Turning degraded land into Southeast Asia’s most valuable asset – meet Dutch Good Growth Fund indirect investee, Bumi Baru! Supported through Wavemaker Fund, Bumi Baru is an Indonesian-based, tech-driven platform that focuses on restoring degraded land in Indonesia.
In a world increasingly defined by climate change, food insecurity, and water scarcity, land degradation has emerged as a significant threat. Today, 40% of global land is degraded, putting immense pressure on ecosystems, food systems, and livelihoods. As the climate crisis intensifies, so does the need for solutions.
Bumi Baru has a bold vision: to transform the vast stretches of degraded, unproductive land into profitable, investable, and ecologically valuable assets. With a mission that blends sustainability, economic empowerment, and innovation, Bumi Baru is not just restoring land, it is creating a whole new asset class for investors. Instead of seeing land as idle or unproductive, Bumi Baru leverages technology, data, and financing to unlock its full potential. Through its platform, Bumi Baru offers:
· Access to financing for land restoration projects
· Utilize technology to enhance productivity and monitor ecological gains
· Generate long-term economic returns from lands
· Offers tailored carbon solutions for businesses as well as carbon credits Indonesia is home to 40 million hectares of degraded lands. These lands, currently seen as liabilities, are in fact untapped opportunities waiting to be restored.
The land BumiBaru restores is typically over 90% sand and initially highly infertile and therefore unsuitable for agriculture. However, after restoration, it often becomes as productive, or even more so than fertile farmland. For instance, while average banana yields on fertile land are around 7 tons per hectare, BumiBaru’s restored land has produced up to 26 tons per hectare. By restoring degraded land, Bumi Bari is not only making an environmental impact, but an economic impact as well. This also activates a powerful climate solution, strengthens food security, improves water availability, and stimulates rural economies.
At an impact level, Bumi Baru also addresses the intersectionality of three critical global challenges: food security, environmental health, and economic and financial innovation. Land restoration contributes to more stable food systems, sequesters carbon emissions and enhances biodiversity.
To date, Bumi Baru has restored approximately 10 hectares of previously degraded land which has resulted in:
· Sequestering over 624 tons of CO₂ equivalent by regenerating the soil and vegetation
· Improved the livelihoods of local farmers community by creating jobs and increasing household incomes
· Supported the food supply for 261 endangered orangutans remaining in the surrounding ecosystems.
With a pipeline of 500 hectares slated for restoration across Indonesia, BumiBaru is actively seeking partners to help scale and accelerate this transformative work. Thanks to significant gains in land productivity, initial investments in restoration can typically be recouped in under five years—depending on the crop.
To further enhance scalability, BumiBaru is developing soil pre-biotics that can be easily adapted to a wide range of degraded soils. These inputs significantly reduce reliance on external fertilizers, making restoration faster, more cost-effective, and more replicable.
However, many landowners still opt for cheaper, harmful practices such as slash-and-burn clearing. To counter this, BumiBaru is making restoration more accessible by offering smaller, more affordable land plots.
With an aim to become the largest land asset transformation company in Southeast Asia, Bumi Baru is facilitating a range of land uses that are profitable, regenerative, and climate-positive.
