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Social forestry (SF) has long been implemented in production and protected forests in Indonesia. SF is considered to be a win–win solution for occupied and cultivated forest areas. The aim of this paper was to review the implementation of social forestry in Indonesia and its strengths and challenges. The secondary purpose was to synthesize the lessons learned and recommendations for the government about designing SF that can integrate the objective of forest biodiversity conservation and the social welfare of the surrounding communities. The study used a systematic literature review (SLR) of international and national peer-reviewed articles. The results of the study indicate that SF is intended to achieve benefits in three main areas: social, economic, and ecological. However, the review found that the ecological aspects of biodiversity conservation often receive less attention compared to the social and economic goals. A strong point of SF implementation is increasing community access to forest land use, while a challenge that must be resolved is that including communities in forest management can result in fragmentation and changes to animal habitats; thus, there is the potential for population decline and extinction. This study advises policymakers to pay more attention to ecological functions to ensure forest sustainability in SF development.
