Carbon Governance in Southeast Asia
About Us
Carbon Governance in Southeast Asia, or CGSEA, is an online platform for the exchange of interdisciplinary knowledge, ideas and developments relating to the research project on Climate Governance of Nature-based Carbon Sinks in Southeast Asia. The research project is funded by the Social Science Research Thematic Grant (SSRTG) from the Ministry of Education, Singapore, Social Science Research Thematic Grant (SSRTG) MOE2021-SSRTG-021.
The research project is hosted at the Asia Research Institute and builds upon the research on Sustainable Governance of the Transboundary Environmental Commons in Southeast Asia which was completed in June 2022.
Our Work
The Carbon Governance in Southeast Asia grant is an interdisciplinary coming together of scholars whose interests range across various disciplines in the natural and social sciences. As such, our teams collaborate on specific work packages that address a particular kind of carbon sink–terrestrial forests, coastal and freshwater ecosystems, and peatlands and agricultural soils, each headed by a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Our last work package, systems, technologies and social relations, aims to compare, contrast and integrate findings from the empirical research of the other three to produce compelling, insight-rich social science research, and is headed by our Senior Research fellow. To learn more about each work package, please browse the links below:
Latest News
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Dr Saritha conducted fieldwork in Kampung Luagan, Suasa, and Takuli, with respondents from state and district government agencies, village leadership and community-based groups, academia, the private sector, and NGOs. 
Dr Yingshan Lau and Dr Miles Kenney-Lazar meeting with key stakeholders during fieldwork on forest carbon governance in Vientiane, Laos. 
Prof. Dan Friess delivering his presentation, Status, Potential and Constraints to Mangrove Blue Carbon in Southeast Asia, at the 7th Mangrove Macrobenthos and Management (MMM7) Conference in Ishigaki City, Okinawa, Japan. 
Dr Jay Mar D. Quevedo presenting his poster, Community-led mangrove restoration: Lessons from two divergent socio-ecological pathways in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, at the 7th Mangrove Macrobenthos and Management (MMM7) Conference in Ishigaki City, Okinawa, Japan. 
Dr Jay Mar D. Quevedo delivering his presentation, Localizing Blue Carbon Governance, at the 2026 Forum on Blue Carbon and Sustainable Development in Qingdao, China, on 6 June 2026. 
Dr Saritha Kittie Uda undertook fieldwork in Jakarta and Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, from 20 April-3 May 2026. Her study involved 24 interviews and four focus group discussions held across three villages and in Palangka Raya city. 
CGSEA Researcher Dr Saritha Uda was invited to present at the Forestry Seminar Series @FPT, organised by the Faculty of Tropical Forestry, Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), where she shared insights from her research on peatland governance. 
Dr Yingshan Lau co-facilitated a Learning Journey on Carbon Project Development and MRV at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve, organised by the NUS Sustainability Academy as part of a Singapore Cooperation Enterprise capacity-building programme, on 21 April 2026. 
Dr Yingshan Lau, Khamsing Keothoumma from the National University of Laos, Yunrui Ren and Sithong Thongmanivong co-authored a short article for ARIScope on ‘The case of the unsold carbon credits: Lessons from an early-REDD+ project in Southern Laos.’ To read the article, click here. 
Dr Rodd Myers and Ms Yustina Octifanny co-organised a themed panel on ‘Global Climate Change Solutions’ and Shrinking Civic Spaces in Southeast Asia at the POLLEN Conference 2026 in Barcelona, Spain. 
CGSEA PhD candidate Yunrui Ren presenting her research on education and capacity building in forest carbon governance at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) in Xishuangbanna, China, June–July 2026. 
CGSEA Work Package Three Lead Assoc. Prof. Helena Varkkey recently shared her expertise on Southeast Asia’s transboundary haze across Channel NewsAsia, BFM 89.9 and Astro AWANI, discussing the environmental and governance challenges surrounding this persistent regional issue.
Newsletter
Upcoming Events
Stakeholder Workshop on Nature-based Carbon Governance in Southeast Asia: A Collaborative Approach to Policy Brief Development, ARI, NUS, 3-4 December 2026 (convened in a hybrid format).
We’re excited to announce that CGSEA will be hosting a Stakeholder Workshop on Nature-based Carbon Governance in Southeast Asia: A Collaborative Approach to Policy Brief Development at Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, on 3-4 December 2026.
This workshop will bring together CGSEA researchers with relevant stakeholders from NGOs, industry and government to co-develop three policy briefs aligned with the project’s thematic work packages on: (a) terrestrial forests; (b) coastal and freshwater ecosystems; and (c) peatlands and agricultural soils.
The workshop will culminate in the finalization of key points and terminology for the policy briefs, which will be translated into the national languages of targeted Southeast Asian countries. To facilitate the dissemination of the briefs, and the uptake of recommended interventions, CGSEA team members will coordinate outreach workshops, in-country meetings and stakeholder dialogues in the second and third quarters of 2027.
Carbon Governance in Southeast Asia (CGSEA) 