Spotlight on Leadership

04/12/25

Spotlight on Leadership

Community
•
Story

Suandri, Head of the Kamipang Zone at KMP

Meet Suandri, who has been leading the Kamipang Zone for the Katingan Mentaya Project (KMP) since 2022. His role is central to fostering strong relationships between KMP and the local communities across the region.
In his capacity as Zone Head, Suandri oversees community engagement initiatives: organizing health outreach programs, environmental education, and acting as a bridge between village leaders and KMP’s management. His deep-rooted ties with the community allow the project to deliver social benefits in an inclusive, participatory way. This aligns closely with KMP’s mission of combining climate action, biodiversity protection, and community development.

Beyond community work, Suandri supports the project’s core conservation efforts. He helps supervise restoration of degraded peatland forest, carbon monitoring on the ground, and leads coordination with field teams working on protecting this globally important ecosystem. Importantly, the Kamipang Zone is one of the designated community-managed zones for fire prevention — a key risk in tropical peatlands.

Suandri’s leadership is built on a foundation of experience. He previously served seven years as a village facilitator in the National Program for Independent Community Empowerment, and spent four years with the Puter Indonesia Foundation, an NGO whose values mirror those of KMP, particularly in sustainable development. (id.kmp.catalyze.id)

Under Suandri’s guidance, the Kamipang community not only takes part in conservation, but also in livelihood activities — from fire-management teams to education, health services, and sustainable farming. These efforts contribute to KMP’s triple mission: mitigating climate change, restoring biodiversity, and improving lives for around 45,000 people across 35 villages.

His work illustrates how KMP’s community-driven approach balances ecological integrity with social empowerment — and how local leadership is critical to long-term conservation success.

If you’d like to learn more about Suandri and the rest of the KMP team, please visit the "Our People" page.

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