ABSTRACT
Indonesia has extensive tropical forests and is one of the mega biodiversity countries due to its fertile soils, rainfall, temperature, humidity, climate, and optimum organic cycle throughout the year. Nevertheless, despite the high potential of food diversity and productivity, the level of food security and sovereignty is relatively low. The COVID-19 pandemic has put world food supply and security at risk, threatening many developing nations and countries that rely mostly on the global food market. Likewise, Indonesia also depends on its staple food supply on the vulnerable world rice market, which becomes a serious issue during the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the differences in paradigm and management often cause conflicts between the agriculture and forestry sectors. Extensification, intensification, and diversification of food production in forestlands should play an essential role in supporting food security and sovereignty, as well as overcoming hunger and malnutrition. Agroforestry systems serve to bridge agriculture and forestry interests to promote food security during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tropical forests play a role in supporting living systems, diverse food providers, nutrition providers, food price stability, forests for food, access to food, and community involvement in food. However, they also face broad challenges, ranging from political will, food prices, extension services, food paradigms, deforestation, forest conversion, technology research, market support, to food culture. This chapter discusses the role of Indonesia’s tropical forests in supporting food security and sovereignty in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.