The high rate of deforestation and fragmentation of elephant habitat on Sumatra Island has triggered human-elephant conflict (HEC) in Sumatra Island, Indonesia. This conflict brings negative impacts on humans and elephants. Despite numerous efforts having been made to solve this problem, the HEC continues to occur in the remaining elephant enclave every year. The harmonious coexistence between humans and elephants could be improved through HEC mitigation programs. The aim of this paper was to review information on HEC in Sumatra Island, investigate the causes and implications of HEC, review existing HEC mitigation methods, and formulate strategies to improve the harmonious coexistence between humans and elephants. The best strategies to create successful human and elephant coexistence are strengthening the institutions and policies, restoring the habitat, developing wildlife corridors, establishing Essential Ecosystem Areas (EEA), community empowerment through ecotourism, providing legal access to forests through Social Forestry (SF), and providing compensation schemes for conflict victims.

Land cover and land use changes have impacted nearly every form of life on Earth. Batang Toru landscape dominated as a protected area has been experiencing environmental problems due to human activities. The purpose of this study is to analyze land cover changes and land function in Batang Toru Landscape, North Sumatra from 2014 to 2020. We evaluated the changes by using overlay and spatial analysis using the software ArcMap 10.4 and QGIS Las Palmas version. The results of this study showed that during 2014-2020, Batang Toru Landscape covers and functions significantly changed. The areas that experienced the increasing number were agriculture dryland mixed with shrub areas 24,581.70 ha (9.86%), secondary dryland forests 14,439.60 ha (5.80%), paddy areas 3,523.95 ha (1.39%), open areas 1,117.35 ha (0.44%), and industrial forest plantation 429.75 ha (0.18%). Meanwhile, the decreasing areas were dryland agriculture 24,925.49 ha (10.02%), shrubs 17,361.90 ha (6.97%), and primary dryland forest 1,804.95 ha (0.72%). This study can be used as a consideration for the government in managing the landscape to combat the serious environmental problems in Batang Toru.

The highland areas of Semarang City are vulnerable to landslide disasters. This study investigated the governance of Semarang's spatial planning and the factors that influence the mitigation of landslide disasters. We used spatial and descriptive analysis to evaluate the data. This study found that most of the designated housing areas in highland areas of Semarang City are laid on vulnerable landslides. Biophysical factors such as steepness levels of up to 40 percent, volcanic rock formations that are susceptible to landslides, and the changes in rainfall intensity due to climatic change have caused vulnerability to landslides. Poor mitigation governance such as land use conversion, unsuitability of spatial plans, huge extraction of groundwater, and weak evaluation and monitoring of spatial planning also increase landslide disasters and risk in Semarang. Incorporating hazard assessment into spatial planning and tightening the implementation of spatial plans are very important to be noticed by the government to reduce landslides.

Agroforestry is widely promoted as a nature-based solution for enhancing rural resilience under climate change, yet empirical evidence on its relationship with livelihood outcomes across multiple dimensions remains limited, particularly in semi-arid regions. This study examines the association between agroforestry characteristics and household livelihood outcomes through ecological, economic, social, and physical pathways under climate variability in semi-arid eastern Indonesia. Using household survey data from 122 agroforestry households in Sumba Barat Daya, we constructed composite indices of perceived climate variability and multidimensional livelihood outcomes and applied pathway-specific OLS models with HC3-robust standard errors, complemented by a bootstrap-based decomposition of pathway contributions. The results indicate that agroforestry characteristics are positively associated with ecological improvement (coef = 0.1672, p < 0.01), representing the dominant pathway linked to overall livelihood outcomes within the analytical framework and further supported by a significant pathway contribution (4.06, 95% CI 2.60–5.53). Economic outcomes are not directly associated with agroforestry characteristics but are positively associated with perceived climate variability (coef = 0.2151, p < 0.01), suggesting that households experiencing higher perceived variability may engage in adaptive livelihood responses. In contrast, social and physical pathways exhibit limited statistical influence, reflecting contextual constraints related to social homogeneity and uniformly poor infrastructure. These findings highlight the importance of understanding agroforestry as a pathway-based socio-ecological adaptation strategy rather than a uniform livelihood intervention. Policies that build on farmers’ existing adaptive responses while strengthening ecological functions, extension services, and rural connectivity are more likely to support more resilient livelihood outcomes in climate-stressed dryland regions.