; and lowland and dipterocarp forest.

Each type is then divided into regional centres. Pasal 533B creates five swamp and heath forest centres, located in Pekanbaru, Pangkal Pinang, Jambi, Palembang and Banjarbaru. Pasal 533O creates two monsoon forest centres, in Yogyakarta and Sidoarjo. Pasal 533AB creates eight mountain forest centres, in Banda Aceh, Medan, Padang, Bandar Lampung, Bandung, Bogor, Ternate and Nabire. Pasal 533AO creates six tropical rain forest centres, in Bengkulu, Mataram, Palangka Raya, Ambon, Manokwari and Jayapura. Pasal 533BB creates four mangrove and coastal forest centres, in Tanjung Pinang, Denpasar, Tanjung Selor and Sorong, and Pasal 533BO creates two savanna forest centres, in Kupang and Merauke. Annex II adds six Wallacea centres across the Sulawesi provinces and two lowland and dipterocarp centres in Pontianak and Samarinda. In total the regulation establishes 35 regional offices.

The internal design of each centre is uniform. Using the swamp and heath forest centres as the template, Pasal 533C assigns the task of coordinating, synchronising and monitoring policies, programmes and activities for that ecosystem at regional level. Pasal 533D lists eight functions, running from preparing the centre's plan, programme and budget, through coordination and synchronisation of ecosystem programmes, policy recommendations, data and information management, and monitoring and evaluation, to the centre's own administration. Pasal 533E sets the composition: a General Affairs and Administration Section, an Ecosystem Planning Division, an Ecosystem Monitoring Division, and functional and implementing positions. Pasal 533I and Pasal 533L give the planning and monitoring divisions their respective tasks, and both divisions carry a function of handling or reporting forestry issues that cut across technical implementation units in their working area. The same pattern repeats for every ecosystem type.

Implications

Annex II defines each centre's working area by river basin rather than by administrative boundary alone. The Riau swamp centre covers forest ecosystems in the Indragiri and Rokan basins; the Central Java monsoon centre, based in Yogyakarta, covers the Serayu Opak Progo, Pemali Jratun and Bodri basins in Central Java and Yogyakarta; and the Banten mountain centre, based in Bogor, covers the Ciliwung and Citarum basins in Jakarta and Banten. Several centres also span more than one province, such as the East Kalimantan lowland centre, which covers basins in East and North Kalimantan. For agencies and communities that deal with the ministry on a watershed basis, the centres become a new regional point of coordination alongside existing technical units. The ministry's other 2026 instruments, including its national forestry plan update and its records management system, operate within the same organisational framework that this amendment extends. Staff placed in the new units are likewise covered by the ministry's performance allowance rules.

Regulatory Context

Pasal II provides that the regulation enters into force on the date of its promulgation. The instrument is one of a series of organisational and programme regulations issued by the Ministry of Forestry in 2026, and it builds on the ministry structure set by Presidential Regulation Number 175 of 2024. The detailed organisational charts for every centre are set out in Annex I, and the names, seats and working areas are set out in Annex II.

Read the full regulation in the BPK legal database.

Methodology: This memo summarises the official regulation text and is not legal advice; report corrections to contact@crpg.id.

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