Land use/land cover monitoring reveals (in)effectiveness of forest landscape restoration in Aceh, Indonesia

Forest landscape restoration (FLR) is widely regarded as an effective approach to rehabilitating degraded forests and restoring their ecological functions. To ensure the success of FLR, remote sensing plays a crucial role in capturing forest landscape dynamics. This study evaluates the impact of FLR initiative by analyzing land use/land cover (LULC) changes across 32 intervention blocks in Aceh, Indonesia. The analysis covers two periods: 2016–2019 (pre-FLR) and 2019–2024 (post-FLR). LULC data were derived by classifying PlanetScope imagery using a supervised classification with the maximum likelihood method. The average annual change rate for forest cover after FLR implementation showed a decline of −1.65%, in stark contrast to the pre-FLR period, which recorded an increase of 5.15%. Change detection analysis revealed that deforestation occurred in both periods; however, the forest gain after FLR was insufficient to offset forest loss. On a micro scale, most blocks that had a positive net change in 2016–2019 transitioned to a negative net change in 2019–2024. A paired t-test confirmed that FLR interventions did not yield significant improvements in forest recovery. These findings highlight the need to revisit current forest restoration strategies to ensure that program outcomes align with their intended objectives.