Integrated approaches to natural resource management are often undermined by fundamental governance weaknesses. We studied governance of a forest landscape in East Lombok, Indonesia. Forest Management Units (Kesatuan Pengelolaan Hutan or KPH) are an institutional mechanism used in Indonesia for coordinating the management of competing sectors in forest landscapes, balancing the interests of government, business, and civil society. Previous reviews of KPHs indicate they are not delivering their potential benefits due to an uncertain legal mandate and inadequate resources. We utilized participatory methods with a broad range of stakeholders in East Lombok to examine how KPHs might improve institutional arrangements to better meet forest landscape goals. We find that KPHs are primarily limited by insufficient integration with other actors in the landscape. Thus, strengthened engagement with other institutions, as well as civil society, is required. Although new governance arrangements that allow for institutional collaboration and community engagement are needed in the long term, there are steps that the East Lombok KPH can take now. Coordinating institutional commitments and engaging civil society to reconcile power asymmetries and build consensus can help promote sustainable outcomes. Our study concludes that improved multi-level, polycentric governance arrangements between government, NGOs, the private sector, and civil society are required to achieve sustainable landscapes in Lombok. The lessons from Lombok can inform forest landscape governance improvements throughout Indonesia and the tropics.

Regular assessment of progress on the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is crucial for achieving the goals by 2030 yet such assessments often require extensive resources and data. Here, we describe a method using performance auditing as a novel approach for assessing the implementation of SDGs that would be useful for countries with limited resources and data availability but might also provide an alternative to choosing particular goals and implementing them one at a time, for all countries. We argue that, instead of monitoring all 169 targets and 242 indicators, a country could assess the effectiveness of its governance arrangement as a way of ensuring that progress on implementing SDGs is on track, and hence improve the likelihood of achieving the SDGs by 2030. Indonesia is an archipelagic upper-middle-income country facing challenges in data availability and reliability, which limits accurate assessments of SDG implementation. We applied a standardized performance audit to assess the effectiveness of current governance arrangements for the implementation of SDGs. We used the Gephi 0.9.2 software (Open sourced program by The Gephi Concortium, Compiègne, France) to illustrate the regulatory coordination among public institutions. We found that Indonesia’s governance arrangements are not yet effective. They might be improved if Indonesia: (1) synchronize its SDG regulations; (2) redesigns its governance structure to be more fit for purpose; and (3) involves audit institutions in the SDG governance arrangements. These findings would likely apply to many other countries striving to implement the SDGs.